Nightwater

About Nightwater

Nightwater is a single player open world management game. It was developed by Studio Ashty and was released on September 18, 2026. It received positive reviews from players.

Forage, craft and automate to grow your factory, unlock new technologies and expand your island to discover new biomes. Progress through the ages from sticks and stones to the Bronze Age, the Industrial Era and into the future to uncover the secret of the Lighthouse and escape this reality.

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Reviews

83%Audience ScoreBased on 58 reviews

graphics4 positive mentions

grinding9 negative mentions

The game offers a relaxing and accessible entry-level experience to automation and incremental genres with forgiving mechanics and simple automation.
The mini-games add variety, challenge, and engaging progression that enhance the overall gameplay and provide permanent buffs beneficial to the main game.
The art style is cute and visually appealing, with smooth gameplay and a polished feel that many players find enjoyable and satisfying.

Automation is limited and basic, making manual crafting often just as efficient or faster, which may disappoint players expecting deep factory building akin to Factorio or Satisfactory.
Some minigames, especially the later ones, suffer from balance issues, repetitiveness, and slow progression, affecting overall enjoyment and pacing.
The story is weak, confusing, or unengaging, and the game lacks quality-of-life features such as better UI/menu handling, hotbars, and improved controller support.

grinding
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
10% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 90% negative mentions
Grinding in the game is somewhat mixed; while early progression and minigames make it engaging and less tedious, the experience becomes increasingly grindy and repetitive from the third biome onward. Automation features offer limited relief and are described as unrewarding, leading to a more monotonous gameplay loop that may only appeal to fans of grind-heavy games.
- “Not too tedious, minigames definitely helped to make it interesting so it wasn't just supply chaining.”
- “The gameplay loop becomes way too grindy starting around the third biome.”
- “The automation is not very rewarding and tedious.”
- “After unlocking 5 areas, it's not an automation game; it turns into a grindy, basic game.”
gameplay
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33% positive mentions, 34% neutral mentions, 33% negative mentions
The gameplay features a visually appealing art style and satisfying automation mechanics reminiscent of popular titles, offering around 15 hours of enjoyable content. However, many users find the core gameplay loop repetitive and grind-heavy, particularly after early stages, leading to a lack of depth and diminished motivation to continue progression. Despite being well-made and polished, the gameplay can become monotonous and less engaging over time.
- “The main world has a decent automation mechanic with machines that will satisfy anyone like myself who enjoys titles such as Satisfactory, Orebound, and Foundry.”
- “There are some quality-of-life additions in the game, such as alternate crafting options for certain mechanics.”
- “In general, it's a good game with 15 hours of satisfying gameplay.”
- “The gameplay loop is way too grindy starting around the third biome.”
- “The repetition of the core gameplay loop starts to get boring after the first-second zone. The game suffers from a lack of depth in its core gameplay mechanics, making progression feel unsatisfying as every step is the same as the last, just with different resources. Well made and polished but ultimately not much fun.”
- “I mostly give up on other automation games because I get headaches from weird concepts or mechanics, or out of boredom.”
story
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33% positive mentions, 17% neutral mentions, 50% negative mentions
The story in this game is generally considered hard to follow and not very engaging, with some players finding it uninteresting or underwhelming, especially toward the end. However, it does not heavily impact gameplay, and a few players found certain parts, like endgame tasks, satisfying. Overall, there is hope that the story will improve in future updates.
- “As for the story, the endgame tasks were genuinely very satisfying.”
- “Supported in demo and loved the story, except the end was a little underwhelming but can't wait to see what comes next.”
- “My only complaint with this game is the story is hard to follow and just not interesting, which isn't that big of a deal considering it doesn't really impact the playability of the game.”
- “The story is not engaging enough to make me care about it.”
- “The story so far is not very engaging, but I hope it will pick up soon.”
graphics
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67% positive mentions, 33% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
The game features a unique and well-polished art style with appealing cel-shaded graphics that many find visually interesting and beautiful. However, some players feel the repetitive gameplay detracts from the overall experience, and a few do not favor the Borderlands-like visual approach. Overall, the graphics are praised for their style and quality but may not enhance the gameplay depth.
- “Interesting game with unique graphics.”
- “I like the cell-shaded graphics and gameplay, especially the mini-games.”
- “Beautiful graphics and plenty of content to fill multiple evenings.”
replayability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 100% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
The game is fun but relatively short, with limited replayability and few incentives to play through multiple times.
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
The game exhibits significant stability issues, with frequent freezes occurring within a short playtime of less than 30 minutes.
- “In not even 30 minutes of playtime, the game froze 5 times.”