A week or so ago, we were privy to a preview from developer Inflexion Games featuring their upcoming early-access game Nightingale. While the game was in its early stages, and it fought us a bit because of our overpowered 4070 card, we got in enough of a playthrough to give you the basics of what to expect from this extremely promising game.
The short version was that the game was a mixture of Skyrim with a hefty amount of BioShock bleeding through. It encouraged exploration, crafting, and fighting while showing off its gorgeous backdrop. It mixed and matched things and showed off enough ceiling to get excited about it in its early stages.
So, break out some magical cards, open a portal, and let’s go on an adventure!
Pucking interesting story
Your main character is swept away by the playful and somewhat dangerous forest spirit, Puck, Oberon’s right-hand mischief maker. Puck maintains frowned-upon communication with your human character and leads the character through portals that lead to different Fae realms. Each realm has its own Fae residents, some are mechanical and some straight-up dangerous, and your character must survive each realm while finding magical cards that open up new realms that will eventually get you to your realm endgame, Nightingale. Sure, it’s a mysterious story, but it’s a great start to a future game that will probably unfold into something even bigger.
Anyway, the game starts with Puck arriving on the scene and explaining to you what you should be thinking about and doing. From this brief encounter and somewhat shaky, yet suspicious conversation with the playful spirit, you understand that this story could have some rich twists and turns, and each one seems to give a strong nod to a Shakespearean backdrop. When you see Puck for the first time and he explains why you are where you are and what you should be focusing on, you just want more from him. His purpose and presence in this preview were pointed, as I’m sure the devs didn’t want to give too much away, but you could tell more was coming and his inclusion in this story had a greater, maybe more sinister purpose. Regardless, I wanted more from his character. It’s one of the main reasons I’m willing to spend more time with the game when it hits early access. He was just a weird choice for a guide in a game but a cool one.
From what we saw in the small preview, the story has a chance to be huge and Shakespearean in quality. The perception I walked away with is that Nightingale seems to be more than just some cheap knock-off of other games of its type. The story seems like it was quality.
Interesting Game Design
Nightingale has different gameplay elements mashed into one experience. The main portion of the experience is led by collecting and fighting. When you’re not fighting and collecting, you’ll spend a good chunk of time crafting. Those three gameplay elements dance perfectly in sync with each other to offer a fun experience that never seems to have downtime. Trust me, I’m not usually a huge fan of crafting, but this game certainly caught my attention and balanced the design out by having the previously mentioned trio working together.
Anyway, let’s break down these three aspects.
Open world fighting
Starting with fighting is what you expect from an open-world game. While I didn’t play too much within the multiple realms of Nightingale, I could see how much fun this was going to be with weapons in hand and taking down enemies with authority. It felt like Skyrim and BioShock, as I wanted to look around and then tussle with every single enemy I could smack my club within the realms. Searching for trouble in the Fae lands and finding a variety of creatures that occupy those realms helped keep the action fresh and, more importantly, engaging. By the end of the preview, I wanted more time with this aspect of the game, as I could see myself playing this game so much solely based on exploration and fighting.
Exploration and Fae creatures aside, the actual fighting gameplay element was spot on Skyrim. You have a first-person view that puts you in an accurate scrum every single time. The gameplay felt familiar and because of this, I wanted to return to this game badly. I could see how far Inflexion could take things and how far they could expand their realm concept into many different expansions down the road.
Anyway, the fighting is solid and familiar. It worked well in the multiple worlds I was able to play during the preview.
Collection Player Agency
I don’t know about you all, but collecting and fighting is some weird addiction when it comes to open-world games. I’m not 20,000 cheese wheels in a building level of collecting quite yet, but if I could pick everything up as I explore a large land, I probably would.
Nightingale contains a lot of collectible items in its design. On the crafting material side of the tracks, you’ll find plenty of items lying around in Fae realms. For example, when you’re in the Fae forest realm, you’ll find wood, berries, and everything forest-related. If you’re in the desert Fae realm, where you’re constantly battling the heat, then you’re going to run into ragged weeds, rocks, and robots. Each realm contains its own unique collectibles and each crafting recipe you deal with during specific realm visits will require these realm-specific collectibles.
Beyond materials, you’ll also find one of the main driving points of the collecting game which are magical portal cards. There are cards you can earn or happen upon that will open portals to other Fae realms. While my playthrough was restricted to just three realms, it sounded like the game could mix-match multiple cards to send players to many realms. The sky seemed to be the limit, and this aspect of the game might hint at the possibility of expansion. Regardless, this is a cool concept for a game, and I’m interested to see where it goes. The portal gameplay element was a strong emphasis during the preview.
Crafty-ness
Here is a gameplay aspect I wish I could have spent more time with during our preview playthrough. While my brain was distracted with fighting and collecting, when it came down to putting those collectibles together to make an object, the process was easy as much as it felt worthwhile. During our preview, I crafted shelter, food, fire pits, and tools. The tools were especially interesting, as I could see how better material could make for stronger and upgraded toolsets. That was indicated by some collectible material being inaccessible because I didn’t have the right or stronger tool to collect them.
Anyway, at the end of the day, the crafting was organized well and could be done quickly. It was so easy that I actually enjoyed it for the first time in a while. Trust me, if you read any of my reviews that featured crafting, you’ll know my overall disdain for that type of gameplay. No disdain here, though. I’m looking forward to seeing how far Inflexion can take this.
We’ll step back through the portal in EA
Overall, the trio of gameplay elements worked well together. Searching for elements gave way to exploration, which opened moments of fighting, and then all that effort equaled crafting an object to help progress me further through realms. Again, a perfect dance. The inclusion of the unique realm cards made the gameplay even sweeter. There are a lot of good pieces right now in this game and I can’t wait to see what else unfolds during its development.
Until then, keep an eye on it.
