Nightingale Preview – A Land of Magic, Mystery and Otherworldly Realms

Nightingale, developed by Inflexion Games, was originally announced at The Game Awards, surprising and impressing fans in equal measure. Some of the footage shown gave it a very Bioshock: Infinite feel, which is no bad thing, but after a hands-off preview at Gamescom 2023, we can safely say this is incredibly wide of the mark, and the game will surprise many in what you can and will want to do.

Nightingale’s Pretty Ambitious…

During the forty five or so minutes we spent with Nightingale, it felt like there was a constant barrage of new and important information being thrown our way. Neil Thompson, Art Director and Head of Audio for the studio and game, took his time with the game and explaining the many facets, but it still felt like a crash course, one which come Early Access release, will definitely need some heavy tutorialising.

That’s not a complaint though, as the game has a huge abundance of content, from building, scavenging, looting, inventory management, crafting, survival elements, hunting, realm traversal and more, but a lot of those mechanics that we saw on offer were well-polished.

Nightingale features both first and third-person modes, but after seeing not only the character creation at play, but also the amount of outfits, weapons etc available, it’d be a shame to waste all your time and effort to lock it behind a first-person view. The character creation is so detailed that you can customise the look, colour and shape of your avatar’s eyelashes, for example.

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This eye (ha) for detail isn’t where the game stops though, with seemingly every little part of the environment painstakingly designed, from the trees to the character models and more, it looks beautiful, and that includes the – sometimes gigantic – enemies, Gods and other living creatures. One of the interesting bits of information Neil disclosed was the pacifist nature of the wildlife in the game, where unless provoked, you won’t have any issues with those living creatures nearby. The game’s main enemies though, ‘The Bound’ are another matter entirely.

Generally appearing as you, the player, attempt to go through dungeons, create and open portals and more, they are warped and featureless in appearance, but look to be quick and damaging. Considering creating portals to other realms is one of the mainstays of the game, this could prove a troublesome and regular enemy you encounter.

Realms and realm cards are arguably the biggest part of Nightingale, with the game offering a “near limitless” assortment of realms, with different biomes and different approaches required by the player. In a desert realm? Prepare to get tired, thirsty and your stamina will be sapped by the sun. Swamp? Your progress will be hampered by the soggy environment. That’s just two of the biomes currently on offer, with many more to come according to the developers.

One of the more unique travel mechanics in a game we’ve seen ever, and certainly at Gamescom this year, was the Realm cards employed in Nightingale. The closest I could compare it to would be the chevrons in Stargate, with a combination required to take you to a destination. That same basis is here in Nightingale, however the destination is random, the realm you end up in ‘procedurally assisted’, as the developers called it, regarding generation of the realm, and the possibilities nearly endless. You, the player, will lay down a combination of cards and then it’ll take you to the “closest possible variation”. It points towards a game that could have infinite replayability, but Early Access will be able to answer that far better than a hands-off at Gamescom could.

The aforementioned Gods are involved quite heavily, with players able to offer sacrifices to them, in the hope of receiving impressive loot. If they like the sacrifice, usually some sort of item, you’ll receive something in return… if they don’t. Well, prepare to fight a gigantic God that’s got lots of health and can one-hit you. We found ourselves glad to be watching the three developers attempt to fight – and only succeeding ironically thanks to God mode -, rather than it being ourselves. It does look like the game will feature multiple Gods for you and your friends to placate or murder, but be warned, the local wildlife may not take kindly to your actions there.

Related: Gamescom 2023: Nightingale gets New Trailer Showcasing Colossal Denizens and now has Early Access Release Date!

The Freedom, Customisation and Immersion is Ridiculously Good

Nightingale allows players a huge amount of freedom in what they do. As well as the character creation, players are able to choose their home realm, in which they can build and create a base of sorts. This base can be destroyed, rebuilt and upgraded at a moment’s notice, with the crafting and building mechanics seemingly very intuitive, with no restrictions as to what and where could be built upon.

Within seconds Neil Thompson had crafted a simple house, with lamps, stairs, windows and a roof, with each piece snapping and connecting to the last one with ease. With multiple ‘architectural tiles’ available, the customisation in building is massive too, and one the developers promised to support long after launch.

You can go from having a Pagoda styled house to a Viking-themed building with the click of a button, and with players able to customise and destroy one another’s work, it looks like there will be plenty of arguments between friends.

Far from the centre-piece of Nightingale, but still important is the lore of the world, which as Neil Thompson was discussing it, seemed to permeate every facet of the game. There’s humans, evil spectres, supernatural Fae and otherworldly Gods, and much more on offer. Players can take the time to investigate the world, talk to NPCs, find notes and more if they want to immerse themselves, or they can spend their days cutting down trees and building wooden skyscrapers, with a room for every type of ornament you can imagine.

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There’s not much you can’t do in Nightingale, and as good and polished as it looked, this could end up being the game’s undoing. Sometimes too much is exactly that, and with the game nearing Early Access, it’ll be interesting to see if the developers can stick the landing on the many different facets involved in the game, or if they’ll end up with one or two stand-out ones, surrounded by lots of average. However, one thing is for certain. It will never get old gliding with an umbrella like a Victorian Mary Poppins.

For now Nightingale is purely a PC-release, but when asked regarding future console releases, the answer was “Maybe.”, so for those console players out there interested in Nightingale, don’t despair, there are possibilities.

What do you think of Nightingale so far? Will you be jumping on board? Let us know in the comments!

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