Cloudpunk – 6 Years Later |

Publisher: Ion Lands

Developer: Ion Lands

Release Date: 04/23/2020

Available On

Cyberpunk games that are good are far and few between. They either nail the aesthetic but don’t have a good story or gameplay. Even fewer have interesting lore wrapped around their particular flavour of cyberpunk world. Cloudpunk does this part right. Building interesting lore on top of a compelling story with interesting characters, but sadly not getting the gameplay part right. Despite this caveat, the game is worth playing if you love stories and interesting worlds to explore. Cloudpunk pits you as a delivery driver, Rainia, who migrates from the Eastern continent to the city of Ravalis to escape her past. You end up doing delivery work for the titular Cloudpunk black market service. What unfolds is Rainia getting pulled into a crazy plot with interesting characters and the fate of the world itself.

Cloudpunk does a great job trying to make you feel small in its oppressive overworld. The lore for how this world has come to be is pretty deep, and there is a lot of NPC dialogue and quests surrounding this. The game is set hundreds of years into the future in which few cities remain and most of the world’s population are inside those. There is a class system where capitalism has taken over the world for good, and CEOs live on top of the clouds with better air and water, while the poorest live in the duct systems, farming algae and surviving cold storms from the massive city ventilation system. It’s a really fun world to be a part of, and hearing all of these stories helps build all of this up. Like the best RPGs out there, from The Elder Scrolls to The Witcher, the small parts are what matter the most. You get a large map, and each part of the city is broken down into burroughs. When you land in a part of the city that is walkable, you can see faces on the mini-map. These are optional NPCs to talk to that either give side quests or just some lore to fill you in on the everyday life of people. The morality about androids and them having rights like humans as well as the abuse they go through and how they are implemented into society is very detailed here and sucked me right in. Phillip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov are clear inspirations here.

Outside of walking around and talking to people, you can pick up items scattered around that are just junk parts. Either sell them or keep them, and they might be useful for someone, but most of the time it’s just for cash which is needed for gas, repairs to your HOVA, and adding optional cosmetic upgrades to your apartment. You spend most of the game in the HOVA cars, and as you zip around, you can easily damage the car and have to repair it. You can buy a few simple upgrades and eventually get to pick a much better car halfway through the story. The HOVA feels fine to drive, but navigating this game gave me Jak II vibes, and that’s not super great. The game’s world feels like it was built in the PS2 era. Very small maps that are cut up between loading screens. The same “whooshing” sound effects as you pass by cars. Many of the neon signs repeat often, and while the scale of the city is grand, it’s all an illusion. The foggy sky, distant neon buildings, infinite skywalks and buildings. None of this is explorable just like older games from 20 years ago. When you do land on a walkable area, it’s mostly just sidewalks to run around to the next navpoint. There are no puzzles or combat in the game, so it’s just a vehicle for an enjoyable story and interesting lore.

I wanted Cloudpunk to be more. I really got invested in the characters. There are a few plot twists in the story and the character arcs that got me hooked. I kept coming back to the game wanting to know what happens next. The writing is incredibly sharp and intentional. The voice acting is a bit different from many other games. It sounds like real-life dialogue. A lot of emotion and nonchalance from Rainia over life-or-death situations. There’s depth to all of the characters. The game forces you to struggle with feelings about androids and whether they should be treated like machines or humans. This is all just in the dialogue. I can only imagine if this game had a larger budget with a more detailed world to explore, this could be something huge. Deliveries are also all the same. Pick this up and drop it off. Sometimes you get a choice to decide the fate of certain characters, which is nice, and you really do sit there and think of the consequences.

Driving around the same areas for nearly 10 hours gets tiring quickly. I wound up ignoring everything else in the game, such as stopping at food vendors and merchants, as they served no purpose. The only truly grating issue was that lengthy dialogue would play out with nothing to do. There’s no navpoint given to you so you can drive while listening to the dialogue. Many times I just sat there staring at the screen for many minutes. Outside of this, the voxel art style is to be desired. I didn’t care for it, but the overall style they go with is passable. I feel like the game’s world isn’t done justice with this art style, but the neon-soaked blacks and greys work well enough to invoke emotion when streaking through the sky to the next destination. The music is really good, with retrowave-style synth and techno music as well as the never-ending rain. There’s a lot of potential here in a sequel or something, but there are a lot of reasons for someone not to care for this game. The game features up to 7.1 surround sound. With my 5.1 system the world came to life. HOVAs whizzing by, characters walking around, rain pattering on buildings, sirens going off behind me. The soundscape is half of what drew me into the game.

Overall, Cloudpunk has sharp writing and well-written characters with enough lore and a unique take on a cyberpunk setting to be worth your time. I feel a lot of the extra stuff is a waste of time, and the map design is very early 00s feeling, and that can be both good and bad. There’s nothing to do outside of driving around and doing deliveries minus a timed mission here and there. The art style, while quite good, has a voxel style that doesn’t do the overall art direction justice, but what’s here is pretty good and worth your time if you love stories and lore.