Soundtrack and Audio

Soundtrack and Audio

The soundtrack for Nivalis is composed by Harry Critchley, who works in-house at ION LANDS. Critchley previously composed the music for Cloudpunk and its City of Ghosts expansion, producing over 109 minutes of original music across those two releases. For Nivalis, the soundtrack is expected to be "very long," produced exclusively for the game over the course of its multi-year development.

Musical Style

The official description of the Nivalis soundtrack calls it a "unique cyberpunk genre-driven score blending warm analog synthesis with sweeping cinematic melodies." In practical terms, this means the music sits at the intersection of ambient electronic music and more structured cinematic composition. Analog synthesizers provide the warmth and texture, while melodic elements give individual tracks a sense of identity and emotional direction.

The Cloudpunk soundtrack established a sonic palette that fans of that game will recognize: atmospheric synth pads, pulsing basslines, and melodies that evoke both loneliness and wonder. Nivalis builds on that foundation but pushes it further. Where Cloudpunk's music was often about flying through the city at night (a sense of movement and altitude), Nivalis needs music that works for street-level life: the bustle of a market, the quiet of a fishing trip, the tension of a late-night negotiation, the calm of decorating your apartment.

The soundtrack uses what could be described as vacillating reverb synth for atmosphere. Long, evolving synth textures create a bed of sound that shifts slowly beneath the gameplay, responding to context without demanding attention. This approach works well for a game where the player spends long stretches walking, cooking, managing businesses, or exploring the waterways. The music supports the mood without fighting for the player's focus.

Connection to Cloudpunk's Sound

Having the same composer work across Cloudpunk, City of Ghosts, and Nivalis gives the entire series a consistent audio identity. Instruments, mixing choices, and production techniques carry over, creating a sonic through-line that ties the games together even when the gameplay is completely different. A player who spent hours in the Cloudpunk HOVA listening to Critchley's synth work will feel a sense of continuity when they step into the streets of Nivalis and hear a related but evolved sound.

That said, Nivalis has different demands. Cloudpunk was primarily an aerial game with a clear narrative structure. Its music could follow a more linear emotional arc. Nivalis is open-ended and player-directed. The music needs to work across a wider range of activities and moods, from the stress of a dinner rush to the meditative calm of an early-morning boat trip. Critchley has had years to develop music that fits these varied contexts, and the length of the soundtrack reflects that variety.

Sound Design

Beyond the music, Nivalis relies heavily on environmental sound design to build atmosphere. The city is a noisy, layered place, and the audio reflects that. At street level, you hear the hum of electrical systems, the chatter of pedestrians, the sizzle of food stalls, the distant rumble of trains, and the ever-present patter of rain on metal and concrete. The lower city in particular has a dense sonic texture that reinforces the feeling of being enclosed in a tight, vertical space.

The waterways have a completely different soundscape. Take your boat out onto the water and the street noise fades. You hear the lapping of waves against the hull, the echo of distant machinery bouncing off the support pillars, and the occasional splash of something moving beneath the surface. The contrast between the busy streets and the quieter waterways is one of the game's most effective atmospheric techniques.

Weather also shapes the audio. Rain changes everything: the constant drumming on rooftops and awnings, the splashing of footsteps in puddles, the muffled quality of voices trying to be heard over the downpour. Thunderstorms add another layer with rolling thunder and the crack of lightning. Snow brings something closer to silence, dampening the usual city noise and creating a hushed, muted atmosphere. The weather system is as much an audio experience as a visual one.

Voice Acting

While not part of the soundtrack itself, the voice acting in Nivalis deserves mention as a major component of the game's audio. With over 200,000 words of dialogue across 135-plus fully voiced characters, the voice performances are a constant presence. ION LANDS held over 8,000 auditions to cast more than 100 speaking roles, and the resulting performances give each character a distinct vocal identity. Accents, speech rhythms, verbal habits, and emotional range all vary from character to character.

Motion capture sessions at Mocaplab in Paris (with actors including Christel Wallois and Florian Hutter) added physical performance data to complement the voice recordings. The combination of voice acting and motion capture aims to make the game's characters feel like real people rather than text-delivery systems. The voice acting is in English only, with text localization available in 11 languages.

Audio Summary