The decision of which starting biome to use in RimWorld is one of the most important choices you will make before a single pawn moves. The Ice Sheet and Sea Ice are both among the most brutal biomes to start in. Both the Ice Sheet and Sea Ice are frozen versions of hell, with only the barest essentials of survival available to you.
However, they are not in the same biome to start in. One will punish you with extreme difficulty but allow you to make mistakes without eliminating your chances of success. In contrast, the other biome will almost eliminate your chance of success.
If this is your first time playing, get your RimWorld steam key from LootBar, and keep in mind that neither Ice Sheet nor Sea Ice is beginner-friendly. However, if you’ve been playing RimWorld for a while and you are looking for a genuine challenge, this is a topic worth settling.
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Quick Comparison: Ice Sheet vs Sea Ice
Feature | Ice Sheet | Sea Ice |
Terrain | Mountainous, rocky | Flat, featureless |
Geothermal Vents | Yes | No |
Growing Season | None | None |
Wildlife | Rare | Almost none |
Mining / Deep Drill | Yes | No stone chunks possible |
Power Options | Geothermal, solar, wind | Solar, wind only |
Defensive Geography | Strong (natural choke points) | None |
Average Temperature | -20°C to -40°C | -20°C to -30°C |
Winter Low | -70°C | -60°C |
Long-term Viability | Possible | Near-impossible |
Ice Sheet - Hard but Beatable
The Ice Sheet Biome is a permanently frozen environment with no growing season, average temperatures between -20°C and -40°C and bitterly cold temperatures in the winter down to -70°C. Early Ice Sheet days are defined by no outdoor farming, very little wildlife and extremely cold weather. However, the reason the Ice Sheet supports life is the geology of the area: mountains can produce steam geysers, provide stone for building materials, and offer natural defensive walls to build into.
Steam geysers are a critical component for any early Ice Sheet colony. By surrounding a geyser with walls, you create a source of free passive heat, which means you will have significantly less reliance on energy-intensive electric heat during the very early game. Once you have a reliable source of energy from a geothermal generator, you can use indoor hydroponics or heated soil to grow food. The natural mountains provide locations to carve out killboxes for easy defenses and deep drilling means you will never run out of resources.
Players who respect the limits of the biome with sustainable infrastructure at the beginning of gameplay will have an exceptionally rewarding but difficult time surviving in the Ice Sheet Biome.
Sea Ice - Survival at Its Most Ruthless
The Ice Sheets that provide lifelines for the colony are eliminated through Sea Ice. There is no longer a flat, frozen ocean or any mountains, geothermal vents or large rocks that could be drilled for and if any wildlife comes through, it would be very sparse. The moisture pumps will only be producing more ice, so you cannot do any ground farming. It will be impossible, not difficult. You will only have the items your Pawns started with and anything that a trader or two trades out.
This is where your major investment in your LootBar game key is really put to the test. Without geothermal energy, you are totally dependent on solar panels and wind turbines, both of which will not be reliable during the Polar Night. Once one of your power systems malfunctions or goes offline, your heating is gone, your hydroponics will die and your colonists will freeze. There isn't a place to build choke points by creating a defensive terrain and all Raids will be one open field battle.
The Sea Ice has been specifically created for there to be no base-building; this makes Sea Ice essentially a sub-challenge mode of the challenge-mode game. Most experienced players treat the Sea Ice as an endurance run and not a Campaign.
The Core Difference: Power and Terrain
Energy and geography are where everything comes down to the biomes of the world. Ice Sheet uses steam geysers and geothermal generators to create a permanent and reliable source of power; Sea Ice does not. This greatly affects food security, heating capacity and defensive capabilities. The mountainous terrain of Ice Sheets provides natural fortification from attacks and provides actual mineable stone; therefore, the comparison between these two biomes is considerably greater than the massive temperature differences would indicate.
Conclusion
Ice Sheet is extreme yet achievable: an extremely difficult campaign that rewards you for demonstrating suitable building techniques on top of building an effective strategy based on geothermal resource use and waiting patiently for your plans to occur. Sea Ice is the most hopeless game of RimWorld, created primarily through surviving as long as you can vs winning and beating the game.
Both Ice Sheet and Sea Ice will test players on various dimensions, including resource management, logical thinking under pressure and the ability to focus when things are not going as planned. The one most important factor between both locations of Ice Sheet & Sea Ice will always be the availability of options to carry out your plans. Ice Sheet provide many opportunities to respond to challenges, including geothermal resources, mountain terrain to build on and miners with easy access to extracting stone from the environment. Whereas Sea Ice provides no opportunity for any alternative to your plans.
Therefore, players who seek a true challenge that has a verifiable sense of completion, the Ice Sheet will provide them with a stronger foundation to begin their campaigns on than Sea Ice. For those players seeking the world’s coldest and most inhospitable burial ground, Sea Ice will not disappoint. If you're ready to take on either extreme, LootBar make it easy to get your RimWorld Steam key and jump straight into one of the harshest survival experiences the game has to offer.
