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Nimbus INFINITY is an aerial third-person action game developed by GameGrafterTeam and GameTomo, and is a sequel to its 2017 release, Project Nimbus. Like its predecessor, Nimbus INFINITY puts players in control of a powerful mech, known as a "Battle Frame," that is equipped with a suite of weapons and abilities to aid in the fight against enemy forces. This time around, players are tasked with aiding in the fight against Earth's new central, authoritarian government.
This newest entry has been in Steam Early Access since 2022 and while Project Nimbus was met with great reviews, Nimbus INFINITY seemed to leave players feeling mixed. When looking through the feedback provided during this time, players consistently bring attention to audio issues, poor performance, and lackluster gameplay. Addressing these concerns would help Nimbus INFINITY be a strong title in the 3D mech-action genre, which is gaining more attention with FromSoft's Armored Core 6 only months away. Unfortunately, it seems like those issues went unaddressed and have made their way into the full release, and the stuff that's new doesn't fair much better.
Audio & Performance Issues
Despite not having high visual fidelity or dense combat arenas, Nimbus INFINITY really struggles on the technical side. The majority of issues were unstable frame rates during missions that had bullet-hell levels of projectiles flying around, but there were a few crashes as well. What's odd is that the crashes occurred in relatively empty arenas, with the first crash occurring in an arena that's essentially open sky with a few enemies as opposed to arenas before it that had far more enemies, large ships, and a ton of debris.
Surprisingly, the biggest technical issue in Nimbus INFINITY is sound design and mixing, which is somehow way too loud and uncomfortably silent at the same time. Despite being a game about flying robots that are armed to their mechanical teeth, there are little to no sound effects that provide a sense of impact or speed. For example, boosting has no dedicated sound effect, which is not only disappointing on a tactile level, but also leaves players unsure if their boost has engaged or run out during highly chaotic combat. What really makes this an issue is that the audio impacts almost every aspect of the game in ways that are unsatisfying and even detrimental to the game as a whole, especially when it comes to telling its story.
An Uninspired & Poorly Delivered Story
The Nimbus INFINITY tutorial sets everything up well enough, as it introduces Taiyo, a 17-year-old student who sees a Battle Frame fall from the sky. Finding the pilots injured, he is roped into piloting it in order to get them to the hospital, but ends up getting involved in a dog-fight that results in the death of an enemy pilot. Taiyo also finds out that he was piloting a top secret model called "Warspite," and since he has knowledge of its existence and used it in battle, Taiyo is now a part of the greater conflict between the divided human factions. While this marks the beginning of the adventure, it also marks the end of the story's clarity.
Nimbus INFINITY relies on a mix of static cutscenes and in-action dialogue to deliver its narrative. Similar to the cutscene and anime-style of Neon White, Nimbus INFINITY's cutscenes are static 2D text boxes paired with vocal performances and anime-style avatars. However, Nimbus INFINITY's cutscenes exclusively play out in the point-and-click hub area between missions. In-mission, the game tries to deliver crucial story moments through radio communication, but the poor audio mixing and chaotic combat arenas make it nearly impossible to process any of these interactions.
The mix is the worst offender because it prioritizes the game's music over everything else, and the music is loud. Even when adjusting the music slider to just about zero and the speech over halfway, the music was still overpowering the dialogue and obscuring what is likely crucial information. This includes character introductions like the station's captain and the primary antagonist that seemed to have suddenly appeared despite the game treating them like characters the player has already been interacting with. When paired with abrupt transitions between missions, which often cut off dialogue before it finishes, it's honestly hard to say whether the storytelling was messy because of poor writing, poor delivery, or both.
Decent, If Not Limited Combat
Combat is easily the highlight of Nimbus INFINITY, as it's fairly smooth and simple enough to keep the player engaged. Aerial dog-fighting is a very hard style of combat to get right in games because it can be disorienting and difficult to keep track of enemies that are flying at high speeds. To combat this, Nimbus INFINITY gives the player a strong lock-on system for both ranged and melee attacks, which is crucial for combat arenas filled with enemies that are often small and blend into space debris.
To fight these enemies, Warspite is equipped with a sword, four types of guns, and three different "stances." While players are able to customize Warspite's loadout, the sword is always the same. Each gun type has various weapons to choose from that affect stats for damage and stopping power, as well as weight which affects mobility. To account for these loadout changes, players can cycle between combat stances, a la Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Ghost of Tsushima, that either improve speed, offense, or defense. In practice, however, the stances don't feel like they do much, and the strongest loadout is the default one; so, while it's nice to have some options to play around with, there isn't really any benefit in doing so.
Final Thoughts & Rating
It's surprising to see how much Nimbus INFINITY is struggling to deliver the level of polish that Project Nimbus did nearly 6 years ago. Not only that, but it has been in Early Access for over a year and throughout that time, players pointed out the very same issues in this review. This is a team that clearly knows how to make a satisfying mech-based action game, and maybe this will turn into one with some post-launch support, but as it stands now, Nimbus INFINITY is a poorly optimized experience that wasn't ready for a full release.
Source: GameTomo/YouTube
Nimbus INFINITY is available now on PC via Steam. Screen Rant was provided with a Steam digital download for the purpose of this review.