Image: ION LANDS & 505 Games

'Cozy' doesn't have to mean toothless, twee, or pastoral. Sometimes cozy just means settling in at your favorite street-corner noodle bar in a crowded city. With its release today, that's the fantasy that Nivalis Nights is all about - the long-awaited return to the world of Cloudpunk. This time, hanging up your hover-cabbie's gloves in favor of becoming part of the street-level nightlife, running restaurants, nightclubs, and more in the titular neon cyberpunk city.

Nivalis Nights has been eagerly awaited by many ever since its debut way back in 2022, back when it was simply known as Nivalis. While less high-intensity than its predecessor, Cloudpunk, there's a lot of work to be done here. Walking around a gorgeously lit neon future city is just the padding, as you've got to carve out your business presence, order ingredients, hire staff, assign their work hours, and generally spin a lot of plates (sometimes literally) in order to make a profit.

From the little I've seen of the game so far, there's a lot of meat on its bones. You might start running a small street-corner restaurant, but there's a whole bunch of business for you to eventually buy and manage, along with personal quests to follow, assigned by your various contacts, staff, and customers, including investigating some murders. It's not a proper cyberpunk city without a seedy underside, after all.

It should practically go without saying that this game is a looker. Cloudpunk was a great-looking game, but its distant hovercab-eye perspective allowed developer Ion Lands to get away with more than a nascent indie studio might. It seems they've shot for the moon here and solidly hit it, visually. These are some downright lush-looking cityscapes, albeit stylized with semi-chunky voxels.

That gloss does come at a price, though. Initial reviews of the game are very positive for the most part, but several have brought up performance issues, especially on lower-spec PCs. This game was built with heftier desktop and laptop systems in mind, and reportedly doesn't scale down too well to the Steam Deck. Steam Machine owners might have to sacrifice some fidelity to get it running as smoothly as they want, too.

Nivalis Nights is out now for £22/$25, with a 10% launch discount running until October 13th, with a little extra discount if you own Cloudpunk too.