Nightingaleis an upcoming shared-world survival crafting game from former BioWare devs, one that sees players seeking the titular city by exploring the realms of Fae, trying to survive and establish their own estate, and working alongside other Realmwalkers (players). Because of its cooperative structure and early access release onPC,Nightingalewill be getting several tweaks ahead of its official 1.0 launch, but will be a live-service survival game at its core. Thanks to Early Access, though, and feedback from its closed alpha testing, fans will have a lot of say in howNightingaletakes shape.
Some plans or original thoughts have been laid out, though much of this is subject to change throughoutNightingale’s Early Access period. One thing that may not change is the inclusion, technically lack thereof, of PvP inNightingale.The studio’s philosophy is to create a “place” for gamers and that expands into how they interact with each other, as well as the game’s seasonal content. Game Rant recently spoke withNightingaledeveloper Inflexion Games' CEO Aaryn Flynn, Director of Production Leah Summers, and Art Director & Head of Audio Neil Thompson about its seasonal content, monetization, and microtransactions.
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In terms of content, Summers states that they are tackling the important development challenge of providing what people want, as well as having the flexibility to include their own visions and ambitions inNightingale. Early Access will be a big boon for that, as Summers stated,
Looking into Early Access, we certainly want to make sure that we have lots of great updates for players, whether it’s new creatures, characters, quest lines, and things like that. But, you know, I think the part that we’re really looking forward to for Early Access is just working with our players.
Flynn was also very clear thatInflexion Gameshas no desire to sell “content” and instead is looking at other options. He thinks that this is a bigger trend in a genre that has, in the past, been notorious for locking off areas and content behind paywalls, but the result of this is a dividing community of people who spent money and those who didn’t. That doesn’t fit into the philosophy of makingNightingalea cooperative place.
Flynn also made it clear thatNightingale’s Realm Cards, what players gather to create new realms to explore, will not be sold as microtransactions, which makes sense. On the one hand, players certainly think of microtransactions when they hear about cards in any game, but on the other, these are core mechanics that shape how players go about the game. Selling these would no doubt create a barrier. According to Flynn,
We don’t have any firm plans for anything like [monetization], certainly at the start of the early access period. People have asked us if we’ll monetize Realm Cards, because it kind of sounds like other games where you’d say, ‘oh, I can buy packs of them?’ No, it’s not, we’re not going to do that.
Nothing, again, is solid at this time, but Inflexion Games has considered whether it would sell pure cosmetics or introduce a Battle Pass, but at the heart of it is delivering players consistent updates that keep them coming back to the realms ofNightingale.Inflexion Games is dedicated to pushing free content updates and perhaps going the way of cosmetics “that’s done fairly and reasonably” for players who want to splurge a little bit. Overall, it seems Inflexion Games is looking at howHello Games handledNo Man’s Skycontent, with Flynn adding,
“We’re very committed to not selling content and giving that content, continuing to update that content like No Man’s Sky does, right? Just what a success story, just constantly pushing out great new updates. That should be a real inspiration for a lot of studios of our size.”
Its approach is to support makingNightingalea digital place for players to come together in a safe place where everyone is welcome. This, in part, is why there is no PvP plans forNightingale,but it’s also why the game doesn’t feature gender-locked clothing.
Inflexion Games wantsNightingaleto be a safe place from thegeneral toxicity of gamingand the world at large, with Flynn revealing that his wife asked him, when he started Inflexion Games, “if you want to do good in the world, why would you go make games?” This question led to some introspection and discussions with other developers at Inflexion Games and the world at large, and the answer is because, in short, these online places can be good. As Flynn put it,
That’s what we want to do. We want Nightingale to be a virtual place for people where they can commune, they can express themselves creatively, they can be themselves, and maybe be a little different than they are in the real world. That’d be a good thing. The world needs that, and people need that. We wanted to do that. And that means getting rid of the toxicity, right?
Because of the generaldesign ofNightingale, Flynn adds that doing something toxic in the game would be difficult. There’s no real way to grief anyone, for example, and the only obvious route for any form of toxicity is if one player added another to their realm, they were a jerk, and they just did nothing or went off to do their own stuff. Inflexion Games is open to doing whatever it takes to prevent toxicity in the game, down to the very design of it, but if something came up, Flynn remarked, “we would just have to tell them their band can’t play”
While things are still in motion, it’s clear how much Inflexion Games wantsNightingale’s shared worldto be a fun, safe place—from the very design of the game to dealing with potentially toxic players, even in its approach to monetization and seasonal, live-service content.
Nightingalereleases in early access in the first half of 2023 for PC.
