To celebrate Frostpunk 2's budding modding scene, 11 Bit Studios is hosting a contest to find the best mod around, alongside mod.io. There are a bunch of prizes and a ton of time for contestants to make something really special, as the submission deadline is August 22, and the winners will be announced on September 1.
"We’re thrilled to see how much Frostpunk’s modding community has grown since the game’s release," 11 Bit says in a blog post. "Seeing how your creativity expands and reshapes the world of Frostpunk makes us extremely happy, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed! Now, we’d like to invite you to unleash it in the world of Frostpunk 2 like never before."
Mod competitions are pretty common, but this is the first one that has really caught my eye, mostly because of the prizes. The four minor categories, such as best city mechanics mod or best politics mod, all have a custom AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Frostpunk edition GPU up for grabs, while the honourable mentions will all get an 11-Bit goodie pack.
However, the pièce de résistance is the main challenge prize of $10,000 for the best overall mod, which will "represent the best in creativity and overall technical polish." Oh, and you'll also get the honour and "opportunity to leave your mark on the Frostpunk 2 universe" if your mod is picked. But let's be honest, a $10,000 cash prize is the main attraction here.
But before you get too carried away with dreaming about what you'd spend the prize money on, there are some important rules that you need to take note of. First off, you need to upload your mod to mod.io and include the #fp2modcontest tag so the jury can find it. If you want to put forward an already-existing mod, you just have to upload it again and follow the steps above.
The jury is judging mods based on "creativity, playability, and most importantly fun" and will be comprised of the dev team, mod.io representatives, and some experienced modders from the Frostpunk community.
"We would like to see what you will come up with to make the Frostpunk 2 experience even more interesting," 11 Bit says. "New stories and mechanics? Insane mode? Replace snow with sand? Add dinosaurs? Introduce a swamp with ogres? The Steward would rejoice!"
There are already some fun mods for Frostpunk 2, like the No More Cyan Housing mod that just gets rid of the "ugly cyan colour" or the Political Overhaul, which adds more laws for your citizens to complain about. But I think that this city builder could do with some even stranger additions. I'm tired of just sending kids to the coal mines in vanilla—I want to see some dinosaurs.
