Explore a rainy future metropolis in the cyberpunk adventure Cloudpunk

A futuristic metropolis of neon-lit skyscrapers and advertisement holograms. A skyline filled with flying automobiles. Dark clouds endlessly raging overhead. Street vendors and shady dealers peddling merchandise. And everything looking like the 3D version of old 8-bit pixel art games, with humans, buildings and vehicles alike made out of giant pixel blocks. Such is Cloudpunk, the 2020 game developed by Ion Lands, which sees the player control Rania, a courier collecting and delivering packages around the future city of Nivalis. While doing the delivery gigs, the player visits different parts of the city, and there are many sites, streets, alleys and marketplaces to explore.

The travel between the city districts is done by a flying delivery car. The player flies the car through the city between skyscrapers or along huge, lighted highways; the destination shows on a map on the HUD. The goal of the game is to take care of the deliveries, but these tasks are fairly simple and offer little challenge, and often it’s more interesting just to fly around in the car or roam the streets of the city, exploring different places. Traveling around through the air in the car is a fun experience and gives the game a kind of sandbox feel. I do wish the player was given a little bit more room to move both higher and lower in the air, though, because now the car has only so much vertical range. No matter. There’s still enough freedom to drive from place to place, and each part of the city has its own distinct look. I often found myself simply cruising around for the fun of it, enjoying the scenery and drinking in the atmosphere. The music, very good, is the sort of 1980s-inspired synthpop that people have come to associate with this kind of cyber retrofuturism nowadays. There are also clever details to the driving, such as the car taking damage if one crashes it at things too many times, with Rania’s supervisor admonishing her for destroying company property, and the car needing to be refueled at regular intervals. As a nice touch, the default third-person view of the car can be swapped for a first-person view from behind the dashboard. These are all welcome additions to the experience.

Once the player has parked the car on one of the designated spots, Rania gets out and moves around by foot. This is how the packages are picked up and deliveries are made. The city streets are also filled with people, with some of whom the player can interact. Merchants have snacks and other thing for sale, and some people might have errands for Rania to run. The streets have valuable items lying around, too, which can be collected and traded for money. Exploring by foot is just as much fun as doing it by car. Only the camera can be a bit clumsy at times. Fortunately, its distance from Rania can be adjusted with the mouse wheel. I did want for a jump button, not that it was exactly needed at any point, but, hey, it’s always nice to have anyway, for extra maneuverability.

Cloudpunk is a game I would definitely recommend to anyone who likes cyberpunk and is looking for a game that allows the player to explore the kind of archetypal, rain-swept metropolis that is a staple of the genre. Despite the occasionally clunky controls, it is an immensely satisfying game to immerse oneself in, for it contains many splendid milieus and conceals a plethora of secrets to be discovered.

 

Basic info:

Developer: Ion Lands

Publisher: Maple Whispering Limited

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5

Release date: Microsoft Windows: April 23, 2020

Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One: October 15, 2020

PlayStation 5: August 19, 2022

Picture credits: screenshots from the game, taken by the author

You might also like

---

More from Game Reviews

---