Frostpunk's free 'People and Automatons' update lets you name your suffering citizens

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People and automatons go together like soft, squishy things and giant, heavy, stompy things with no empathy and poor peripheral vision. Thematically, then, "People and Automatons" seems like a very appropriate name for the new Frostpunk update that was released today, free for all players.

Humans and machines have been coexisting unpleasantly since the game was released in April, but this update enables you to give them both a more personal touch by changing their names. Developer 11 Bit Studios said that "allows you to dive deeper into the in-game world," and more practically, to search for them based on given names—greatly simplifying the process of following specific units.

Graphical updates to units and structures including Hunter Airships, Hunters’ Huts, Gathering Posts, Outposts and Workshops will serve a similar purpose: "From now on your city will look better than ever before and what’s more, it will be easier to find certain facilities among all the other buildings," 11 Bit said.

The update also incorporates device-specific support for the Intel Skull Canyon NUC and Razer Chroma, and makes a small number of bug fixes and performance optimizations: The building grid has been changed to make it easier to squeeze structures into a space, for instance, and an issue that was causing the wrong icons to appear over buildings has been cleared up.

11 Bit said that more free updates, including a new scenario, are on the way. Details are available on Steam, and there's also an updated roadmap lays out what's next:

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.