Frosthaven was provided by Arc Games for review. Thank you!
This is an early access title, so our final thoughts on Frosthaven will most likely change as it develops. This review is based on our thoughts of the initial release of the game.
After breaking records as a board game back in 2020, Frosthaven has finally made the leap to the realm of video games. But does this mechanically deep and complex board game survive the transition? The answer to that isn't a simple one.
If you're unfamiliar with Frosthaven, the game is a standalone sequel to Gloomhaven, which got its video game adaptation back in 2021. In short, you are a band of mercenaries protecting and somewhat managing an outpost in the frozen north. You and up to 3 of your friends can work together as a party in co-op mode to survive enemies' attacks.
This early access build doesn't have access to the entire story and campaign, instead giving us a look at about 30% of the game's overall questline. But Frosthaven is a slow and steady game, so 30% is still a huge chunk of time. For example, the "How Long To Beat" rating on Gloomhaven is 100+ hours, so expect to spend a hefty amount of time in Frosthaven if you embark on this adventure.
The time taken to beat the game won't be helped by the fact that if you aren't familiar with the board game of Frosthaven, you'll be spending a lot of time trying to figure out what all the cards do on earth. Unfortunately for a rather complex board game like this, the game ends up underexplaining the cards; in some cases, cards don't even have tooltips assigned to them, leaving you at a loss as to what they do.
In a game about strategic moves where a single mistake can cost you the entire battle, it's a big deal when you can't figure out what a card does. The UI isn't very intuitive, buttons are not obvious, and the abilities and cards of each class aren't made apparent. I'm mentioning this first as it seems like a glaring issue, and it immediately affects you within the first couple of minutes of play.
Overlooking the UI issues, however, Frosthaven has some solid mechanics under the hood, which you might expect from an established board game. You have your heavy-hitter classes, which are a bit more basic, but you still have some pretty neat cards that you can combine to pull off some great moves. The real fun comes in when you use classes that can summon or use elements to their advantage.
Certain cards allow you to place elements on the map, and others allow you to use those elements to your advantage in powerful ways. Setting up these moves and pulling them off is satisfying, especially given that Frosthaven is a difficult game. Even on the lower difficulty settings, you will find it a challenge.
Unfortunately, again, part of this difficulty is down to the RNG. Sometimes, you can even draw a 0x multiplier on the damage you do, meaning you can have a heavy-hitting card against a weak enemy, and still fail. It's pretty frustrating, especially when it happens in a crucial moment. I tested this by replaying a round where I killed two enemies and took no damage. The replay of the round resulted in 2 of my party members taking damage and no enemies taking damage, simply because my "rolls" were bad. I get that this is a part of any board game, even Dungeons & Dragons has similar mechanics, but the fact remains that it's a source of frustration in what is already a very difficult game.
There were a few bugs in the build we had access to for this review, such as missing graphics in item descriptions, some descriptors having variable names instead of actual explanations, and some buttons just having outright no explanation as to what they did. They were seemingly missing the "Confirm" and "Cancel" text and just being two identical buttons, further exacerbating the aforementioned issue of poorly explained card mechanics.
I also suffered a softlock in some missions, where the game was unplayable if any of my party members attempted to "long-rest." This meant I was stuck with "short-resting" and the penalties that come with it, making the game even more difficult, which seems to be a theme with Frosthaven.
There is potential here. The game has deep mechanics that can be fun and satisfying to use, and the co-op also adds to the enjoyment, but technical issues, UI design, and game balancing combine to create an unpleasant playing experience, at least in this Early Access build.
Frosthaven does have some issues when it comes to running on the Steam Deck. The game supports 16:10 aspect ratio resolutions to avoid black borders around the screen, but the good news pretty much ends there. Frosthaven has no controller support, so you must play with a Keyboard + Mouse controller layout. Expect to use the touchpad to control a cursor for the game.
On top of that, the UI scaling is quite small, meaning you will likely struggle to read a good amount of the text on the Steam Deck.
Performance itself also isn't the best. Running on the lowest settings at 960x600 resolution and with a frame rate limit of 30 set in-game, the game can barely hold a stable framerate, with some slight dips and stuttering at points. It's unnecessarily GPU-intensive.
Keeping the camera zoomed out tends to help performance a bit, but if you want to see any detail on the maps or characters, performance will drop as you get close to your party or the map.
The power draw remains somewhat decent, thanks to the game not really taxing the CPU. Expect around 11W-14W of draw, meaning you can expect around 3.5-4 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and around 2.5-3 hours from an LCD model. Temperatures were around 55 °C - 60 °C.
Frosthaven doesn't have any accessibility options right now. All dialogue is written, and controls can be rebound.
Frosthaven has some great potential. The gameplay mechanics are deep and complex, and the adventure is something you'll have to buckle in for a long time, so if you are into that sort of thing, you'll find it here. Unfortunately, those mechanics are held back by a not-so-clear presentation of the facts and some technical issues that mar the experience. The game might also need some balancing, as even the "Story" difficulty (the lowest one) presents a challenge many players would struggle to meet. Right now, I'd recommend you hold off on Frosthaven while game-breaking bugs are fixed.
Steam Deck performance is... acceptable. Given the nature of how the game is played, it is playable, but don't expect a smooth experience. The UI is even more difficult to understand on the smaller screen.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Frosthaven is a deep Tactical RPG that is unfortunately made more difficult than it should be due to technical issues. The game struggles on Steam Deck.
