Ion Lands, the developer behind the cyberpunk delivery game Cloudpunk, has released a set of new screenshots for its upcoming slice-of-life simulator Nivalis. It’s shared them to help give fans a look behind the curtain and involve them in the development process by showing how the world is coming together.
When Ion Lands asked its community what it wanted to see in the future, it said it was made very clear that it needs to show more of Nivalis as it’s being developed. The developer stated, “We really want you to feel like you’re on this journey with us, and strongly believe that by giving you a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes, this will help with that.” In addition to the featured image for this article, we’ve now got six new gorgeous screenshots of what is my favorite cyberpunk city in video games, Nivalis.
Life surrounded by walls and neon
You can see all seven of the new Nivalis screenshots shared by Ion Lands in its post on Twitter. I want to highlight a couple that I think are particularly beautiful and interesting, starting with this picture of a man sitting beneath a sign. He’s set up shop with a magazine rack to his left and a stove on the right. Clearly, he’s just trying to eke out a living in what is a fairly tough city to carve out a business in, utilizing the space available and a huge sign that has nothing to do with him but would certainly draw the eye.
This image, showing the space between two buildings and the endless structures beyond, is the perfect image of Nivalis. In Cloudpunk, you fly around and between buildings moving from delivery point to pick-up spot. The portal at the bottom of the image in the distance is a link between districts that a huge train moves through.
One of the best parts of Cloudpunk is walking the streets of Nivalis. You need to take lifts up to the top of skyscrapers to see the dingy apartments that people have saved their entire lives for. Despite the depressing situations the citizens find themselves in, I always look upon Nivalis and find beauty in the endless clouds and complete annihilation of nature. Something about its brutality and the way people have made it their own with bright signs and wires dragging through the air between windows really stands out to me.
The final image I want to showcase is what could easily be the interior of the apartment or restaurant you end up in while playing Nivalis. It’s run down now, but one of the goals of the game is to set up a thriving business. I look at this and see the potential for all sorts of decorations I could buy by making my business profitable. Even if it goes under, I could always sell the fish I catch from the rivers that cover the bottom of the city’s skyscrapers.
Nivalis is slated for a 2025 release, but we don’t have a date or window outside of that year. These screenshots certainly make the environments look promising, but I’d like to see some new gameplay in the future to better understand where we fit into this world.
