For players who have been eagerly awaiting more news about the impressive-looking first-person, PVE, open-world survival crafting game that is Inflexion Games‘ Nightingale, the month of November has provided a gift in the form of the first-ever Developer Update for the title.
Following the conclusion of the first round of Closed Alpha Testing, Community Manager Steph Herdman shared that a selected group of testers have been able to try out the early game experience, including survival elements. Despite encountering certain bugs and missing UI elements, there was positive feedback, as well as areas that Inflexion will have to work on. Any interested players looking to join in future tests can sign up for the official newsletter, which will contain a survey that will make it possible for future testing participation.
Unreal Engine 5
The update also touched on the initial delay of Nightingale, of which the shift to Unreal Engine 5 was part of the reason. Technical Art Director Nick Sadler and Environment Director Noel Lukasewich pointed to the visual upgrades that the engine is able to provide as something exciting, especially with the help of Lumen and Nanite technology.
The former is a global illumination feature that brings realistic lighting and reflections in real-time, a feat previously impossible to achieve in games. For Nightingale, it will have a profound impact due to the time-of-day and Realm Card system that can change what players see during gameplay. As for the latter, the system that deals with virtualized geometry enables smooth transitions up close and at a distance, upping the visual fidelity that is possible in the game.
As part of the Nightingale Dev Update, community questions on areas such as character progression, creature difficulty, the building system, and launch support for languages were answered by Director of Production, Leah Summers.
Character Progression in Nightingale
Summers explained that character progression is tied to items and gear, so players will be able to craft better equipment with resources found around the realms. It will likely be the core gameplay loop that takes up most of the time spent in Nightingale, and the key driver in exploring newer and more dangerous realms in the future.
Creature Difficulty
For the creatures that players will face, the game will feature level scaling to ensure that there will always be a challenge for players. The deeper you explore into Realms, the harder the creatures will be to deal with. This includes the local flora and fauna, factions, and monsters, so there will always a tougher challenge to look forward to.
Building System
Building is a key part of Nightingale, and players will be able to take advantage of blueprints to help with the process. From the foundations to the roof, players will have the option to configure their estate as they see fit, made possible with different tile sets to add to the variety.
Other functional structures are also in the mix, such as defensive buildings and crafting benches, and planning out an estate is going to be an important part of the Nightingale experience as well.
Nightingale Language Support
At launch, Nightingale will support the English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish languages. Once the game has entered Early Access, the team will be evaluating and looking to add more support for additional languages.
