Nightingale

Don't even think about playing this, one of the worst survival game, looks great in trailers but it's nothing like that. Stay Away!

This game is really good and its got a lot of fun ideas in it, but the developers have put development on hold while they work on other projects (Conan Exiles). They have said they will return to it at some point, but anyone who plays early access survival games knows this routine - we have no idea if that will happen or not so I'd say wait untli they put out something stating that they are back to work on the game. They also haven't made this clear to people unless you go to their youtube channel and watch a video - which further makes it a bit suspect. As I said - there's a lot to love here, and the foundation they have is very playable... but I don't think you should support the development unless they start to be a little more up front about things at least, and ideally give us some sort of timeline for when work will return and so on. Relegating an update as important as "we have stopped working on this game for now" to a youtube video that you have to watch, rather than updating more clearly and making it very obvious to potential buyers feels very slimey to me.

It's such an odd game. Like I want to like it because the world building is super interesting but as me and the wife explored it turned into less enjoying the scenery and more trying to figure out how to level up the gear to be able to get resources. In the end we just ended up not liking it.

This is one of the best games I've played in a very long time. If you've played a lot of games: This game is the answer to the question 'What if Vermintide was more like a cross between Oblivion and Ark Survival Evolved?' If that makes sense to you: You are now imagining Nightingale and can ignore the rest of the review. ============================ Nightingale is many things. A survival game. A dress-ups game. A building game. A metaphorical journey through many realms. A literal journey through many realms. A shooter. A melee-based hack-and-slash. A genuine and heartfelt take on what it means to be human, told through a series of fetch quests. Nightingale wasn't like a video game for me, and I can't really explain how. It was more like a book I could play, but not in the same way that a visual novel is. It was like I was able to engage with it like a book - to take my time with the story and follow it at my own pace. And even though books don't have graphics, I found a lot of the landscapes to be so alien and unfamiliar that it was more like 'having something described' than 'seeing graphics'. Something always felt 'off', and I loved the hell out of this game for that. For example, the first prey animal you come across is red and green. As a gamer - as a HUMAN - your natural instinct will be to avoid this animal because you'll assume it's dangerous and/or poisonous. It's not. It's just a normal hoofed mammal, that just happens to be red and green. Because this land isn't for humans. Humans can exist here, but it's not our home. The whole thing has a vaguely Lovecraftian vibe to it - not in the tentacles sense, in the 'humans exist in a unvierse which isn't just unforgiving - the truth of things is literally unfathomable' sense. In any other game, this design decision would annoy the living daylights out of me. I'd rant about the meaning of color theory or some other nonsense like that. About not wasting players' time. But here, it genuinely hit me different. Like... ...I don't know if this will make sense... ...like I REALLY wasn't supposed to be there. Like when you were a kid and you'd try to sneak to get a glass of water but you had to walk past your passed-out dad and there was some weird scary stuff happening on the TV but you couldn't say anything you couldn't even gasp or you'd wake up your dad and WHO knows what would happen then and maybe you don't want that drink so much but you're only two steps away from the fridge but you remembered about that creaky floor board a little too late... Perhaps I should discuss the gameplay. There's a bit of jankiness and little jerkiness too. Specifically, sometimes the animations and the models are slightly out of sync for a second. Sometimes. Other times, the game will randomly freeze for anywhere from 2-3 seconds - usually when you pull out any item/weapon for the first time that play session. That is genuinely the only gripe I have with the game. Now, we may care about different things, but this game has NO pain points for me. None at all. Well there is one but I know how to avoid it - I'll bring that up right at the end. =========================== You spawn into the game world and a voice urges you forward. This voice is Puck, a Fae. As in real life, the Fae are the old-school fairy folk, the ones from the old fairy tales. The ones who'd try to trick you into staying in the fairy realm forever etc. If you watch Star Trek much - the Fae are basically the Q Continuum. And also like the Q, the Fae in this game have fractured into different factions. The end result of this (I'm skipping quite a lot here) is basically the destruction of Earth. The final place where humanity can reside in peace is a place called - wait for this, you won't see it coming - called Nightingale. The game is basically 'Craft, fight, use resources, advance your tech level, rinse, repeat'. You can't advance your tech level without advancing the story, so there's your incentive. The story involves using portals to do certain things in different realms, which is exactly what it sounds like: You use a portal, go into a realm, do the stuff, then you've unlocked the next portal/realm. Keep doing that until you get to Nightingale. The end. But you can build as well as craft. You can also recruit certain NPCs and put them to work on your Estate (like a homebase), or even take them adventuring with you. You can also outfit them yourself, or leave them with their default gear. You have axes, swords (only single-handed), warhammers, crossbows, bows, throwing knives, grenades, and some basic early guns (revolvers and rifles). You also have an umbrella you can glide with. To me, the genius of this game comes because of two simple design choices: 1 - you can collect resources (or make homes or whatever) in randomly generated realms 2 - the material you use to craft the items affects the item stats (e.g. If you use Iron you'll get 4% extra melee damage). You can also make multiple characters. I think I'll be playing this game for a while now! ====================================== If you DO make an estate (you can finish the game without building much), don't place two Estates down UNLESS THEY ARE THE SAME-TIERED. If they're different tiers, the stuff inside the lower-tiered one will just straight-up disappear :(

For the vibes alone I would recommend this game, but I do have a more nuanced perspective. If I was a man without hope I would leave a negative review and say something like "this game will never be finished." I can certainly understand why people do. Though, to me, it seems as though, although slow, this game is being updated and changed for the better. It is certainly not completed, it's in early access for a reason. Yes, it does have performance issues for a slew of people. Fortunately, I have found myself to not be one of them. I have reached endgame on one save, and have logged enough hours to do it at least once more. To me, the standout features of this game include the following: art style, movement, crafting & customization, and building. Admittedly, the exploration and combat are not the best I've ever seen, but that is a high ceiling. This is a game I intend on playing for another hundred hours at least. If you want a review I thoroughly agree with, there is one from a player with more than 1000 hours played. They begin with "A Survival Game That Dares to Be Different" and go on to lay things out in a way that appears to be quite accurate and fair. If you are not sure about it right now, come back in a month when they release the next Dev Bites to see if they've got what you're looking for then. As for me, I'll keep telling my friends about Nightingale and how much I've enjoyed it.

Game was genuinely really good and the devs kept changing things against what the player base wanted. The way they spoke in the devlogs about making changed based on what their player base wanted was worded in way where you can see they were very resentful about it and soon after they abandon the game in early access. Yet another company that will never see a dime from me. Had some great bones for a game and through their own arrogance thinking they know better than everyone funding their studio wrecked it and left it.

rug pull game. purchased after seeing some ads about it; got pulledin bu the graphics and concept but.. after 4-6h.. you realize there's nothing going. there's supposed to be"lore" and "quests" but... yeah. I played approx. 3 times, and never touched it again; waiting for updates. that never came. don't buy this game. it was obviously just a money bump for the devs,

This game was a masterpiece in the making, I've never seen anything quite like it before or since. I loved the Fae aspects to it (and the fact that they kept to relatively accurate fae lore). The graphics are stunning, the gameplay is difficult but fun once you get used to it and the realms are gorgeous and interesting. It had SO much potential to be a fantastic game that I personally would've come back to over and over again. I'd even introduced it to all of my friends so I could play it together with them. Which, as an extreme introvert, says a lot. I don't know what happened but apparently the developers have put this game on "hiatus" until further notice and are working primarily with Conan Exiles instead. Which for me is an extreme disappointment. I don't have very high hopes that they will continue to work on this, as most often when this sort of thing happens it gets left behind and forgotten. I'm extremely disappointed, not only because I truly loved this game and saw great potential within it but also because I personally am not a fan of Conan Exiles. It's much too perverse a game for my liking personally. I don't like the aspect of keeping basically slaves (even if it is accurate to the times) and the sexual content in games is something I personally abhor. I am well aware that I am the odd one out in this opinion as most people seem to flock to sexual content in games, but this is just my personal opinion. All in all, I truly loved this game and was hoping for more but it seems that won't happen. If you are okay with the idea of playing a game that is truly fun and whimsical but without any updates or bug fixes, then this is a great game. Just don't get your hopes up for more content anytime soon (if ever) and try to turn a blind eye to bugs/glitches.