Nightingale

Its just not there. The world looks great. Building isnt the best but also not the worse. What did it for me was the emptiness of the worlds. Map size isnt bad but when so many quests are straight up fetch quests that send you across map multiple time its boring. And yes most fetch quests have you constantly going back and forth across the map or maps. If they expand on the npcs, crafting, and exploration ill reconsider my review but as for now I cant recommend this game

[b]Nightingale[/b] was [i]personally[/i] my most anticipated game for 2024, with more than 120 hours gametime. Unfortunately, it never lived up to the hype or balanced the basics well enough to deliver the engaging, immersive experience many of us hoped for. I waited a long time before writing a final comment because I truly believe the game has the bones to be great - but I no longer think it will develop further in the right direction. [b]Worldbuilding & Visuals[/b] This is one of the most beautiful, yet hollow, worlds I’ve ever explored. The scenery, magic, and skies are fantastic. The imagination behind the design is obvious, but it doesn’t take long for the emptiness to become glaring. NPCs are fairly one-dimensional and seem to exist solely to give you something to do. There’s little variety in vegetation beyond slightly different colour palettes, and while animals and creatures are creatively skinned, they have very limited behaviours and interactions. I [i]do[/i] genuinely love the small missives of story you can collect. They’re well written and build mystery and intrigue nicely (most of the time) - but you enjoy them for a moment before going straight back into frustrating gameplay. [b]Quests[/b] Quests are largely separate from the more interesting lore, boiling down to simple fetch-and-deliver tasks that quickly become predictable and repetitive. The entire premise seems to be seeing how far they can make you run back and forth between different areas and realms for very limited rewards. This kind of quest design feels like a common tactic in hollow games - by deliberately wasting your time, it delays refunds and slows players from reaching limited or unfinished endgame content. [b]Resources & Building[/b] The building pieces are gorgeous, and the snapping and placement mechanics aren’t terrible compared to others in the genre. Overall, they make you [i]want[/i] to create, but it’s all for nothing because collecting resources takes an infuriatingly long time. Resource balance was almost unplayable at launch. It has improved slightly, but it’s still significantly lacking. Once again, the imbalance between time spent and rewards feels frustrating and like a cheap way to artificially extend gameplay. [b]Puzzles & Riddles[/b] The puzzle and riddle-solving concept has amazing potential and could truly immerse you to feel as if you're playing in a Fae realm. Unfortunately, map markers, location descriptions, and clues are often vague or outright inaccurate. You solve a puzzle, set off toward the next clue, follow a marker - but is it on the edge of a cliff? Up in the clouds? Underground? Who knows. Certainly not you, until you’ve scoured the entire area multiple times. When nearly every other aspect of the game feels like a grind, the potential of the riddles is lost, overshadowed without ever really feeling like a win. [b]Overall[/b] a great deal of time and money went into selling us a very impressive - but very overhyped - concept. At this point, the game feels all but abandoned in terms of meaningful development, and improving the player experience does not seem to be a priority.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. It had real potential, but it’s now clear it’s never going to become what it needs to be. The developers are not putting in the work to fix the core problems and have clearly moved on to other projects. Don’t be fooled by recent updates—they address none of the issues that actually matter. This has been the pattern throughout the entire development cycle: ignore player feedback, push updates nobody asked for, and leave the real problems untouched. Case in point: they just added “Enabled Wear and Damage on Tools & Clothing” while the game still suffers from massive performance problems and empty, boring realms. So now your tools and clothes can look dirty and worn… as you slog through low FPS with nothing to do.

Nightingale is a good example of what was envisioned being way beyond the developers' capabilities.

Per the most recent devbite video, development is indefinitely postponed. If you want a complete game, this is not it and will NOT be it for the foreseeable future. But if you go in knowing it's in "early access", story is incomplete, and the game will not see any continued development until *shrug*, it's worth it on sale as a sandbox.

Well, they just showed why NO one should ever buy anything in Early Access again. The studio behind this game, moved onto Conan Exiles, upgrading to Unreal Engine. I'm so fed up with studio's promising everything, and once they have the money, they then just move on, not caring the slightest.

A Survival Game That Dares to Be Different I’ve played Nightingale extensively, and it’s honestly one of the most unique survival games out there. The combat is a blast — firearms feel powerful, and hunting down the right materials to craft an overpowered gun is incredibly satisfying. I do miss the older crafting system where resources had deeper stats and colors tied to materials, which let you create truly unique weapons. Even though it’s simpler now, the guns still look fantastic and can hit like a truck with the right setup. The item mod system is another standout. Equipping charms on clothing and gear adds variety and creativity beyond the usual boring stat boosts you see in other games. It makes experimentation fun and rewarding. The world itself is something special. Gaslamp fantasy mixed with Fae mythology and Shakespearian language gives the game a style that’s unlike anything else in the genre. The card system that alters realms is clever and adds replayability. Realms feel alive with NPCs, creatures, and mythical beings — enough to keep exploration engaging without the chaos of overcrowded multiplayer. Building is solid (early issues have been fixed), traversal works fine once you adapt, and enemies like the Bound are genuinely terrifying. And for those who claimed the story wasn’t finished: Nightingale City is here now, and it’s impressive. Yes, some changes weren’t in my best interest, and hype may have set expectations too high. But that doesn’t justify the unfair review bombing. This game has been scrutinized far more harshly than it deserves. For me, Nightingale sits comfortably in my top 10 games of all time. If you want a survival game with style, depth, and mechanics that expand beyond the usual formula, Nightingale is absolutely worth your time.

I was loving this game, made clear by playing it for over 100 hours. That being said, development is indefinitely postponed, and the game hasn't hit it's full release. I'm of the mind that continuing to sell the game at its full $30 with little likelihood of a full release isn't cool or worth it. There should be at least a large disclaimer that development is halted on the main page.