Nightingale
Release: available in Early Access Available for: PC Genre: Survival Crafting RPG Developer: Inflexion Games Publisher: Inflexion Games
I'm sure everyone involved imagined it subtly differently. Nobody could have known how much Enshrouded would conquer the survival crafting world by the end of January, especially Keen Games themselves. And now comes Inflexion Games, which at least has Bioware nobility in the ranks of its founders with Aaryn Flynn with a comparable title that uses modern Unreal Engine 5 graphics and makes a name for itself with a creative world-changing approach. I know we have a leap year in 2024, but when should you play all of this?
Either way, after Enshrouded now has over two million players and over 50,000 people were playing on Steam at the same time yesterday, it was quite surprising that Nightingale almost caught up on the first evening. Fans of open crafting worlds are having a good laugh right now – if they're not at a loss as to which of these time wasters they should leave behind.
How is Nightingale different from Enshrouded
The difference between Nightingale and Enshrouded lies mainly in the premise, which has an impact on the entire gameplay. While Enshrouded is set in a large, handmade knight-and-sorcerer world that can be demolished stone by stone, the “gas lamp” fantasy Nightingale is all about using so-called “world cards” to open portals to other universes, which are always be generated again procedurally. Except for things you dismantle, the worlds remain as they are.
Depending on what type of cards you use to open a portal, different biomes, inhabitants, threat levels and so on await you. With the supposed goal of eventually finding the way back to the magical city of Nightingale after the earth falls victim to a mysterious catastrophe. I can't yet say how serious a live service game like this is about letting you find Nightingale at some point. But I already find it incredibly exciting to discover all the parallel worlds that are here. The first few I saw so far were visually very different. I'm excited to see what blooms this will produce over time.
Bilder aus Nightingales Early Access
So it's clear that Nightingale is much more adventurous than Enshrouded when it comes to exploration, while the Frankfurt crafting hit with its voxel-based construction system allows for more creative housing, but apart from that seems a little more predictable. Oh, and Enshrouded is played from the third person, while Nightingale is experienced from the first person perspective by default, although the shoulder perspective is also offered as an option. Those would be the core differences.
Everything is connected
Of course that's not everything. In detail, for example, it is noticeable that Nightingale does not seem that ambitious when it comes to creative building projects – instead of individual stones, Inflexion's game relies exclusively on prefabricated components – but does have a few interesting tricks up its sleeve to ensure that the whole thing doesn't become trivial. For example, I am a big fan of building a house based on “The Forest”: you create the outline of your creation as a transparent shadow in the landscape and then throw the missing ingredients into the shadowy placeholder until your creation is finally finished in the landscape. This way you get a good idea of your creation beforehand.
But most of all, I like that you should position your different crafting stations in a way that makes sense. A workbench produces more energy when it is in the light and on a solid surface. Warmth and weather protection also have an impact, so where you put something isn't just up to your aesthetic sense. Individual workstations can also be improved through extensions. And the fact that there are different types of crystals, but when it comes to further processing you turn a blind eye to which type you want to use, for example to burn glass out of them, is a nice, logical feature of a game that apparently isn't interested in nitpicking.
The rest is pretty well known: New systems and raw materials expand what you can build. And a series of quests, which unfortunately seem a little too static and text-loving, sell the whole thing to you fairly convincingly as a coherent adventure with a clear idea of the universe into which it wants to take you. Axes, knives, pickaxes, or dedicated weapons such as crossbows or battle hammers can all be useful in combat, depending on what type of damage the creature being attacked is vulnerable to. At least that's how it seemed to me. The close combat doesn't have a lot of finesse, but being able to block or dodge quickly depending on your weapon is a good start.
What else is good about Nightingale – and not so much
I admit, aside from the map system for traveling between worlds, the biggest draw comes from the visuals, for which Inflexion used Unreal Engine 5. Individual objects are not necessarily groundbreaking in their level of detail, but the exotic panoramas that the world generator paints on the screen sometimes left me speechless. You'll want to play this as soon as you see it. With its subtly stylized figures of elf-like proportions and costumes made of tweed and ruffles, it almost looks as if Arkane had tried its hand at a crafty survival title.
It's also cool how the increasingly wild creature designs escalate the strangeness of this expedition into the unknown over time. It's a nice mix of familiar and otherworldly elements. Of all the games of this kind, this is definitely one of the most beautiful.
But: This is Early Access and it shows. Especially when it comes to the interface, which often requires one or two more clicks than is actually necessary or hides information behind buttons without necessity, Inflexion is welcome to continue screwing, pulling and tinkering. The text density isn't exactly exciting either and since yesterday the escape key from many menus no longer brings me back into the game, which is stupid when I've called up the inventory again in the middle of a fight.
The NPCs you recruit aren't particularly helpful at the moment – sorry, Charles! – because they cut down trees but leave the heavy trunks lying around. If there is a command menu that you can use to assign tasks to them, I haven't found it yet. They also often don't follow consistently enough or rush into a fight that you didn't want to. Over and over again, I also clearly and unashamedly saw Charles teleporting right into my field of vision after we were briefly separated. Undoubtedly an early workaround for the companions' lack of pathfinding. But in a game that's as focused on immersion as this one, it's not exactly nice.
Nevertheless: it is a good start. The world-changing gimmick seems viable to me, the basic game cycle is satisfactory. Once you're inside, which takes a while after reading so much text, curiosity and the desire to see something grow under this majestic moon take over.