(Image credit: Ion Lands)
The popular user-added tags for Nivalis Nights on Steam are: Cyberpunk, simulation, life sim, management, and relaxing. It is definitely a cyberpunk shop/life sim, but relaxing? This one was on the wishlists of a lot of cozy gaming fans, including me. After playing it though, I'm not sure it's the kind of cozy most people would expect. Here's what lead writer Thomas Welsh had to say:
The volume of quests and story content in Nivalis Nights feels overwhelming at times. Was that intentional?
The start of the game is intentionally overwhelming. Nivalis doesn't have player death or shooting or boss fights, but that doesn't mean it's a cozy game. Life in a cyberpunk world shouldn't be relaxing and free of stress—not at first anyway. If you want a cozy existence in this city, you're going to have to earn it. We imagined a world that felt like every app on your phone was sending you an urgent notification. Players can swim upstream, and they might end up rich, living on a farm. Or they might learn that success in Nivalis can look different for each person. You can even finish the story while being terrible at business.
Well, cozy always has been in the eye of the beholder
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As I pointed out right away in my Nivalis Nights review, the "every app sending you an urgent notification" comes through really clearly in the first several hours. You get dozens of quests dumped on you within the first few in-game days and don't have enough time to start any of them when you can barely keep a noodle bar out of the red every day.
I take Welsh's point that living in a capitalist hellscape where debt can be passed down for generations and bureaucracy is keeping everyone from escaping corporate indentured servitude should not feel cozy. Being relaxed is a privilege, which Nivalis Nights makes pretty damn clear when you start to open up access to districts where the folks with money hang out.
But could the game still be cozy and relaxing even if the world isn't? I dunno. "Cozy" is one of the most open-to-interpretation genre labels in gaming, so the definition often stretches to encompass unexpected stuff like cozy horror or cute-looking roguelikes. I push against the idea that cozy games can't be challenging or require skill. Farm sims invite a ton of min-maxing behavior and strategically deep genres can be plenty relaxing too.
Nivalis Nights has decorating and management, which are popular cozy game features. It has a very visually beautiful world, even if the place sucks. It's also got a ton of character stories with excellent voice acting that ranges from comical to heartfelt. Oh, and there's a smidge of romance too. All those things usually fall pretty well within the interests of cozy game enjoyers.
The early game overwhelm really is no joke, though. My quest log was constantly stuffed full on the right side of my screen, quest markers on my overhead compass all fighting for space with each other. My digital assistant automata would often pipe up to give me even more quests and directions while I was busy with something else. Then there's the constant popups telling me that ingredients need to be restocked or that my waiter hasn't been paid because I'm broke.
In other words, Nivalis Nights is probably going to stay one of those games whose "cozy" status is extremely subjective, based entirely on your own tolerance level for to-do list horror.
