Inflexion’s ‘gaslamp fantasy’ survival, exploration, and crafting game arrived in early access on February 2, 2024, and our Just About Nightingale community has been realmdiving ever since. In addition to the submissions to our Nightingale review bounty, we’ve compiled this review from community discussions, posts, and other bounties. This review’s contributors are composed of survival game aficionados and newcomers alike. Between them they have over 600 hours of hands-on Nightingale gameplay, so if you’re looking for an informed opinion, you’ve found it.
There’s a lot to cover, so let’s realmdive straight in.
Nightingale development status and technical requirements
Nightingale is in early access, and at the time of writing has not long dropped its third major update: Nightingale 0.3, which introduced a wealth of new and reinvented features, including the much-requested offline mode.
Currently only available on PC, Steam’s recommended system requirements include 16GB RAM, 70GB of disk space, Windows 10, an Intel Core i5-8600 processor, and a GeForce RTX 2060 Super graphics card. However, should your rig fall short of those specs, don’t despair; here’s Sturmer, who’s amassed hundreds of hours of gameplay: “The textures are well-executed, and I rarely experience severe FPS drops, even on my gimmicky RTX3070 laptop GPU.”
The world(s) of Nightingale
“A game has to be pretty for me to play it, and Nightingale certainly delivers on that.” That’s Lanah Tyra, in her Nightingale video review. Nightingale’s soundscape is also worth celebrating too, as shown in our community’s ASMR bounty submissions, like this one:
Combined, they entice players into a lore-rich world. If this isn’t the first time you’ve read about Nightingale, you’ll have heard the Inflexion-coined descriptor ‘gaslamp fantasy’. But what does gaslamp fantasy mean? Sturmer explains: “Its Victorian setting is akin to a fusion of Agatha Christie’s Orient Express, the Wild West, and the world of the Dishonored games.”
Still unsure? Calico Brimstone puts it nicely: “The game enchants with its ‘gaslamp fantasy’ aesthetic, teeming with Tesla coils, zeppelins, and a roster of historical figures that bring its unique adventure to life.”
Crafting and building
Nightingale’s crafting system is deep, layered, and nuanced. Sturmer describes it as “twisted” (in a good way):
“It’s not just about combining materials; you can modify workbenches or even entire realms to affect the items you produce. It’s a paradise for those who love to experiment with new combinations. Don’t worry if this isn’t your cup of tea though; there are armies of online theorycrafters compiling helpful guides and spreadsheets.”
When it comes to base building, Sturmer was sceptical about Nightingale’s take when he first started playing but has since been won over: “Initially, I compared it to Valheim and felt let down. However, as I unlocked more blueprints and grasped the system’s nuances, it began to really impress me. Just check out my Sky Castle.”
With the aid of recruitable companions, building an impressive structure isn’t a huge time commitment. For GameofBeardz, that’s a big plus: “What the game has excelled in so far is making the crafting and building incredibly user-friendly and easy to pick up. I found myself with a decent-size base completed within three hours.”
And what about when creative players have more than three hours to put into construction? Look no further than Sauce_’s take on the Weasley family home, The Burrow:
If you pick up the game and want to build your starter home, check out this base-building location guide.
While impressive bases have become a staple of the genre, what sets Nightingale apart is the ability for many players to come together and construct sprawling, multi-dwelling communities in shared servers, from which networks of portals allow for near-endless realmdiving opportunities.
Realmdiving
During the lengthy but enjoyable tutorial, you’ll be introduced to one of Nightingale’s unique concepts: realmdiving. Here’s Dave’s explainer:
“Realmdiving occurs through portals, where Major, Minor, and Biome Realmcards are combined to create unique, procedurally generated realms to explore. After the tutorial, you’ll select an Abeyance Realm - your estate-building home.” From there, you set off on your realmdiving, resource-gathering, creature-slaying adventures.
Biome Cards currently allow players to select Forest, Swamp, and Desert biomes. Major Cards effectively change the difficulty of puzzles and foes, as well as altering visual styling and atmosphere. As for Minor Cards, which are played once inside a realm, here’s Dave:
“They’re fun twists that alter different aspects of the world, such as changing tree yields to drop meat instead of wood, modifying gravity, or setting the realm to permanent blood moon-lit night. There’s a large amount of them on offer, providing unique changes and good variety in every realm.”
Each of the realms is the equivalent of 8-10 square kilometres, and contains puzzles, dungeons, shops, and quests. According to Inflexion, 20,000 realmic variations are available. That just leaves the big question: is realmdiving fun? We’ll pass the baton to Calico-Brimstone for that one: “Nightingale stands out as a breathtaking exploration into the boundless potential of procedural generation, crafting worlds as varied as they are mesmerising.”
For more on realmdiving, check out Sturmer’s guide.
Early game
Even before reaching the aforementioned tutorial, Nightingale impresses. Lanah Tyra is an RPG player at heart but says that Nightingale’s character creator, complete with an ancestry-based genetic design option, “puts some RPGs to shame”.
Dave also notes that you start with some “nice, stylised, Victorian steampunk clothing”, but adds that early-game players need to quickly replace them with better-performing “bland, generic clothing”. It’s true; until you have 40-50 hours of gameplay under your belt, you won’t be looking particularly swish. As Dave notes, these criticisms can be expanded to include much of the early game:
“These clothes are the first sign that the unique visuals and art style are hard to find in the early game [...] The launch trailer for Nightingale draws you in with an impressive, dreamy world full of large exotic architectural structures, colourful environments, and giant mystical creatures. Unfortunately, for most of the 35 hours I’ve played so far, that wasn’t my experience.
“That’s not to say that the graphics aren’t impressive. Nightingale makes use of Unreal Engine 5’s Nanite and Lumen, allowing for impressively detailed objects at any distance along with accurate real-time lighting and shadows. The environments are technically impressive too. The birds and other wildlife flock about in large numbers, while swaying grasses punctuated by highly detailed trees stretch deep into the distance.”
Mid-game
Our community of Nightingale players is united in the opinion that it is not a game for the impatient. Here’s Dave again:
“While it has its moments, for the most part Nightingale is a slow-paced, relaxing game, both in terms of activities and narrative pace. It’s only as I’m progressing further that I’m witnessing the visual and content experience I imagined off the back of the trailer.”
Calico-Brimstone makes a similar point:
“Despite imperfections, the core of Nightingale lies in the encouragement of exploration over haste. It’s a game that invites players to pause to appreciate the beauty and intricacies of its worlds.”
Progressing through the mid-game involves upgrading your Hope, Gear, and Estate scores through a series of quests that add structure to exploration and crafting. Dave says “I really enjoyed this aspect. I normally drop survival games in the early game for this reason, but having multiple signposted goals offers players enough to feel they’re progressing without giving too much away. That leaves me to explore and discover the upgrades and builds required to progress.”
Many of these quests take the form of “rewarding, tense, and challenging” combat-heavy dungeons known as Sites of Power, which are gated by gear score. Completing them unlocks Major Cards of higher difficulty. As you progress, you’ll discover other features such as new augments, weapon and tool upgrades, ammunition types, architectural styles, puzzles, platforming challenges, and “unique, varied, and impressive fantastical foes”.
Judged on their individual merits, the activities that make up the middle game aren’t mind-blowing, yet combined they present a nice range of activities to reward explorers. Here’s Calico Brimstone’s take:
“Presently, the puzzles, mazes, and combat feel secondary to the sheer joy of discovery that permeates the game. This pace may not suit every gamer, but for those who relish taking their time, the game offers a refreshing departure from the norm.”
Endgame
Unless playing with friends, most of the early and mid-game will likely be played solo. That all changes in the endgame, in which players are introduced to The Watch - a lobby where groups of six can party up to tackle procedurally generated dungeons known as vaults. Our community members who’ve reached this late-game content speak highly of it, though as Dave notes, this raises the question of why the multiplayer-focused content isn’t introduced earlier:
“While you can recruit an NPC follower, set your server to public, or play with friends, I can’t help but think that the late-game multiplayer content should be made available in some form in the early game, for example: optionally matchmaking into a group at the entrance to a Site of Power. That said, it offers a tantalising target to work towards. Throughout the game it’s this tempting hint of what’s to come that keeps you progressing, contributing to the enjoyment and reward the game offers.”
The other late-game content that you’ll likely want to call your friends to help with are the apex creatures - world bosses unlocked by activating the correct combination of Realmcards. At the time of writing, they include the Humbaba, the Sun Giant, and Elder Eoten. Formidable and daunting in equal measure, these creatures add to Nightingale’s sense of myth and wonder. However, much like Bethesda’s sandbox games, it’s not overly difficult to exploit the game’s environments and mechanics to find relatively safe ways of defeating them.
Community
Dave’s point about multiplayer content arriving too late becomes especially pronounced when one considers that community is regarded as one of the game’s strongest elements. Sturmer, who has reached the endgame, had the Nightingale community come to his aid in a rather dramatic way:
“The most vital aspect of Nightingale is its community. Although fully playable solo, the game fosters player interaction beautifully. The lore and plot ingeniously build a foundation for a robust community, promoting - or even dragging you into - a roleplay atmosphere in which cooperation and sharing are key to overcoming challenges. For instance, there’s the entire community portal-city built by fellow JA Nightingale member steviethedork, or there’s the time that I was in trouble and the Discord community organised a rescue mission:”
Is Nightingale worth the money?
“While Nightingale wins hearts with its innovative concept and visual splendour, it’s not without its hitches, particularly in server connectivity. The anticipation of crossing into new realms is dampened by slow server responses (admittedly a small price to pay for the vastness on offer). Furthermore, the game - still in early access - exhibits a few rough edges that need polishing. Notably, the AI - especially concerning NPC followers - detracts from the immersive experience.”
That was Calico-Brimstone. And they’re right; Nightingale isn’t perfect. It needs more creatures, biomes, quality-of-life improvements, AI enhancements, finishing touches, and technical improvements. Fortunately, that’s what early access is for, and so far, our community has been impressed by Inflexion’s efforts to listen, patch, and improve. Lanah believes that “Inflexion is doing a great job so far”, while Sturmer notes that the consistent updates and hotfixes “show the developers’ commitment to the game’s future.”
For evidence of this, it’s worth noting that those NPC improvements have already been partially addressed in the month since Calico-Brimstone made those comments.
steviethedork has been following Nightingale’s development since its earliest days, and they’re thoroughly impressed by what’s been delivered:
“The building is easy to figure out and gorgeous. The environments are breathtaking. The puzzles are unique and fun to solve. The lore is rich and well researched. They’ve pinpointed an aesthetic and a vibe and wholeheartedly run with it. I already have hundreds of hours from playtests and know I have hundreds more in me through early access into the V1 release.”
So is Nightingale worth the money? Here’s Sturmer answering just that:
“Priced at $29.99, Nightingale is worth every cent. I recommend it to fans of exploration, crafting, and building games. You’re sure to relish the hours spent exploring the Fae Realms and constructing your base - or even an entire city for fellow Realmwalkers.”
And Sturmer, it seems, is not alone:
Screenshot taken from *Calico-Brimstone's review*
Final thoughts from our Just About Nightingale community
“In its current state, Nightingale is a gem with some rough edges, a testament to the game’s ongoing development and its promise. My recommendation comes with a caveat: patience is required, as the game still needs to be fully polished. But for those willing to embrace its early access quirks, Nightingale offers an unparalleled aesthetic and exploratory experience that is hard to find elsewhere. With eager anticipation, I look forward to the game’s continued development and the eventual realisation of its full potential.”
That was Calico-Brimstone again, with a great summary of Nightingale’s current state. A recurring theme is that the game takes time to get to the good stuff, but that the payoff is worth it. That’s not only true for in-game progression, but also - we suspect - to the game’s development. The latest updates have been fantastic, and show Inflexion’s willingness to build on the foundations it has laid. If it continues delivering updates like that, we have great hope for what Nightingale could become. And it’s not just us that’s dreaming of the game’s potential, here’s Calico-Brimstone one last time:
“The allure of hopping into a dirigible and soaring through these meticulously designed realms with a bird's eye view is a tantalising prospect that fans, myself included, ardently wish for.”
We’ll leave you with a quote from Dave’s review:
“To conclude, I’m reminded of the often-repeated phrase ‘life is a journey, not a destination’. It’s this long journey through Nightingale that brings enjoyment, not just what there is to see and do once you get there.”
If our Nightingale review has convinced you to join that journey, be sure to join our Just About Nightingale community. Some text has been amended for brevity. You can find the original wording at the bounty post as well as here, here, and here. Images courtesy of Inflexion and our Nightingale community members.
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