The new trailer for the upcoming survival game Nightingale excites MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus. As a survival expert, he is thrilled and sees many similarities to New World and Valheim. Only that Nightingale probably does many things better.
The gameplay of Nightingale looks like exactly the things that New World so much trimmed. Amazon’s MMO was early in development a kind of survival game with a PvP focus, but was later transformed into a PvE MMO.
New World, however, shied away from fully committing to survival. Why? One can only speculate. Instead, there is now a system that relies partly on classes and weapons and is more oriented towards MMORPGs.
Remnants of the original idea can still be found in New World. You have to chop down thousands of trees and mine stones to achieve something in crafting. Cities are built, but only through tasks, not through actual ‘building’.
But it wasn’t fully realized. Maybe they didn’t trust themselves or the players to have that much ambition.
I personally had a lot of fun with the system of New World, but I know from some MMO fans that they hated this strange mix. Nightingale now takes these ‘remnants’ and turns them into a new game. But see the trailer for yourself:
What makes the new trailer so special: The latest trailer shows gameplay from Nightingale. Particularly exciting is a short scene from minute 1:30, where the players apparently have created an entire city, over which a airship later flies.
New World also allows for the ownership of an entire city for guilds, but only according to predefined parameters. Nightingale (hopefully) lets us build everything ourselves as we imagine.
The second point that immediately grabbed me is the crazy monsters. From minute 0:47 you can briefly see some wild swamp creature. Nightingale is supposed to be full of fairy beings. If they all not only sparkle, but also come with a decent portion of horror, the world can only be brilliant.
And then there is of course the end. Right at the very end of the trailer, a creepy automaton woman appears, her head transforming into a skull. Story and survival create a mix that just always works.
PvE, Coop and Survival – The Perfect Mix
What is Nightingale at all? The new survival game by Inflexion Games, where former BioWare developers also work, focuses entirely on PvE. The game itself describes itself as “First-Person PvE Open World Survival-Crafting Game” that should be played solo or in cooperative mode.
The focus is on exploration, crafting and communal building. You should explore the world and take root there, as your old world will soon be destroyed by a magical storm. However, new dangers also threaten in this new place.
In further gameplay that I was able to preview, there are attacks from giants and horned satyrs that destroy your buildings.
What makes the game special is the setting. Nightingale takes place in a Victorian fantasy world, called “Gaslamp Fantasy.” Here, elements of industrialized England are mixed with fairy beings and monsters.
When will the game be released? Nightingale is supposed to be released in early access for PC on Steam and Epic Games still in 2022. However, an exact date is still open.
After the successes of Valheim and most recently V Rising, I see Nightingale as the next potential hit for survival fans. The mix of survival, PvE, and a fantastic setting has worked well before and will certainly do so again.
In general, indie games have a good knack for realizing their own vision well. Some of the best survival games come from self-publishing studios like the one behind Nightingale:
The best survival games of 2022 for PlayStation, PC, and Xbox
