This has felt like an era since the Summer Games Festival lifted the curtain on a slew of stylish upcoming games that pumped the piston on everyone’s hype engine again. Of these reveal, Nightingale really stands out thanks to its promise to bring the survival genre into a more fantastical setting. But interesting aesthetics can only get you so far— Now what exactly sets Nightingale apart from the other giants on the scene?
To find out, we caught up with Aaryn Flynn, CEO of Inflexion Games and former General Manager of Bioware, to get an in-depth look at what makes Nightingale special. We talked about unique features not found in other survival games, the scope of in-game PvE encounters, and how the studio plans to pull players away from their competitors.
iGamesNews: You’ve taken the survival genre to a more wondrous place than many of your peers. What unique selling points does it offer besides its clean aesthetics?
Flynn: I think the realm card system is our biggest innovation; the notion that players have agency over the spaces they go to. Survival crafting games are really cool because they procedurally generate a beautiful large space for you, and then give you adventure, resources, and interactions within the game. But what we’re trying to do is let the player explore a space and then play with the realm card system to control and influence which space they’re going to next.
So instead of saying “I’m going to a different type of forest or cave”, we’re giving you a lot of opportunity to control the biome, the resources and the creatures you’re going to face and all that kind of stuff. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun way to give players more agency in the survival crafting genre.
iGamesNews: So they feel like they can control the experience?
Flynn: Of course more control. Then, over time, we hope to enrich these realm cards with more realms, more biomes, and more interactions.
iGamesNews: So you’ve shown that one aspect that players have to deal with is attacking their bases and homes where they work within those realms. Is this the heart of Nightingale’s entire game loop, or is it an occasional rare player who needs attention?
Flynn: This is not a dissertation. So when you build your base, we don’t want players to think that the first thing is “I have to do everything I can to defend this thing”, right? So, for example, when you quit your realm, if none of the other players you invited were there, everything would freeze. Therefore, you will not be timed when logging in.
Of course, mobs will appear and they can attack your base. But we’re not going to make base defense a fundamental focus. Now, as you move into harder and harder areas – if you decide to build your base in those harder areas – you’re more likely to be attacked, but it’s a choice you make. This may be something you decide to get involved in because you want to get into a field that offers better resources and better rewards, but you can build your base anywhere you want.
iGamesNews: So if you wanted, you could go out and set up shop in more dangerous territory and build a hub near more valuable resources?
Flynn: Yes, you might like it! “Come on, bring it!” Or you might say, “No, I don’t want to stress, thank you so much”.
iGamesNews: So people can progress in the game without having to build a base in those more dangerous areas?
Flynn: Yes, exactly.
iGamesNews: So, since the game was announced, you’ve got bigger monsters like Front and Center. Can you walk me through how the Behemoths join in is different from typical PvE battles, and what unique rewards and opportunities come with hunting them down.
Flynn: Yeah, so all the big creatures you see, they have unique powers, unique abilities. We also wish we had a non-combat alternative to all of these interactions so you didn’t have to jump right in and start shooting. I think we’ll be very happy when each of these creatures has different options for you to try.
Different approaches can lead to different outcomes, and it does inspire choices for the player, but at the same time, we want to make sure the player is empowered to make decisions when it comes to those big creatures. Do I really have to fight this thing? Or I can haggle with it, or I can do something it needs so I don’t have to kill it.
But of course, as you said, some of these giant creatures will be quest gates, they’ll be an important step in completing quests, and they’ll have their own fun, unique rewards when you interact with them. This will be part of the progressive puzzle in the game.
When you see a creature we call bound, you don’t necessarily have to fight it. You might have a task that says, “You need this thing from that creature”. So, instead of just slaughtering it, you can go and find where its lair is and find something like that.
iGamesNews: Is this the core thing you wanted to do from the start? A lot of the game is about fighting and murder.
Flynn: Absolutely. From very early on, we promised ourselves – as much as possible – that we would have non-combat options and non-combat paths through various progression gates and stuff. We just want to respect the idea.
iGamesNews: Can you finish the whole game without killing anything?
Flynn: No, you will have to kill something. I mean, you can obviously avoid some of these creatures, you can run around them, or whatever.But then again, I don’t think we have any declaratively Aggressive. I don’t think there are some procedural gates that say you can’t make progress without killing something. I mean, I thought of realm cards, you can make realm cards without killing anything – at least the ones I know of. So maybe it’s possible. Just can be very difficult.
iGamesNews: So how would you describe the typical progression path a player will go through? Like, is this just an example of gradually expanding and improving your home and equipment? Like other things about survival? Or is there a more linear path?
Flynn: No, I think it’s pretty incremental. Over time, you build it based on certain objectives, certain quests or interactions, which will give you new build possibilities and new upgrades. There will be some questlines that will offer more step-by-step features, but I think it’s pretty progressive overall.
iGamesNews: So please tell me about the infrastructure side. Seems like it’s more important than where to drop the loot. How is building a house in Nightingale different from other games?
Flynn: Our Manor, like many other games, is designed to be tailored just for you. It’s an expression of your creativity. This is where you keep a lot of materials and resources. So if you want it to look a certain way, we’ll give you something you can use to get creative. Another thing I think we really support and encourage is players coming together to build villages. Therefore, we value the opportunity for players to merge and then split missions.
iGamesNews: Obviously, there are a lot of big players in this space, and there are a lot of players who already like it and are very committed to other games to this day. What do you think you have that will attract fans embedded in other communities? Or are you targeting people who have never played such games?
Flynn: I hope worldbuilding will pull them in and give them a rich new universe with characters, stories, creatures, interactions and history. Hopefully we can get people to get involved. And then I thought, from there, the real-time survival crafting game was really fun.
You know, our goal is not to be the most realistic survival crafting game. So we just wanted to make the environment a fun challenge for you, we had some character management and layered some RPG elements in it to give you some choice, to give you some customization. But, I hope that fundamentally, what attracts people is world architecture.
Nightingale will release on PC via Steam in Q4 2022. If this sounds like something you like, you can wishlist it now!
