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Welcome to Last Frontier

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The world froze over. The bombs fell, and then came the cold — and it proved deadlier than the bombs themselves. Last Frontier is a multiplayer post-apocalyptic survival RPG set in a nuclear winter, where you are one of the few who woke up in the snow and are still breathing. This article is a gentle introduction: what kind of game this is, where its story unfolds, and what to expect when you start out.

What kind of game this is

Last Frontier is a post-apocalyptic free-to-play MMORPG set in a snowbound world after a global nuclear war. In 2022, open confrontation between the USSR and the USA wiped out most forms of life on the planet. The few who survived the falling atomic bombs faced a new threat — the deadly cold of the nuclear winter. It is this cold, not hunger, that remains the main pressure on a survivor: here, warmth is worth more than almost anything.

Visually, the game is built in the spirit of classic RPGs — an isometric perspective, finely detailed 2D locations, and animated characters.

Where and when it all takes place

The events unfold in 2052, across the Soviet Far East and the western part of Alaska — the coldest state in the USA. Because of the global cooling, the two continents have become joined by a solid bridge of ice. The setting is unique: you’ll visit a parallel universe and explore the most unusual lands for the genre — Chukotka and Alaska.

The game world is St. Lawrence Island (New Gambell and its surroundings — one of the post-war settlements on this island). Here you travel the lands of once-great superpowers: discovering settlements that formed after the catastrophe, exploring abandoned military sites and shelters, and fighting the spawn of the cold.

Echoes of the old world

The catastrophe was no accident. Foreseeing the threat, the governments of many nations built secret underground shelters for the world’s elite in advance, while corporations sold places in commercial bunkers to those who had money but no connections. By their design, these shelters fell into two categories — horizontal (cheaper, with more options) and vertical (more expensive, but with an unprecedented level of protection). Each had a main and an emergency exit, living and technical quarters, water reservoirs, a generator running on nuclear batteries, and a life-support computer complex that monitored the systems and the radiation and temperature sensors on the surface.

Behind it all stood the strictly classified “Three-Phase Doctrine” — a scenario for how the war would play out: the first phase with conventional weapons, the second a massive exchange of nuclear strikes, and the third, the climactic and almost entirely classified one. It is the fragments of this world — bunkers, military sites, documents — that you will be finding amid the snow.

What your journey will be like

Last Frontier is, first and foremost, a game about people. A major role is given to interaction between players: communication, trade, the struggle for resources, banding together into communities, war between factions, and the capture and holding of settlements.

What to expect in terms of content:

  • Varied quests and ambiguous moral choices. In a world that has lived through a nuclear catastrophe, there is no clear-cut good or bad — and choices often come at a price.
  • An extensive arsenal of weapons and items for the widest range of playstyles.
  • An advanced crafting system — both personal and clan-based: multi-stage production, item upgrades, and unique modifications.
  • A living survival world, where cold, radiation, and other threats make you plan every excursion.

Status and platforms

The game is currently in closed beta testing — which means the world is actively being built and changed, and you are among the first to see it. The announced platform is PC (Windows 7 or higher, 64-bit version); support is planned later for Linux, Mac, Android and iOS mobile devices, and a browser-based Web version.

To fund the project, there is a Support Shop where you can buy commemorative sets and packs of the in-game currency ECO.

Where to begin

One thing is enough: wake up in the snow and take the first step. From there you’ll find character creation, the tutorial introduction, and your first venture onto the global map — the neighboring articles in the “Getting Started” section cover all of that. Welcome to Last Frontier. It’s cold here — but you’re still alive.