Frostpunk

We picked up Frostpunk on launch day in 2018 and immediately felt the weight of it. 11 Bit Studios dropped a city-builder that didn't just challenge you to survive—it made you wrestle with impossible choices. Do you harvest organs from corpses? Force kids to work? Mandate worship of the New Order? We watched chat lose its mind over every decision, the streams capturing that unique horror of playing god when people's lives hang on your choices. Over 17 hours of streaming, we saw how the ethical dilemmas kept pushing viewers to breaking points. The brutal survival mechanics meant there was no 'right' answer, just degrees of how far you'd compromise humanity to save your population. By the time we wrapped up, everyone in the house had a story about that one choice that kept them up at night.

Our peak of 486 viewers on Frostpunk showed audiences hungry for something different in 2018. We averaged 266 viewers across our sessions, hitting 4,924 total hours watched as people kept coming back to see how our next survival run would unfold. The brutal choices and tense management gameplay kept people glued, even if the scripted scenarios meant replays hit the same story beats. We grabbed followers going into it, but lost 45 by the end—not because it was bad, but because Frostpunk's relentless bleakness wasn't for everyone.