Subzero Strategy: Top 5 Alternative Games to Frostpunk: On The Edge

Frostpunk: On The Edge, an illustrious survival strategy game, renowned for its ruthless mechanics and chilling backdrop of infinite ice, has won the hearts of countless gamers worldwide with its intricate gameplay. However, as you might have combed through all of its captivating storylines and dilemmas, we hope to shine a spotlight on five exemplary strategy games, bearing striking similarities, yet delivering unique aspects that differ from Frostpunk. As you thirst for a new challenging experience, immerse yourself in these alternative games teeming with unforgiving environments, complex societies, and excruciating decision-making.

1. They Are Billions

About They Are Billions

They Are Billions, developed by Numantian Games, introduces us to a post-apocalyptic steampunk world overrun by hordes of undead threats, navigating its way through colonies of survivors.

Gameplay, Story, and Setting

This Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game provokes your skills by challenging you to build and defend a thriving colony amidst a planet devoured by billions of zombies. The gameplay involves strategic planning, resource management, and a thorough understanding of the layout to secure your colonies. Eschewing a defined storyline, it incites you to survive against the odds, increasingly stepping up the difficulty with advancing waves of the zombie apocalypse.

2. Surviving Mars

About Surviving Mars

Space exploration meets survival strategy in this unique experience crafted by Haemimont Games. Surviving Mars drops you into the crimson landscape, to tinker with the challenges of colonizing Mars.

Gameplay, Story, and Setting

The quintessential sandbox experience demands colonizing and terraforming the barren red surface of Mars. Address necessities like oxygen, food, and heating, cautiously planning your resources for a self-sustaining colony. The narrative floats around mysteries concerning the 'anomalies' cropping on the red planet. The unique selling proposition of the game lies in the rewarding challenge of mastering an alien environment unknown to mankind.

3. Banished

About Banished

Banished, by Shining Rock Software, unravels as a city-building strategy game where you guide a group of outcasts as they establish a thriving, independent colony.

Gameplay, Story, and Setting

The game revolves around the lives of exiles in a far-off land, discovering and managing resources to sustain their population. It demands careful planning and a balance between harvesting resources and growing your colony. Its unique aspect centres around sustainability without capitalistic aspects. Instead, success revolves around the citizens' welfare, resource management, and continuing legacy.

4. RimWorld

About RimWorld

RimWorld, by developer Ludeon Studios, is an enigmatic Sci-Fi colony simulation game that offers unpredictability at its finest.

Gameplay, Story, and Setting

RimWorld assigns you the role of being in charge of three colonists stranded on a distant, unknown world. From building your colony to managing interpersonal relationships, the game offers variety in its truest sense. Its AI "Storyteller" adjusts the narrative, altering challenges based on your colony's performance, rendering each gameplay unique.

5. This War of Mine

About This War of Mine

This War of Mine, developed by 11 Bit Studios, takes a unique perspective on war survival games by focusing on civilian survivors rather than soldiers.

Gameplay, Story, and Setting

Set against a war-crippled Eastern European city, the game presents a harrowing experience of survival from the civilian point of view. Resource management, strategic planning, and tough moral decisions constitute the central gameplay mechanics. The narrative focuses on the test of human morality under dire circumstances, with decisions determining not only your character's survival but reshaping the storyline as well. 

Each of these games in their unique way highlights the harsh realities of survival and the challenging decisions necessary in leadership roles. Whether it's navigating through ice in Frostpunk: On The Edge or surviving a zombie apocalypse in They Are Billions, each experience engages you in a gripping narrative while challenging your strategic skills. As you emerge from one game, these will satiate your appetite, providing new vistas of strategy and survival experience.