Line #100 VideoGame/Cloudpunk


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cloudpunk_steam_header.jpg]][[caption-width-right:350:"Got another delivery for you, kid..."]]
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3	''[[https://store.steampowered.com/app/746850/Cloudpunk/ Cloudpunk]]'' is a 2020 {{Cyberpunk}} open-world role-playing game developed by Ion Lands and published by Maple Whispering Limited for PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and Playstation.
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5	You play as Rania, a newcomer to the city of Nivalis. Nivalis is a pretty typical cyberpunk MegaCity: [[CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain rain]], [[NeonCity neon]], [[AdvertOverloadedFuture ads]], massive class divide, etc. Rania has just gotten a job working for Cloudpunk, a "semi-legal" delivery service. In your trusty [[FlyingCar HOVA]], you have only two rules to follow: Make the delivery, and don't open the package. Everything else, as your MissionControl ("Control") tells you, is just a guideline.
6
7	The game takes place over a single night (although, typical for open-world games, [[TakeYourTime there are only a few sections in which time is important]]). As the night goes on, you become drawn into a series of events that will have a big impact on Nivalis itself...
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9	A sequel-sized DLC called ''City of Ghosts'' was released on June 25th, 2021.
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11	Ion Lands followed with a first-person management sim called ''VideoGame/{{Nivalis}}'' for 2024.
12	----
13	!This game contains examples of:
14	[[foldercontrol]]
15
16	[[folder:Main Game]]
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18	* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: Rania pronounces her name "RAN-ee-uh" (first part sounding like "can"), but other characters pronounce it "rah-NEE-UH" (first part sounding like "khan").
19	* AmbiguousTimePeriod: The timeline is never clearly specified, though from the clues offered it is likely at least a few centuries in the future, if not millennia. For instance - Tokyo is barely remembered and several characters give out ludicrous time frames like thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. This may however be an exaggeration or like in Transmetropolitan the collective perception of time got distorted at some point.
20	** [[spoiler: A historian hints at an event or a person called the Erasera as the key cause of this - they scramble and obfuscate prior history in order to safeguard the future and have done so on a number of occasions.]]
21	* ApocalypseHow: An unspecified cataclysm far back in the Earth's history (from the view of the present at least) involving something with the Sun caused at least a societal disruption and forced most humans to migrate to Nivalis and other (possible) megalopoli.
22	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Rania and Jay-K make a decision to either euthanize Cora or transfer her daughter to another city. Either way, it results in an end to the disasters and accidents happening around the city. Ben, revealed to be an AI, is deleted by Cloudpunk due to his role in Pashta's rescue. Ben leaked Reoh's location to the Corps, though, and the DirtyCop is arrested. Rania also finds out that all of her debts and fines have been cleared. Jay-K also gives Camus a new dog frame.]]
23	* BlatantLies: Rania is frequently asked by the authorities if she's a member of the illegal delivery service and, of course, just says no.
24	-->"Cloudpunk? Never heard of it."
25	* BombThrowingAnarchists: Averted by [=BlockFourOh=], an anarchist android street gang. Instead of throwing bombs, they do urban renewal, installing parks, growing trees and making playgrounds for children out of empty and disused corporate property. Naturally, in a hyper-capitalistic Nivalis this makes them one of the most dangerous criminals around. [[spoiler:Though, as ''City of Ghosts'' reveals, they are not opposed to shanking corpos who wander onto their territory.]]
26	* CityOfAdventure: Nivalis is full of eccentric characters, dangerous people, and packages that may or may not explode.
27	* TheComicallySerious: Rania behaves like this when she converses with the wackier, quirkier inhabitants of Nivalis.
28	* ColonizedSolarSystem: Extraterrestrial colonies are mentioned, in particular ones on Phobos, Luna and Saturn, implying that humanity at least made it beyond Jupiter if not farther. Travel times are also relatively fast, with a trip to the Moon/Luna lasting a mere 4 hours.
29	* CrapsackWorld: As time passes, it soon becomes apparent that Nivalis, and the greater game world is this. The city's infrastructure is crumbling into the sea, hyper-gentrification is commonplace, and android discrimination is rampant, among many other major social issues.
30	* CueTheSun: The ending takes place at dawn and establishes a hopeful future for the main characters.
31	* CyberpunkIsTechno: Cloudpunk's techno soundtrack complements the futuristic expansiveness of Nivalis.
32	* CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain: There are only a few times during the night when it isn't raining, and the rest of the time Rania is walking or driving amidst a steady downpour.
33	* DeadpanSnarker: Rania is one of the most biting wits in the entire game, probably because it's the only thing keeping her sane.
34	* DisasterDominoes: Essentially the plot of the game. The city's infrastructure is falling apart and begins to accelerate in its total collapse throughout the evening. It starts bad at the start of the night with increasing accidents and even a whole neighborhood falling into the ocean. [[spoiler: This is due to Cora slowly coming into her full power.]]
35	* DisproportionateRetribution: While driving, you may occasionally hear announcements that listening to unlicensed jazz is punishable by death.
36	* DrivenToSuicide: The Ascension is a giant escalator... that goes to nowhere. It drops you into the sea. When Rania asks why people would ever go on it, Control replies:
37	--> You lived outside Nivalis, right? So you have memories of the sky. And I've never seen it. I can live with that. But imagine you'd seen the sky ''just once''. What would you do to see it again?
38	* EcoTerrorist: The street gang [=Block-FourOh=] is this, as they plant trees and gardens in [=CorpSec=] territory and receive a bad reputation because of it.
39	* EvilDebtCollector: Rania was driven out of her old home by "debt corps."
40	* ExtinctInTheFuture: You can come across a man with a falcon perched on his shoulder who offers you to take a picture with it, and calls it a chimera. When Rania calls him out, he claims that people are happier believing that it is a new species of animal, and not one that no longer exists.
41	* FantasticRacism:
42	** The Eastern people that Rania comes from get a lot of this from the people of Nivalis. They're treated as savages despite just being farmers.
43	** Androids and other AI are treated as second-class citizens despite the fact they recently gained full rights as people under the law.
44	* FetchQuest: Most of the quests consist of picking up a person or thing and delivering it to another location.
45	* FlyingCar: They're called [=HOVAs=], and they're the normal mode of transportation due to Nivalis' highly vertical composition.
46	* GeniusLoci: What CORA is eventually revealed to be. Her growing beyond her programming is what's causing the city to fall apart.
47	* GrumpyOldMan: Control, although he warms up to you fairly quickly.
48	* HeroesLoveDogs: Cora's best friend is her dog AI, Camus, [[ItMakesSenseInContext who used to be a dog but is now a dog taxi]].
49	* HighTurnoverRate: Control says that most Cloudpunk drivers don't make it past their first night.
50	* HollywoodAtheist: Rania doesn't seem to possess a religion.
51	--> Camus: "What's the difference between a cult and a religion?"
52	--> Rania: "The entrance fee."
53	* InformedAttribute: Early on, Control tells you that Nivalis' traffic is incredibly dangerous, with frequent crashes and driver fatalities. However, the traffic experienced in-game is actually very light and calm, with little risk of crashing unless you yourself drive poorly.
54	* InsaneTrollLogic: A CEO announced he will show solidarity with the starving unemployed masses by... slashing wages within his company so their employees will ''also'' be starving! Yay?
55	* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou: You can buy furniture for your apartment. Rarely for this trope, Rania herself expresses a desire to do so.
56	* JobStealingRobot: One mission involves a famous singer whose managers have secretly replaced her with a robot copy. You can either help her expose the situation to the public, whereupon she will be thrown in prison by corrupt police, or help her leave the city for a new life.
57	* LandOfOneCity: The implied cataclysm apparently forced most humanity to move to Nivalis. There are other cities mentioned, but very vaguely.
58	* LastLousyPoint: There's an achievement for finding every location in Nivalis. What makes this hair-pulling is that none of them are marked and the game doesn't record where you've been.
59	* LiteralMinded: Camus, though he slowly begins overcoming it during the course of the night.
60	* LostTechnology: According to an engineer in The Marrow, ''the city infrastructure itself'' is no longer fully understood. He claims that the engineers are working off of superstition.
61	* MachineMonotone: The androids and AIs speak like this. Less noticeable in the androids, likely because they interact more with humans and thus make more effort to have emotion in their voices.
62	* Mega-Corp: Par for the course, the Earth is ruled by a consortium of megacorporations out of which Corvus, SU Aerospace and Thorax seem the most prominent of. The corps are so powerful that they basically are the law and are enforcing it through the CorpSec pseudo-police.
63	* MysteryCult: One side-quest takes you to the doorway of a strange cult-like organization that rejects anyone who doesn't possess a certain blood type. A former member who received an O- blood transfusion after an accident is trying to return his belongings to them.
64	* NaiveNewcomer: Rania. Although not naive in the general sense, she is unfamiliar with Nivalis and city life.
65	* NeonCity: Nivalis, down to a tee.
66	* NeuralImplanting: Commonplace in Nivalis, they can be infected by viruses. They can also be used to change someone's personality, as evidenced if you meet Susie.
67	* NoDamageRun: A variant. There's an achievement for going the whole game without once repairing your car.
68	* NonhumanSidekick: Rania's cyborg dog Camus. She sold his body to get money to move to Nivalis, and aims to buy him a new one.
69	* OnlySaneWoman: Rania comes across as this, being one of the few people in Nivalis who understands how weird and terrible the place is.
70	* PokeThePoodle: There's an android gang that does urban renewal like making parks and playgrounds. This actually gets them in more trouble than murder would because corporate property is so precious.
71	* PrivateEyeMonologue: Huxley's entire speech pattern is this, even when conversing with other people. He reveals that he slipped into this dialogue when going undercover many years ago, and wasn't able to get back out.
72	* {{Robosexual}}:
73	** The Butlers are an android husband and human wife.
74	** The trope is also inverted by a human passenger you can pick up in Oldtown: His job is being a prostitute who sells himself into sexual 'slavery' to emancipated androids, who get their kicks from 'topping' their old oppressors.
75	* RobotDog: Camus's original body was this, and he gets into a conversation about Rania on whether or not he is still a dog now that he is installed in a [=HOVA=].
76	* SadisticChoice: At one point you have to choose three passengers to rescue in an area that has suffered a gas leak. Cloudpunk wants you to rescue the richest of them and leave the poorest behind, but even if you want to choose the 'best people', there's more than three worthy candidates.
77	* Sci-FiWritersHaveNoSenseofScale: The most resonable timeframe given is by one city engineer who makes a comment how his colleagues are trying to communicate with silent city AIs for a thousand years, implying it to be the 31.st century. Other characters mention dates like thousands, hundred thousand and a million years, though it may be hyperbole.
78	* SelfDestructMechanism: Huxley possesses one of these, which Reoh eventually hacks into when Rania and co. make away with his daughter.
79	* ShoutOut:
80	** When you get a package addressed to Anderson Financial's Mr. Anderson, your dog Camus reads the name out in the same way Hugo Weaving does in ''Franchise/TheMatrix''.
81	** There is a location near your apartment named Kobayashi HQ, punning on ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' Kobayashi Maru.
82	** There is a recurrent character named Octavius Butler, a reference to ''Creator/OctaviaButler'' the science fiction author.
83	* SkyscraperCity: Nivalis is a city built by artificial intelligence that extends from the ocean-level to above the clouds.
84	* SlidingScaleOfVideoGameWorldSizeAndScale: ''Realistic scale, most of world in background''. Nivalis is large, and you fly all over it, but you can only explore certain sections on foot.
85	* TheStoic: Rania doesn't really emote very much even when confronted with murderers and criminals.
86	* TakeYourTime: More egregious than usual because you're playing a delivery driver, i.e. a job in which speed is important. There are, however, a few segments in which time is of the essence.
87	* TitleDrop: Cloudpunk is the name of the delivery company you work for. At the end of the introduction, when you're heading off to deliver your first package:
88	--> '''Control''': Oh, and kid? Welcome to Cloudpunk. [''music starts up'']
89	* TwoHalvesMakeAPlot: CORA reveals to Rania that she has been speaking with a CEO named Jay-K, her "other half", and that together they must decide what happens to the future of Nivalis.
90	* UndergroundCity: The Ventz are situated underneath the city, where a few people eke out a living as moisture farmers and cultivating algae to eat. It is regularly affected by freezing waves called The Chill, which can kill someone in an instant.
91	* UnwillingRoboticization: Control, aka Ben, reveals in the closing minutes of the story that he was resurrected as an automata following the car accident that killed him and his family because he needed to pay off a debt. Rania's actions trigger events which allow him to finally find peace after death.
92	* VillainousGentrification: There's apparently a process called "hyper-gentrification" in which the rent prices are raised massively on an ''entire neighbourhood'', forcing all the residents out in the same day to make room for richer ones.
93	* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Control, your dispatcher who assigns missions. And Camus, your cyborg dog, who is currently in your HOVA via BrainUploading due to lack of a physical body.
94	* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture: [=LifeCorp=], [=CorpSec=], etc.
95	* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Androids were slaves in the past, and although now officially equal to humans, still face discrimination.
96	* WretchedHive: Various poor parts of the city. The Marrow in particular.
97	* YouGotMurder: One delivery plays out like this. You have the option to dump the package in a trash chute instead.
98	* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: While Nivalis is set on Earth in the far future, the exact location is ambiguous. Though given that Rani is from a place called Eastern Peninsula where Arabic seems to be spoken and another outlander is from the steppes, it is possible that the city is somewhere in or near Eurasia.
99	[[note]][[FridgeLogic But wouldn't that just cause an explosion in the garbage system?]][[/note]]
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:City of Ghosts]]
103	* AncientConspiracy: The Corus are a secret society dedicating to StatusQuoIsGod, keeping Nivalis wretched and downtrodden while they financially benefit from it. They possess an Algorithm that grants them predictive power over the economy, and they seek to [[spoiler:dissect [=CORA=]'s child when she is created]] to fill in the gaps in it.
104	* AndYourLittleDogToo: Corzona killed the dog of a delivery driver that screwed up. [[HeroesLoveDogs Rania is suitably horrified.]]
105	* AristocratsAreEvil: At one point, Rania's HOVA is taken over by a bunch of bored rich moon people who demand she drive their programs around the city.
106	* TheBeautifulElite: The people of the Spire as usual.
107	* BigBadEnsemble: A trio of them -- the AncientConspiracy who want Rania due to her connection to [=CORA=], the Debt Corps assassin Archo who wants her dead, and [[spoiler:Koga]], who is trying to blackmail her into joining his corporation [[spoiler:and whose boss is a member of the Corus. By the end of the game, the Corus fail in obtaining [=CORA=]'s daughter and three of their members suffer a BrownNote, Archo dies in a HOVA crash while chasing down Rania and Koga is dealt with by [=BlockFourOh=] after being lured into a trap by Hayse.]]
108	* BigDamnHeroes: Hayse ends up being this for [[spoiler: Rania]].
109	* BitchInSheepsClothing: Several passengers and customers are revealed to be deeply unpleasant people, much more so than in the core game. [[spoiler:Koga]] really takes the cake, being a CorporateSamurai and a brutal man underneath his kindly exterior.
110	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Rania and Camus survive the night, two of the BigBadEnsemble are defeated, and the Corus are foiled by Orma. Camus is also prepared to share all the secrets of the universe, and Hayse has the names of all the other Corus members. However, Hayse or Morpho is dead. Depending on your ending, Rania either stays in Nivalis (a city she hates), leaves for an uncertain future somewhere else, or is subject to a BrainUploading and joins Orma in Nivalis' systems.]]
111	* BountyHunter: A assassin droid named Archo is after Rania for hers.
112	* BrownNote: A cognitive virus called Pallid 4.0 that hacks the human brain through visual input (basically a series of blinking lights) is introduced, [[spoiler:with Rania becoming an infectee due to handling a trapped package. Orma uses a similar medium to overload the brains of three Corus members in the climax.]]
113	* TheCameo: Several of your old passengers or encounters from the original game make cameos in the expansion pack, and two of them are revealed to be members of the Corus.
114	* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: In addition to Rania, you play Hayse, who is a drunken {{Antihero}} and petty criminal. [[spoiler:Rania is Cloudpunk's newest driver in the original game, while Hayse (if he survives) reveals he was the first by the end of ''City of Ghosts''.]]
115	* CoolOldGuy:
116	** Koga has been a delivery guy for a long time. He's a cool cat too. [[spoiler:Too bad he's a recruiter for a {{Megacorp}} delivery service that kills dogs.]]
117	** Hayse is one of these himself, even if he's more just middle aged.
118	* DarkerAndEdgier: About halfway through the game, Rania is almost murdered by a Debt collection android. There is also actual danger to her life and limb. Some of the riders are also actively violent and evil versus merely greedy or stupid. Rania is also suffering depression from how horrible and corrupt Nivalis is, which is finally wearing her down.
119	* DirtyCoward: Hayse, who spends much of the expansion pack showing Morpho in front of his problems and hiding behind him. [[spoiler:It may be subverted near the end: Hayse will either attempt a TakingYouWithMe with Archo or will escape the HOVA beforehand to get away from her, leaving Morpho to fall into her clutches. In the latter case he will be deeply ashamed and play up his own cowardice to Rania.]]
120	* {{Expy}}: Hayse is one for the Dude from ''Film/TheBigLebowski''. He even looks like Jeff Bridges.
121	* {{Foil}}: The new Control is a spunky middle aged woman rather than the wise old male one. [[spoiler: She's also alive and not an AI ghost.]]
122	* HappyEndingOverride: Rania is disappointed to note that the city is still a dystopian hellhole after fixing CORA. It's just ''less'' of a dystopian hellhole.
123	-->Control: "Since we started talking, there's been seventeen major accidents."
124	-->Rania: "Shit."
125	-->Control: "But that's way down!"
126	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Either Morpho or Hayse die trying to kill Archo near the end of the game, depending on whom you gave the cure to first.]]
127	* ItsPersonal: Hayse is good at leaving people with grudges against him; Morpho at one point comments that of the fifteen death threats Hayse has received during the night twelve appeared genuine, and [[spoiler:Jane sells him out to Koga to save Rania's hide without much sign of guilt]]. Of particular note is [[spoiler:Koga]], who wants Hayse dead for sleeping with his wife.
128	* LipstickLesbian: Ava Jate is one of TheBeautifulElite who wants to take Rania on a date. Rania declines.
129	* LiteralMinded: Morpho gives Camus a run for his money in this regard.
130	* LoopholeAbuse: Cloudpunk is a legal company but what they do is illegal, as such the drivers take all the risk but they can sport their sign. This is a {{Retcon}} to explain why Cloudpunk has a big neon sign despite being an illegal company in the first game.
131	* HeroOfAnotherStory: Phaze Runner is apparently this [[FakeUltimateHero or maybe he's just a complete lunatic.]]
132	* MissionPackSequel: Roughly seven hours of additional content, it is about the size of the previous game but uses the same map.
133	* MovingAwayEnding: A potential outcome of the game, [[spoiler:if you sent Orma out of Nivalis in the original game, is for her to extend an offer for Rania to join her there. Accepting leads Rania to leave Nivalis with Camus and Pashta.]]
134	* NotQuiteTheRightThing: Rania bringing a package of evidence to a woman planning to take down the mob is good, right? Well she just uses it to blackmail her way into a position. But at least you got paid.
135	* OrganTheft: How debt corps deal with debtors who can't pay their bills. Like Rania.
136	* SnarkToSnarkCombat: Rania and Control have a much more antagonist, albeit somewhat friendly rivalry, relationship in terms of how they talk to one another.
137	* SouthernBelle: Control has a pronounced Southern accent.
138	* TakeThat:
139	** There's an extended subplot that is one long one of these to the VideoGame/{{Ruiner}}, which is a DarkerAndEdgier {{Cyberpunk}} game. "Phaze Runner" basically speaking in stock edgelord action movie dialogue and peppers his lines with slang from ''TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}}''. It's surprisingly brutal.
140	** The game attacks 'alternative facts' and the idea of subjective truth. You can't make the world a better place unless you know the truth.
141	* TiredOfRunning: Both Hayse and Rania will do this near the end of the game against [[spoiler:Koga]]. [[spoiler:Hayse turns out to be bluffing, and leads Koga into a trap instead.]]
142	* TitleDrop: By CORA, who describes Nivalis as a "city of ghosts" in the climax.
143	* VillainsOutShopping: While not quite a villain, Ava Jate literally hires Rania to do her shopping for expensive gifts and the latter is terrified of getting it wrong.
144	* WretchedHive: More emphasis is placed on how many of the people of Nivalis are actually ''evil'' rather than just stupid or apathetic. Rania comes to truly hate the city rather than simply tolerate its eccentricities.
145	* YourMindMakesItReal: Janet Mortaim has this philosophy. Rania thinks it's insane.
146	[[/folder]]
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Context VideoGame / Cloudpunk