If you’re a fan of survival and crafting, 2024 has been an absolute treat so far. We’ve already had it Enveloped And Palworldand a new early access candidate just surfaced: Nightingale. Nightingale doesn’t have a strong and immediate hook like it Palworldand it also doesn’t have some of the quality of life features available in Enveloped. What this game does have is an impeccable sense of style and art direction, and that’s the lifeline I clung to during my first few brutal hours with the game.
Nightingale combines the kind of environments you’d expect from a survival game – green forests, mysterious deserts and swampy swamps – with Victorian aesthetics, high fantasy and elves. I am a Realmwalker and I made a pact with an elven guide named Puck. Something called the Pale, a space between worlds, enveloped and froze the Earth. Some Realmwalkers were able to flee through portals, but became lost in an unknown realm. The player is one of these refugees; I get to pick the details of their past lives and upbringings before everything turned apocalyptic.
Luckily I have a little elf to help me. Nightingale starts with a tutorial, in which Puck teaches me how to build, craft, find shelter and kill animals. I jump from a forest to a desert to a swamp and see some of the sights the procedurally generated realms have to offer. The main thing I’m learning is Realm cards, which fit into a strange machine that looks like an old movie projector. This allows me to jump to new places and customize everything from the biome I end up in to the danger I can expect.
Image: Inflexion Games
It’s important to note that Nightingale currently requires players to be online even when playing solo. More than once I’ve gotten into trouble, only to disconnect or experience server issues on the game side. It’s a major claim that the fanbase has from the game’s launch, and if you read the reviews, it’s a big part of the reason why the game has a “Mixed” review score on Steam. Developer Inflexion Games is working on an offline modebut for now I’m at the mercy of the game’s servers. Nightingale is a Steam Early Access game, which means some of these issues will likely be resolved before the launch of version 1.0.
When things actually work and I can dive in Nightingale, I immediately start encountering things that inspire a sense of awe. For example, I’m startled by a gigantic treant-like creature that drags itself along on spindly side arms. As I watch carefully, the thing stops and poops out a pile of sticks that prove useful in making my first set of tools. In a wooded area I come across a gigantic spectral moose that shines with astral power.
Each realm is littered with strange structures, some of which exist in bubbles free from gravity. Some of the buildings I encounter look man-made, while others seem strange and strange. I find alien-looking growths, glowing from within with great power, or ancient artifacts that have been abandoned and overgrown. Nightingale dripping with style; even the almost obligatory addition of a glider has been spiced up a bit, and I’m using a Mary Poppins-style umbrella instead.
All these virtues are desperately needed, because the first part of Nightingale exiting the tutorial is slow and laborious. I had to start building a base, preparing craft benches, and getting a solid food supply going. These are all standard survival tasks, and Inflexion Games hasn’t quite mastered the process of making them feel good. Take cutting down a tree, one of the most basic survival activities possible. I hack at the trunk, which splinters more with each swing, until it pops free from the stump and bounces in place before exploding into resources. If you compare it to a game like Sons of the forest or Valheimwhere felling a tree leads to a good representation of physics, where the trunk falls and falls, it falls short.
Image: Inflexion Games
It feels like a small thing, but Nightingale is worthless with these little issues. When you hit a rock with a pick, it explodes outward into resources; the awkward animations continually ruin the beautiful immersion built by the game’s environments and design. I also noticed that I was constantly running into minor quality of life issues, like my crossbow not reloading automatically. An extra click doesn’t seem like much, but when I’m kiting a pack of wolves it can be the difference between life and death.
Character creation is another process that doesn’t feel quite right. When I created a character, I was greeted with ready-made faces to use as a starting template, most of which were lumpy and strange. Admittedly, I’d rather have a face full of character that looks like it was carved from a ham than a smooth and perfect doll face… but it takes a bit of playing with levers and adjustments to create a photogenic protagonist.
The first few hours after the tutorial are a bit slow, and I see players dropping out during this phase – but once I had my base properly set up and I started delving into new realms to explore and loot, Nightingale became really intriguing. This game is slow to start and there are still some issues to be ironed out in early access, but the art style and direction do a tremendous job of keeping me invested. I’d like to see more of it Nightingale and keep delving into new worlds, even if it’s an uphill battle to get to the good stuff.