EmberFrostGuide15 October 20267 min read

Is EmberFrost free? What the Full Story unlocks, explained

Is EmberFrost free? Yes, to start: the prologue and your first three places cost nothing. Here is what the one-time Full Story unlocks and how coin packs work.

Yes, EmberFrost is free to download and free to start. The prologue and the first three places you build cost nothing, and there are no ads. One optional purchase, the Full Story, unlocks the rest of the game for good, with no subscription. Optional coin packs appear later and are never needed to finish the story.

Here is exactly where the free part ends, what the Full Story includes and how coin packs work in EmberFrost. We would rather you know before you start.

Is EmberFrost free to play?

EmberFrost: Survival Tycoon is free to download on iPhone and free to start. The free part covers the prologue, where you arrive in the snowed-in village, light the fire with the Last Ember and meet Granny Maud, plus the first three places you build, chosen from the ones on offer in any order. There are no ads at any point. After your third place, the game offers the Full Story: a single, one-time purchase that unlocks every remaining place and worker, the forge upgrades, the Great Blizzard and the ending. It is not a subscription. If you do not buy it, the village you built keeps working and you can keep playing it. Later in the game, once the forge is built, optional coin packs appear in a small coin shop. The game is fully playable without them, its economy is not tuned around buying, and nothing you can buy makes you faster.

At a glance	Free	Full Story	Coin packs
What it is	The download and the start of the game	A one-time purchase	Optional coins, used up when spent
What you get	The prologue and your first three places	Every place and worker, the forge upgrades, the Great Blizzard and the ending	Extra coins in the save you are playing
When it appears	From the first second	After your third place	After the forge is built
Do you need it?	It is where everyone starts	To play past your third place	No, the story can be finished without coins
Subscription	No	No	No
Ads	None	None	None

What do you get for free?

The prologue. Arrive alone in Tamarisk, gather wood, light the fire with the Last Ember and meet Granny Maud, who shows you around the village.
Your first three places. Any three of the places on offer, in the order you choose.
The whole loop. Chopping, carrying, selling, building, feeding the fire and keeping out of the cold.
Both modes, Normal and Hard. Our guide to Normal vs Hard explains the difference.
All 21 languages, with the full voice-over.
Three save slots, saved automatically.
No ads, no account and no timers, here and everywhere else in the game.

After the third place, nothing is taken away. Your fire, your stall and everything you built keep working, and you can keep playing that village for as long as you like. The next places simply show a lock with a small Full Story badge instead of a price. Our beginner's guide has tips for getting the most out of your first hours.

When does the Full Story offer appear?

Right after your third place is built, once its little celebration is over, the Full Story screen opens by itself. It lists what the purchase includes, shows the price in your local currency from the App Store, and offers three choices: buy, Restore purchases and Not now. The small print says it plainly: "One-time purchase. No subscription."

After that, you can open it yourself from a locked place (stand on it), from the village progress list or from the settings. It shows itself only that one time: if you choose Not now, you keep playing and it never pops up again on its own.

The Full Story screen lists what the one purchase includes.

What does the Full Story unlock?

Everything the free part leaves out:

Every place. EmberFrost has 26 places to rebuild in all: cabins, the fishing hole and the repaired pier, the stone quarry, the forge, the infirmary, the storage shed, braziers, a torch fence, wind screens, the lookout tower and more.
Every worker. Two woodcutters, a fisher, a stonecutter and a carrier who take over the daily jobs.
The forge upgrades. Bram the smith forges better tools, bigger crates and a stronger sled.
The rest of the story. Lily and her old map, Bram at his forge, and the storms that build toward the finale.
The Great Blizzard and the ending.

It lifts every lock at once. You do not start over: the village you built in the free part simply carries on. You can read about who you will meet along the way in our EmberFrost characters guide.

How the purchase works

It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, and it stays yours.
The price is shown in your local currency before you buy, and payment goes through Apple.
Restore purchases, on the Full Story screen and in the settings, brings it back on another device signed in to the same Apple ID.
Once bought, it works offline.
It is not shared through Family Sharing.
Both difficulty modes and all languages are included.
Refunds are handled by Apple, under its own rules.

How do coin packs work in EmberFrost?

Coin packs are optional, and you will not see them early. The coin shop only exists once you have built the forge, in the middle of the game, where coins start to matter most. Before that, there is nothing to buy except the Full Story.

Where: tap your coin counter at the top of the screen, or open Coin shop in the settings. Granny Maud points it out once, after the forge is built. It never pops up by itself.
What: three packs of 100, 250 and 500 coins, priced by the App Store in your currency.
When: the coins are added to your balance as soon as Apple confirms the purchase.
Where they live: coins belong to the save you are playing, on that device. They cannot be moved to another save slot or device, they have no cash value, and deleting a save deletes its unspent coins. Unlike the Full Story, they do not come back with Restore purchases.

What coins can and cannot do

Coins help your village grow faster, because they go into the same places you would otherwise save up for. That is all they do. You cannot buy speed or carrying capacity, Hard stays hard, and the prices and pace of the game are the same whether you buy coins or not. The economy is not tuned around buying: it is the one we set for players who never buy a coin, and the whole story can be finished that way.

What EmberFrost never asks for

No ads. Not in the free part, not after buying, not ever.
No subscription.
No energy bars or build timers to wait out or skip.
No account or sign-in. The game plays fully offline.
No personal data. The game itself collects none. Purchases go through Apple, and through Google once EmberFrost arrives on Google Play.

We wrote more about why we built it this way in what makes a survival game cozy.

Is the Full Story worth it?

That is your call, and the free part is there so you can make it. Play the prologue, build your three places and see whether the rhythm of fire, carrying and building holds you. If it does, the Full Story is the rest of the village, the people who come back to it and the night that decides whether it makes it through the winter. If it does not, you have spent nothing but a little time, and you have not seen a single ad.

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