Nightingale Preview

Typically, I keep an eye on survival games; they’re a genre I enjoy playing, but more often than not, I find them all a little too similar. I’ve been following the development of Nightingale since its World Premiere back in 2022, as it looked as though it was going to make some interesting changes to the formula, and after some time with it, I can comfortably say that is the case.

The world-building feels far more developed than a lot of its competition; taking place in a Victorian-era world, Earth fell to a disaster known simply as “The Pale”. People escaped into other Realms, some of which were inhabited by the Fae, including Puck, who helps you get to grips with the alternate Realms you explore. This fantasy setting is made more impressive thanks to the stellar visual design.

At its core, Nightingale is still a survival game, so you can expect the usual grind. Like most in the survival genre, there’s a lot of chopping trees, hunting wildlife, and hitting rocks. You’ll spend a lot of your time building, and there are a lot of quality-of-life changes in Nightingale compared to other titles which make this much less of a hassle. The biggest change for me was being able to place the outlines for all of your pieces before adding the resources, which makes building incredibly fluid. Across the world, you can also find a multitude of small points of interest, from enemy-occupied areas to bastilles, which contain different puzzles and challenges. These all reward essence, which can be spent on learning new blueprints and upgrading tools and clothing.

The more interesting content can be found around the different Realms, from Fae Towers to Sites of Power. These all act as mini-dungeons, with combat encounters, loot, and traps strewn around. The combat is solid, with attacks all feeling very weighty, yet enemy AI could use a little improvement: enemies don’t have any interesting strategies, and mostly they either run at you or awkwardly circle around you. Ranged combat is mostly solid, however aiming feels a little floaty, and shots don’t seem to go straight all the time (this might however be a skill issue…). Fae Towers specifically reward Synchronous Lotus’ which allow you to craft unique Fae-themed items and structures, such as Portals. These are tied to the main exploration mechanic: Realm-walking. As you explore and clear Sites of Power, you’ll learn to craft many realm cards with unique effects. Realms are created by combining a Biome Card — either a Desert, Swamp, or Forest — and a Realm card, which have differing difficulty tiers, which affect your rewards. You can also find Realmic Transmuters, which can be used to add different modifiers to the realm you’re in. These can range from increasing your damage, but increasing your weight and limiting your movement, to plunging the Realm into an eternal night, increasing resource gains, but making you take damage over time. Sites of Power also unlock buildable Augmentations, which can be placed near crafting stations to unlock new blueprints.

It isn’t perfect, as an Early Access title it lacks optimisation in some areas, from the occasional frame drops and sending my GPU’s fans spinning through the roof. It also is stuck as an always-online title, even when played solo, which makes the already long loading times even longer. There are also a few awkward-looking or entirely missing animations, such as the doors and trees falling, but it’s nothing that ruins the experience or immersion. Despite these few issues, Nightingale looks as if it might carve out a very good niche for itself.

With a charming world and a unique story, Nightingale has made a great start with its launch into Early Access, with a variety of content, and a bunch more to come in the future.