![]() Outside of the infrequent dialogue choices and sifting through menus, your left hand will be locked in place and doing a lot of the work.Ī bulk of your time will be spent as a shoulder to cry on for the aggrieved citizens of Nivalis. In fact, a very large portion of Cloudpunk is playable with just one hand. It’s a pleasure that, despite looking as cool as it does, it’s super easy to handle. It’s been a science-fiction fixture for decades and to pilot one is extremely cool, even as a delivery driver and part-time taxi. Of course, congestion is a killer, the price of gas is still too high and parking spaces are the only place the HOVA can be set down, but the great thing about piloting a hovercar throughout a sheer cityscape is being able to nimbly navigate the upright monoliths of commerce that populate the sky. Nivalis is a clever product of design, though its verticality is where it really manages to shine with maps designed with multiple levels that can be accessed by lifts or alternate parking spaces. Their relationship is a real feature of Cloudpunk’s already great neo-noir world. She’ll shoulder a few demons as the night reaches its darkest, though the ‘man in the chair’, who goes by the handle Control, acts as a dog-tired foil to Rania’s stony optimism. Though it doesn’t offer plentiful choice or dialogue options throughout, the decisions Rania will wrestle with are heartbreaking and difficult to make. It’s one of those rare worlds that feels lived in and Rania’s first night at Cloudpunk is but a footnote in the city’s storied rebellion. When presented with the notion of it taking a lifetime to understand the city she quips that if it takes a lifetime, the sooner she starts, the longer it’ll take. There’s a chaos that drives Nivalis, and it’s an uncertainty that Rania openly embraces. Of course, where it discards horrible acts of violence, it makes room for the indirect agonies one can cause through trying to do good. as we march, hubristic, into an uncertain future.Ĭloudpunk is very much the pen to Blade Runner’s sword. Cloudpunk feels at times like an extension to Black Mirror as it explores the exciting, terrifying and plausible advancements of A.I. ![]() It’s outside of time, not necessarily belonging to the 80s, today or even decades from now, though it’s contemporary in its troubles. It’s also a place where moisture farmers exist, living off mould and algae within wintry vents-their idea of living free. It’s a place where pineapple is an exotic rarity reserved for the well-to-do and music like Bach is remembered by too few. On this seemingly endless night at the wheel, Rania will meet a lot of colourful characters that really help paint a picture of the kind of future Nivalis exists in. ![]() ![]() ![]() Left without a home to return to, courtesy of the ruthless debt corps, Rania arrives in Nivalis and, through lack of choice, finds herself driving for Cloudpunk, a questionable organisation that is a frequent point of contraband uplift, despite operating under the authoritarian gaze of CorpSec, the city’s law enforcing agency. For the purpose of this story-driven experience from German developer Ion Lands, Cloudpunk is also Rania’s employer, as she dives in feet first for her first turbulent evening on the job. Cloudpunk is a semi-legal delivery company based in the heart of a disparate city of Nivalis, it operates in plain sight, commuting illicit and exotic goods from point-to-point. After the mystifying grind of Death Stranding, I didn’t expect I’d grow attached to the porter business again. ![]()
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