Cloudpunk's cockpit update puts a camera behind the steering wheel
Mind if I order a cab?
Ah, the hum of your hover-engine beneath your feet. The pitter-patter of rain on the windshield. The light glow of the GPS as your dispatch screen lights up. Until now, I could only imagine the interior of one of Cloudpunk's blocky hover-cabs. That's all changed with today's Cockpit Update, which puts you right in the drivers seat for a night's shift - briefly cutting fares by a third for passengers who're hopping on for the first time.
I'm afraid you can't put a Baby Yoda on the dashboard in Cloudpunk, soz. Maybe a tiny Rick Deckard, if you ask developers Ion Lands nicely enough?
When it launched earlier this year, Cloudpunk's camera kept a safe distance. Sure, the stratospheric city of Nivalis is gorgeous, but you never quite got a feel for the scale of it all from your drone's eye view. Since then, however, Ion Lands has been messing with different perspectives - starting with a first-person view for the game's many on-foot sections. Cloudpunk was fine enough, but seeing the city from a pedestrian perspective really elevated the game into something special.
Today's update brings the camera in even closer, popping it right in front of your hovercab's dashboard. I do love me a proper good cockpit view - and despite its voxellated look, Cloudpunk's is up there. The rain drizzling on the windshield, distant buildings blurred by the glass as pinpricks of light scatter across the otherwise pitch-black interior. It's a beaut, and adds so much to Cloudpunk's moody midnight vibes.
Even if I ultimately bounced off Cloudpunk's noir narrative, I reckon I'll probably hop back in to drive a few laps from behind the wheel. As part of the update, Cloudpunk is also 33% off on Steam.