There is a particular irony in the fact that one of gaming's most celebrated explorations of climate catastrophe is now being rebuilt using the very technology critics argue is accelerating one. Frostpunk: 1886, the forthcoming remake of 11 Bit Studios' acclaimed 2018 city-builder, is being developed with the help of generative AI tools — and the studio's game director, Maciej Sułecki, has offered a defence that is thoughtful, honest, and just slightly too convenient.
As reported by Rock Paper Shotgun, Sułecki was asked directly whether it feels contradictory to use AI in a game whose entire premise is the human cost of unchecked industrial progress. His answer was disarming in its candour: "Climate change isn't about AI itself, it's about progress in general." He acknowledged that if AI adds to rising temperatures, "it's a bad thing for sure," but insisted that halting progress is not a realistic option. Few would disagree with the philosophical framing. The practical implications, though, deserve closer scrutiny.
Research published in late 2025 estimated the carbon footprint of AI systems could reach between 32.6 and 79.7 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2025, while the water footprint could reach between 312.5 and 764.6 billion litres. A typical AI data centre uses as much electricity as 100,000 households, and the largest under development will consume 20 times more, according to the International Energy Agency. These are not abstract projections; they are the infrastructure costs of the tools now embedded in creative industries from film to games development.
The studio's position is not unusual. No major tech company currently reports AI-specific environmental metrics, despite several acknowledging AI as a key driver of increased energy consumption. 11 Bit is operating in an industry where the standard has been set at arm's-length accountability. Sułecki told Rock Paper Shotgun that AI functions as "nothing more than a tool" in his team's hands, and that every final asset will carry "a human touch." Whether that distinction satisfies critics will depend on how much weight one places on process versus outcome.
Rebuilding the Last City
11 Bit Studios has revealed Frostpunk: 1886 as a rebuilt and expanded version of the original city-building survival game, now powered by Unreal Engine and described as a complete reimagining rebuilt from the ground up with new features, systems, and long-requested mod support. The game combines 70 per cent of the original experience with 30 per cent brand-new content. The project is now targeting a 2027 release.
The remake is more than a graphical refresh. According to Rock Paper Shotgun's interview with Sułecki, the studio wants to restore something it felt was lost at scale in Frostpunk 2: genuine emotional connection to individual citizens. Sułecki described how small animation changes in 2014's This War of Mine — adjusting how characters walked depending on their psychological state — created a bond between player and subject that proved essential to the game's moral weight. In Frostpunk: 1886, the studio wants to "show those people more as people, less as NPCs or pawns," with new family and friendship animations woven into the city's daily rhythm.
In addition to the original Faith and Order purpose paths, Frostpunk: 1886 introduces a new Purpose Path. Sułecki was tight-lipped about its specifics beyond calling it another form of "radicalism" that begins promisingly before ending very badly. The original game's purpose paths traced the logic of authoritarianism from seemingly reasonable emergency measures — a mechanic the developers have previously connected to historical labour unrest and, more recently, to debates about the workplace disruption caused by generative AI. The new path appears designed to extend that commentary into contemporary territory, though 11 Bit has not confirmed the exact ideological territory it explores.
Progress as the Villain, Progress as the Tool
Sułecki's "progress in general" defence is worth engaging seriously rather than dismissing. He is correct that industrial capitalism was warming the planet long before the first transformer model was trained. Coal-fired factories, not data centres, gave Frostpunk its historical inspiration in the Luddite revolts of the early nineteenth century. Climate change is a systemic problem, not a problem caused by any single technology. Blaming generative AI alone would be an exercise in selective blame-shifting.
The counterargument is one of acceleration and accountability. Cornell researchers found that, by 2030, the current rate of AI growth would annually add 24 to 44 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic metres of water per year, with the cumulative effect putting the AI industry's net-zero emissions targets out of reach. The question is not whether AI invented climate change, but whether the industry is adding meaningful new pressure at precisely the moment the world has the least headroom to absorb it. The games industry, which has historically presented itself as culturally progressive, faces particular scrutiny here. A studio whose entire moral architecture is built around asking players to confront the cost of expedient decisions occupies a more awkward position than, say, a logistics software firm.
The International Energy Agency suggests data centres will make a relatively small contribution to climate change in the short term, estimating that data centre emissions will reach around one per cent of global CO2 emissions by 2030 in its central scenario. That framing offers some reassurance, though it carries the important caveat that data centres are among the few sectors where emissions are projected to grow rather than fall in the coming decade. For an industry that could choose to slow AI adoption, the trajectory is a choice as much as a consequence.
Sułecki himself seems aware that his answer is incomplete. He told Rock Paper Shotgun that "when we are using progress to do immoral things, it's obviously bad," and that the world could arrive at "a very, very bad situation" if technology is deployed without ethical scrutiny. That is a more honest acknowledgement than most industry figures offer. The gap between that acknowledgement and any concrete commitment to reduced AI energy use is where the conversation currently stalls — not just at 11 Bit, but across the sector. For more on the environmental cost of AI infrastructure, the work of MIT's research on generative AI's environmental impact and reporting from Carbon Brief on data centre energy use provide useful grounding.
A Series About Scale
The deeper thread running through Sułecki's interview is a genuine intellectual preoccupation with what changes when the scale of human organisation shifts. His studio's three major titles — This War of Mine, the original Frostpunk, and Frostpunk 2 — move from a household of survivors to hundreds of citizens to tens of thousands spread across districts of ice. Each step makes individual suffering harder to render, and harder to feel. Sułecki told Rock Paper Shotgun that he personally dreams of making a game at the scale of 20 to 30 people, roughly the size of a classroom or a military unit, to explore the moral territory between the two existing poles. It is, he was careful to add, "not a plan, for sure."
That design instinct maps surprisingly well onto the AI debate. The environmental cost of a single AI query is negligible; at billions of queries, the aggregate is transformative. The moral weight of one studio using AI to speed up placeholder work is easy to dismiss; multiplied across thousands of studios and millions of developers, the collective footprint is the point. Scale, as Frostpunk has always argued, changes the moral calculus entirely.
Those who want to follow 11 Bit's development updates can find Frostpunk: 1886 listed on Steam, while the developer showcase video is available on YouTube. Readers interested in the broader regulatory picture around AI disclosure and environmental accountability can consult the work of the International Energy Agency, whose energy and AI reporting has become a key reference point for policymakers.
Sułecki is probably right that progress cannot be stopped. He may also be right that the answer lies in how civilisation chooses to proceed while keeping the world "in the same shape." The problem is that the games industry, like every other creative sector now riding the generative AI wave, has not yet produced a convincing answer to what that stewardship actually looks like in practice. Frostpunk: 1886 will ask its players to make those trade-offs in a frozen city of coal smoke and candlelight. Whether its creators are grappling as honestly with their own version of the question is, for now, an open one.