Look, another cyberpunk spin-off has landed, letting us live the mundane lives of ordinary citizens in a follow-up to Cloudpunk. The new release, Nivalis Nights, dropped on the 29th and stormed straight into the upper echelons of Steam's global top sellers.

Nivalis Nights is a slice-of-life and management simulation set in the fictional city of Nivalis. While the protagonist of the predecessor Cloudpunk was a delivery driver, the protagonist of Nivalis Nights starts out running a humble ramen stall and eventually expands the business by directly managing various commercial facilities like restaurants and nightclubs. It features meticulous management mechanics ranging from sourcing legal ingredients to overall shop administration.

The game kicks off in the exact same city as its predecessor, brilliantly inheriting that signature cyberpunk atmosphere. You can roam various districts with distinct characteristics, turn a profit through your enterprise, grow, and eventually purchase larger business entities. To keep growing, you will need to survive by managing supply chains and competing against rival businesses by throwing wrenches in their operations.

Beyond running a business, the scope of daily life has expanded far beyond the predecessor, letting you arrange furniture in your apartment, go fishing, and build friendships or rivalries with various NPCs. Add in a day-night cycle, weather changes, and pesky variables like security crackdowns or the constant threat of curfew violations, and you have got a recipe for genuine tension.

User reviews for Nivalis Nights on Steam are currently sitting at Mostly Positive, based on 1,090 reviews with a 73% positive rating. Players are praising the immersive, multi-dimensional cyberpunk city design, the management elements, and the wealth of lifestyle content. That being said, complaints are pouring in regarding poor optimisation, with severe frame drops and stuttering reported even on PCs packing graphics cards well above the recommended specs, alongside a glaring lack of an upscaling option. On top of that, users have voiced frustrations over an unhelpful UI and bugs involving hired NPCs.

Elsewhere, the newcomer Transport Fever 3 claimed the number one spot right out of the gate. However, user reviews are sitting at Mixed due to complaints about optimisation and anachronistic facilities that clash with the setting. Meanwhile, American Truck Simulator cracked the rankings alongside its base game after releasing a DLC featuring Ford vehicles rather than traditional trucks.

Over on the peak concurrent players chart, Deadlock continues to hold its ground in the rankings despite still being in closed beta, surging to 5th place with a record-breaking 228,086 concurrent players following a massive content update that dropped six new heroes and a visual overhaul. Hot on its heels, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also smashed its own personal best with 120,975 players, climbing up to 11th place after rolling out its remastered version.