Nivalis Nights — everything we know

505 Games put out a new trailer, “Nivalis Nights — A Day In The Life”, on 4 September at 14:59 UTC. It walks through an ordinary day in the city rather than pitching the premise again. ION LANDS did not post a 4K cut of its own this time, and the studio’s channel still ends at the release date trailer from 30 June. The official account framed it on Bluesky the same minute, verbatim: “Your move to the city is just around the corner. Today, we’re giving you a peek at what a typical day in Nivalis Nights could look like. Will you rush to the top, or take it slow?” Worth noting for anyone watching the store page: the trailer was not posted as a Steam announcement and has not been added to the trailer carousel, which still lists a single movie. Release is unchanged at 29 September 2026.

The date is holding — Steam reads Sep 29, 2026 and counts down about four weeks — but there is still no price, no edition, no pre-order and no pre-load hint anywhere. Steam offers a wishlist button and nothing else, and 505 Games only says “Steam: September 29, 2026 / Epic Games: TBA”, so the Epic version remains undated. Figures of 24.99 to 34.99 dollars circulating in the Steam forum are player guesses with nothing behind them. What is settled is the technical side: Windows only, 16 GB of RAM and a 6 GB card at minimum, 8 GB recommended, 30 GB of space, and eleven languages with English the only one voiced.

With a month to go, Steam lists the game as unreleased with no price attached, no demo, and no Steam Deck compatibility rating. ION LANDS’ own FAQ is equally careful: it claims Windows PC only, does not claim native macOS support, and points readers at the store listing for anything newer. Fifty-nine Steam curators have the page on their radar.

505 Games and ION LANDS put out three short Q&A videos — what the game is, what you can do in it, and how you get around the city. It is the last structured look at Nivalis Nights before launch.

ION LANDS confirmed the game is now officially titled Nivalis Nights — new name, new logo, same cyberpunk life sim — and set a planned Steam release of 29 September 2026. A release date trailer went out alongside it. Creative director Marko Dieckmann framed the wait plainly: developing this game as an independent studio meant clearing hurdles the team had never faced, and he thanked the community for five years of patience.

Worth pinning down, because the wrong number is circulating: the date on the Steam listing, on the 505 Games product page and in ION LANDS’ own announcement is 29 September. Some coverage carries the 30th.

The May development update covered the final performance work on the city simulation, the realistic weather simulation, the UI and fishing, and put figures to the content for the first time: over 240 ingredients, 190 dishes, 100 quests, 620 pieces of furniture, more than 40 UI panels, over 10,000 world-state objects like tables and dishware, and more than 1,000 fish simulated at once.

The same post described the technical shape of the game. It runs on Unity, the world is built from voxels but pushes far higher polygon counts than a typical voxel game and leans hard on level-of-detail steps, and NPCs run through a custom streaming system with three tiers depending on whether they are outside your district, inside it but out of sight, or on screen. QA is split across an internal team, 505 Games’ team, and an external one.

ION LANDS answered community questions on the core loop, the story, side quests, property and transport — and settled the one readers ask most. Nivalis Nights is the same city as Cloudpunk, so players of both may notice familiar details and small connections, but the game is designed as a standalone experience. The studio also confirmed there is a defined main story with an ending, not an open-ended sandbox.

The January development update reported the voice work finally going into the build across more than 135 characters, which the studio described as adding a further layer of immersion. The same post acknowledged community frustration that no release date had been named yet.

ION LANDS delayed the game out of 2025 without naming a new date. The reason was a decision to expand the voiced cast from 32 characters to more than 135, covering roughly 200,000 words of dialogue — casting, recording and implementing that could not be done honestly on the old schedule. The studio said a firm date would follow before the end of the year. It did not; the date came eight months later.

A new trailer arrived with a second delay attached, moving the release to spring 2025. The studio’s reasoning stayed general — delivering the best possible experience was the highest priority — without the specifics that would come with the next slip.

The public got hands on the game for the first time at WASD x IGN in the Truman Brewery, deliberately scheduled into the post-gamescom window. The demo covered running a noodle bar, the relationship interface, fishing and a taxi ride across the city.

At the PC Gaming Show 2023 the game got its second trailer and, for the first time, a launch window. Nivalis was to arrive in 2024.

505 Games was confirmed as worldwide publisher and the first real trailer premiered at the PC Gaming Show 2022. No release date was attached.

ION LANDS announced the game through its own Steam post as plain “Nivalis” — a cyberpunk slice-of-life simulation for PC, with no publisher and no date. The Steam app ID from that day, 1488490, is still the one the page runs on.