Moment #1 of this game, I was sold: dropped right into the city of Nivalis, not on ground but idling in a hover car near a highway. Then the dialogue starts between our player character, Pilot 14FC aka Rania, and her dispatch agent known only as “Control”, and the delicious exposition begins. Exposition that feels organic and immersive, not just from hearing Rania’s own fish-out-of-water backstory, but experiencing it yourself as this alien, futuristic world enthralls you. Even with simple voxel graphics and rather simplistic AI for the NPCs (or maybe because of it), the dystopian Nivalis strikes this golden ambivalence between harrowing and enchanting, similar to its most obvious influence Blade Runner.

The smog-filled air and constant rain is depressing enough, only to get twisted further by the fractured, failing city design, with a constant feed of “retirements,” oppression, and disaster. And yet, there’s all these beautiful neon lights bleeding through the harsh atmosphere, sometimes accompanied by thumping synthwave that creates such a nice vibe for your travels. Driving the hover car was always fun; it’s controls are super well-designed, and seeing the whole city operate efficiently with them is maybe the silver-est lining here. Even the rippling, lightning-filled black clouds above and below(!) you carry this strange, hypnotic beauty—it’s such a pretty environmental wasteland.

However, actually traversing Nivalis did leave something to be desired. As alluring as it can be, once you’re out of the car and on-foot, Rania only has one, stiff-as-a-board running speed, with left trigger slowing you to a leisurely stroll. They do include some elements to help vary things a bit: you can take some stimulants to go faster—or harder drugs for a more psychedelic view—you can change the camera angle from first-to-third-person, or zoom it all the way out to enjoy the scenery, and you can change up Rania’s appearance, but nothing changes how stiff she feels and how limited you feel in mobility options. I can appreciate the purposefully disjointed and broken down nature of the city the first several times I’m running through it, a limit that’s far exceeded when the one major sidequest you’re given is running around the city collecting 81 punch cards, some of which are in the most tedious spots to reach, feeling like unnecessary padding for a game that really didn’t need it. And the reward for that sidequest is learning the story of a single NPC which is…actually pretty good.

Because holy hell, the writing is this game’s everything: its selling point, its saving grace, and its most prominent feature. I was skeptical about this open-world game feeling so limited in its player-led choices, and I still am to some extent, though by the end I was totally compelled by this narrative and all the characters involved. I do mean the main narrative specifically; while I enjoyed meeting a lot of the named NPCs scattered about the city, sometimes they highlighted some of the game’s weaker elements and left more to be desired (why can I buy dermis if I can’t use it literally anywhere? Make it make sense). Still, there’s plenty of memorable characters to meet and thoughtful moral choices to make, and with about 13 hours of playtime over one night, it’s just about real-time in length. One helluva first night for poor, debt corps-haunted Rania and her body-less talking AI dog Camus.

I still have to play City of Ghosts, which I’ll reserve for another time—it’s a new story with Rania that’s just as long as the original campaign and goes **even harder** with the hover cars, how can it fail? And as for my skepticism on this game’s “player-led choices,” the developer ION LANDS is working on a follow-up game, Nivalis, set for release in 2024, it has
- A business and social sim-focused design
- Fleshed out models with mo-capped animations
- A more detailed city, including interiors and more minutiae
- SUNLIGHT (occasionally)
The pretty voxels will be missed, but having a more in-depth world with tons of interaction will more than make up for it. Hopefully Cloudpunk is the proof–of-concept for the magic they’re brewing up here, get hyped.

8/10