505 Games has apologized for telling players to restart Nivalis Nights when its frame rate falls. The publisher posted that apology under a Steam user review on 29 September 2026, the day the cyberpunk life sim launched.
The advice it was apologizing for had gone out as a near-identical reply under multiple Steam reviews. Steam's own review data shows the same wording posted at least six times on 29 September 2026.
The game is built by ION LANDS and published by 505 Games. It is a quieter corner of a genre better known for Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion, and it sells for $24.99.
What Steam’s review page actually shows
Steam's own tier for Nivalis Nights is "Mostly Positive". Its review summary listed 2,823 user reviews on 3 October 2026, split 2,095 positive and 728 negative.
That is 74 percent positive across all languages. Filtered to English alone, the same summary showed 78 percent positive from 1,966 reviews.
Steam does not yet publish a separate recent-reviews score for the game. That row appears only once a title has a 30-day window distinct from its lifetime total, and the game released on 29 September 2026.
So the picture is a large negative minority rather than a negative tier. Review scores move daily, and these were read on 3 October 2026.
What the developer said about performance
A 505 Games community manager posted a known-issues thread on the game's Steam forum on 29 September 2026. Under performance, it says frame rate "can vary in areas with lots of NPCs".
The post continues: "If you notice performance dropping after several hours of play, restarting the game should help, or try setting your PC's power mode to performance". It then states, "We're continuously working on improving performance".
The apology came in a review reply the same day. "We completely understand how the 'restart your computer' response could have come across as dismissive, and that wasn't our intention," it reads.
Another reply from 29 September 2026 calls performance "a huge pain point for the team at the moment". A further reply on 3 October 2026 says performance "isn't where it needs to be right now".
Two patches landed in the first four days
Update #1 arrived on 1 October 2026. Its announcement says the patch brought "some performance improvements, which we'll continue to monitor and improve over time".
That post promised a light culling system to improve rendering in larger scenes, with the next patch. Update #2 shipped on 2 October 2026 and delivered it as a "Lighting Details" slider that caps how many lights stay active in view.
Update #2 also flags a known issue where fast travel can hurt performance on some systems. The workaround given is to save on arrival and reload that save, and the post says a fix is already being worked on.
Post-launch performance pledges are a familiar pattern on PC. The Blood of Dawnwalker's director confirmed more PC performance improvements were coming, and Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance is set to apply performance lessons from the base game.
The requirements were published before release
The publisher put the full requirements and the price on Steam on 24 September 2026, five days ahead of launch. The numbers are demanding.
Minimum targets 1080p at 30 fps on the "very low" preset, with a GTX 1660 SUPER, RTX 3050, RX 6600 or Arc A750. Recommended targets 1440p at 60 fps on "high", with an RTX 4070 or RX 7800 XT.
Both notes specify native resolution and say no upscaling is used. Steam's feature list for the game does not include DLSS, FSR or XeSS.
The launch announcement also said Steam Deck would not have full support at release. Deck ratings often improve later, as Dragon Age Inquisition's move to Playable after a Proton controller fix shows.
What has not been pinned down
No date has been attached to the remaining performance work. The developer says patches will keep coming "as regularly as possible", without naming a version, a deadline or a target frame rate.
Whether upscaling support will be added is unconfirmed, and no fix date has been given for the fast-travel issue. The review figures and store details here were read on 3 October 2026 and will shift.
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