A few characters include Thaddeus Carminus, a grizzled cook in Meridian Market; Salt Pete, who claims there’s more to Nivalis’s oceans than “sentient slime, junk HOVA’s and ancient, God-like AI’s dreaming dark dreams”; and Nixxy, an IRL streamer with AR glasses. Last November, the developer promised about 135 fully-voiced primary and secondary characters, amounting to some 200,000 words, so you can imagine the scale.

Of course, throughout the showcase, we see the player setting up their noodle, including assigning shifts for the working schedule. There’s also the Relationship Matrix, which lets you see what other characters think of you, and the various gorgeous sights that the city has to offer in the early game.

All this is well and good, but what about a release date? In a separate Steam Community post, ION LANDS said it’s “entering the final stretch before we can finally open the doors of Nivalis to everyone who’s been following this journey with us.”

It’s still refining certain aspects, including the voice-over, and explicitly stated that the footage isn’t final. But in terms of really highlighting the atmosphere and ambience, it’s pretty compelling.

Nivalis is scheduled to release sometime this year for PC. Stay tuned for more updates.

Nivalis is now due out sometime in spring 2025. A new gameplay trailer offers another meaty look at the game as well, showcasing several of its rain-drenched, neon-lit, cyberpunk locales, as well as some of the many slice of life activities you’ll be engaging in, including running your own business, going fishing, interacting with various characters, and more. Check out the trailer below for a look at how the game is shaping up.

Upon its release next year, Nivalis will be available on PC. There’s no word yet on whether console versions of the game are also planned.

Going by the trailer, players will be able to do quite a few things as they explore the city of Nivalis, including fishing, boat rides, and even managing a noodle restaurant with a surprisingly in-depth-looking management system. The trailer also hints at some darkness under the surface, with a wanted poster for a serial killer.

Players will have to build their life from the very bottom in Nivalis, which likely includes having to do odd jobs in order to make enough money to make ends meet.

Nivalis was first unveiled during last year’s PC Gaming Show, and this time around we have a release window of 2024 for the upcoming game. For more details about the title, check out our interview with the studio behind the game, which previously worked on Cloudpunk.

Its lineup includes Rabbit and Bear Studios’ Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes with Suikoden series veterans Yoshitaka Murayama and Junko Kawano appearing along with Junichi Murakami and Osamu Komuta. There’s also Gunfire Reborn, Duoyi Games’ rogue-lite looter shooter that releases in October for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S while releasing later this year for PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.

ION LANDS’ cyberpunk simulation Nivalis will also be present, along with Point Blank Games’ Stray Blade and Miasma Chronicles from The Bearded Ladies of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden fame. Digital Bros Group’s indie publishing label HOOK is also set to have some exclusive announcements.

Tokyo Game Show 2022 takes place from September 15th to 18th. Stay tuned for more details and coverage in the coming days.

Developer Ion Lands has announced that it’s partnering with Merge Games to bring Cloudpunk to PS5. It will launch digitally for the console on August 19, followed by a physical launch a week later on August 26. The PS5 version will feature run in 4K at 60 FPS, and will feature support for Activity Cards, DualSense features, and more.

Other visual upgrades include higher fidelity and resolution skyboxes, increased draw distances and render distance, better fog quality, improved volumetrics, higher quality bloom, and better lighting effects. For the first time on consoles, Cloudpunk’s PS5 version will also feature a cockpit mode. The PS5 version will be a free upgrade for anyone who already owns the game on PS4.

Check out a trailer showing the game’s PS5 version in action below. For now, there’s no announcement regarding an Xbox Series X/S version of the game.

Last year, Ion Lands also released a sequel-sized DLC for Cloudpunk, titled City of Ghosts. The DLC is only available on PC, with no word yet on when (or if) it will launch for other platforms as well.

In our review of Cloudpunk, we awarded it a score of 7/10, saying, “Cloudpunk reaches higher and achieves more than I thought it would, barely missing a spot among the giants of its genre.” You can read the full review through here.

Cloudpunk is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Developer Ion Lands is currently also working on open world life sim Nivalis, which is set in the titular cyberpunk city that Cloudpunk also takes place in. Read more on that through here.

Cyberpunk 2077 may not have lived up to the lofty promises and high expectations that years of hype and marketing accumulated – but there are so many upcoming cyberpunk-based releases that can quench that thirst instead. We previously talked about BlueTwelve’s Stray in this feature series and how that could end up being one of the biggest releases of 2022, and today we will be taking a look at NIVALIS – a cyberpunk game with rather unconventional yet interesting concepts which look to be shaping up to be one of the more unique games coming out in the near future.

Currently in development at ION LANDS, Nivalis is an open-world life-simulator set against the backdrop of a futuristic dystopia. The developer has previously worked on Cloudpunk, which was another excellent cyberpunk neo-noir thriller that fans of the sub-genre should totally check out. Furthermore, the developer also worked on Phoning Home, and while may not be the most polished of experiences – the two projects cumulatively show the passion and skill the developer has for sci-fi and cyberpunk. To that end, Nivalis looks to be a natural step forward for the developer, as it seems to be taking all the learnings of its past projects and setting up a stage so large that it completely dwarfs the scope of anything that it’s done before.

Fun fact: Cloudpunk and Nivalis share the same universe, so it’s also possible that fans may encounter some narrative breadcrumbs linking the two experiences together.

Nivalis is a cyberpunk dystopia, and from what we have seen – it certainly lives up to its name. Nivalis is dotted with neon signs dominated by vibrant colours like pink, purple, and blue. The city skyline is bustling with air traffic as denizens of the city travel through their hovering cars all while a metro line speeds through the middle of the city. True to the spirit of cyberpunk, there are different sections of the city, housing different types of people that all coalesce together to form the city’s population. There are rich businessmen who live a life of luxury inside their high-rise apartments, and there are the low-life gangsters who will harass anybody foolish or brave enough to stand in their way.

Then there’s you, a hard-working man sandwiched between the two aforementioned social strata as you try to make a life for yourself in this oppressive environment. Nivalis sees players controlling their character through the first-person perspective, and they start off their journey through a small business such as a noodle stand or a stim store. It’s your job to run your business and find different means of growing it. For instance, you could add up more tables and chairs to your restaurant to accommodate more customers. Or you could add a bit of decoration to your premises to make the ambiance more pleasing for a customer. Or you could instead dump those resources into growing your own herbs and plants to save up on raw materials. It seems that there are a lot of paths that players can take to grow their businesses, and it’s all looking really promising right now.

Of course, after a certain point – players will have accumulated enough money and resources to start up other businesses. And should players keep making the right moves at the right time, they will be one of the biggest stakeholders of Nivalis‘ bustling nightlife. In that regard, Nivalis is looking to be a lot like Stardew Valley since it’s trying to build an addictive gameplay loop of increasingly bigger goals and by extension, accumulating greater rewards.

Apart from their business goals, players will have the option to chase some personal goals as well including buying a house and expanding it with luxurious furniture and what have you. Furthermore, Nivalis also offers players the option to indulge themselves in other distractions – such as going out fishing or interacting with different NPCs who will have their own life stories to tell. The developer has stated that players will also have the option to pursue romantic interests in Nivalis as well, which is a neat touch on top of all the different styles of interaction the game seems to be offering.

Let’s also briefly talk about the visuals. Developer ION LANDS first introduced its Minecraft-Esque Voxel-based art style with its prior release Cloudpunk, and it seems to be building upon that style with its upcoming release. Nivalis boasts incredibly gorgeous visuals, dominated by vibrant colours such as pink and purple. At any given time, there is a multitude of light sources illuminating the landscape – which culminates in a very distinct and lively presentation that’s a treat for the eyes. Furthermore, the plentiful reflections from these numerous light sources in the rain-drenched streets and alleyways just scream cyberpunk. Long story short, when the game is firing on all cylinders – Nivalis can look pretty convincing.

Then there’s the topic of release. Unsurprisingly, ION LANDS hasn’t provided much details regarding Nivalis‘ release date. That said, we do know that it will be releasing on PC only through Steam and the Epic Games Store. At the moment, there’s no word on whether Nivalis will be releasing on console platforms or not – but we are hopeful that this will be the case indeed. Cloudpunk released first on PC in a similar vein, but the developer released console ports a couple of months after that. Considering that and the fact that ION LANDS has a great backing in the form of publisher 505 Games, it seems that we will get console ports of Nivalis sometime post-release.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet, and without any official information on the matter – the best course of action is to always keep expectations in check. Regardless, Nivalis is shaping up to be a great title – thanks to the developer’s great understanding of the cyberpunk sub-genre and what exactly makes it tick. Sure, Nivalis isn’t as action-heavy with its mechanics and pacing as most other contemporaries on the market, but it is something that helps it stand out in its case. To that end, one could describe Nivalis as Stardew Valley but set in a cyberpunk dystopia. And while that description may sound reductive to some, but if the developer nails what it’s promising – Nivalis could turn out to be yet another great hit for ION LANDS, and to us fans – a cyberpunk game that we both need and deserve.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

In Nivalis, players can grow their business, manage restaurants and nightclubs, make friends and enemies, and even find love. Players will start out small and have to build their way up to success, eventually owning all of the night life in Nivalis.

Players have complete control on how to spend their time in Nivalis. The game features realistic weather simulation and day and night cycles. Nivalis brings its cyberpunk city to life thanks to its voxel-based art style.

All in all, Nivalis sounds like it’ll play a bit like Stardew Valley, especially with its emphasis on having a social life, albeit players will be running nightclubs and restaurants rather than a farm.

Unfortunately, Nivalis doesn’t yet have a release date. It will be coming to PC through Steam and Epic Games Store.

Ion Lands’ intriguing cyberpunk adventure Cloudpunk is getting some paid DLC. City of Ghosts takes place directly after the main story and features Rania and Hayse, a new character, exploring Nivalis. With Curzona, the Debt Corps and a killer cyborg after Rania, it’s all she can do to survive.

Hayse, on the other hand, is looking to clear his debt before the next morning and has a CorpSec android accompanying. How these two stories intertwine will be revealed in the DLC, which has a “sequel’s worth of content” as per the developer. Said new content includes street races with the ability to customize one’s HOVA and multiple endings based on decisions made in Cloudpunk and City of Ghosts.

Nivalis itself offers new areas to explore and new characters to interact with. The campaign will be fully-voiced and “as long” as that of the base game. It also seems that other characters will be playable besides Rania and Hayse. A release date for the DLC wasn’t provided so stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Rania, or 14FC, as she is addressed by her supervisor, a mysterious character known as “Control”, embodies a certain spirit in her character that anyone who’s ever worked a repetitive, dead-end job just to make ends meet will immediately understand and empathize with. She’s not exactly thrilled to be where she is but she’s making the best of it. Picking up and delivering packages as Rania for Cloudpunk is the core of the gameplay. Getting in your HOVA to cross the vast stretches of the cityscape, landing it on the right platforms, and strolling to the package’s destination to hand it off to the recipient is an accurate way to describe the gameplay loop, but to say that’s all Cloudpunk is would be missing the forest for the trees. The real essence of the game is found in the story, it’s characters and slowly soaking in the atmosphere. Over time you get to understand how things work, and while it’s simple on the surface, there is some depth to be found here.

The frame rate, at least on console is best described as reliably unreliable. Interestingly it’s fairly serviceable when you are walking around on the ground but completely takes a nosedive when you start flying around and your HOVA, despite being in the exact same environment. It never quite got into motion sickness territory for me, but if you are particularly sensitive to that sort of thing, it’s probably worth checking to see if it’s been cleaned up with a patch before you purchase the game. At the time of writing this review the PS4 version has not been. It’s a shame that this is an issue for Cloudpunk at this point, but here’s hoping it gets resolved soon.

"The real essence of the game is found in the story, it’s characters and slowly soaking in the atmosphere. Over time you get to understand how things work, and while it’s simple on the surface, there is some depth to be found here."

Speaking of walking around you can do it in three different perspectives most of the time. A fixed camera angle from far away, a more traditional 3rd person angle that you can control, and a first person view. Cloudpunk never really does much to make one camera style preferable to another, so it’s really just about your preference. I appreciate the options, but I mostly found the regular 3rd-person angle to be the best balance most of the time.

The two main hemispheres of Cloudpunk’s gameplay are somewhat unbalanced in their importance, and not in the way you might suspect at first. Flying the HOVA is fine, and serves as a nice excuse for the game to give you little drips of exposition, but the game is actually far more interesting while you’re on foot, picking up objects, observing the tone of the world, buying things for your apartment, and interacting with the slew of fascinating characters. Cloudpunk’s NPC’s go a long way towards building this world with unique designs, great writing, and mostly fitting into one of three categories; Taking advantage of society’s shortcomings for their own gain, being victims of it, or doing their best to hold things together with duct tape, hopes, and dreams. All of these character archetypes shine a light on many of the destructive attributes we see emerging today and the growing uncertainty fueled by economic deterioration.

It doesn’t really provide any sort of overt commentary or judgements on those things, but it does a tasteful job of depicting an eerily believable future stage of them. The one character that sort of defies the doom and gloom is Camus, Rania’s dog. He rounds out the cast of characters nicely and provides some much needed levity in the game. Despite being written and performed, distracting similarly to Doug from Up, I rather enjoyed him and how he actually gives Rania something to personally care about. Overall, the writing, the voice acting, and the context behind the game’s many seemingly mundane deliveries is what really drives the experience forward and keeps it interesting. Many times, Rania is faced with morally grey choices that you decide on by how and where you deliver a package. These moments are some of the best in the entire game. They force you to consider options, perhaps go back and forth a bit, and ultimately make a call. Before you know it, you’ll be hanging on every one of Rania’s lines and genuinely worrying about the ramifications of whatever choice you made.

"Overall, the writing, the voice acting, and the context behind the game’s many seemingly mundane deliveries is what really drives the experience forward and keeps it interesting."

Meanwhile, the other side of the game is driving you HOVA around, which controls more or less like a floating tank, this isn’t helped at all by the bad framerate on the PS4, which I imagine isn’t any better on the Switch. Using the right stick to control elevation and the triggers to control going forward and backward is instantly easy to get used to, that said, the driving does suffer a bit from depth-of-field issues. I found myself hitting things that I had no idea I was close enough to come into contact with more often than I should have, and I think they could have been a little more generous with how close I needed to be to a parking space to land on it. That said, I never found it to be agonizingly bad, it just happens to be the weakest element of the game overall. Managing your damage and gas do help a bit with fleshing this part of the game out on paper, but I mostly felt like these things were just distracting me from Cloudpunk’s better half; the story.

To describe Cloudpunk as a delivery game with a good story, wouldn’t be entirely accurate. That’s more of a description of Death Stranding, whose gameplay is mostly focused on the adventure of the delivery itself. Cloudpunk doesn’t quite do that. It’s not really a delivery game with a story as much as it is a story-driven adventure game that just happens to use a delivery system as a device to propel its narrative. It’s not so much about figuring out “how” to make a delivery as it is about asking “why”. Cloudpunk’s world wants Rania to think it’s simple and straight up. But it’s characters and it’s story force you as a player to realize it’s anything but.

It pulls this dichotomy off with such elegance, that it’s ultimately a little disappointing to see that it doesn’t have much else up its sleeve. It goes out of its way to constantly remind you of the interesting world you’re in, yet ultimately, only uses what it has created to remind you that it exists. Some players may find that to be perfectly fine, and that to have some sort of singular moral grandstand on one perspective or another would ultimately subvert the games underlying theme of choice and consequence, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that. But at the same time, I would be lying if I said I felt totally satisfied after being shown such a well-crafted series of quandaries over and over without ever seeing it lead anywhere other than to more reminders of its own profundity.

"Despite its flaws in the technical department, which are, at times fairly egregious, Cloudpunk does a pretty good job of making you forget about that with a surprisingly good story most of the time."

Despite its flaws in the technical department, which are, at times fairly egregious, Cloudpunk does a pretty good job of making you forget about that with a surprisingly good story most of the time. Once the story reaches the bottom of it’s bag of tricks however, you might start to notice its untapped potential becoming more noticeable as the game wears on. Depending on the player, the momentum created at the beginning might be enough to carry you through, but for most, I suspect, the ceiling created by its own unpolished gameplay and it’s inability to conclude in a satisfying way, will just barely keep it from achieving actual greatness.

Most great adventure games get away with shallow gameplay because of how satisfying their stories are. Cloudpunk gets closer to that than I thought it would, but still stops short of it. This particular adventure game does deliver the goods, just not quite enough of them, or in a consistent enough manner, for me to overlook it’s issues. In Cloudpunk, the good and the bad are simply a package deal.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.