For much of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nightingale’s development, it has mildly annoyed me. In fairness, that’s not really the game’s fault. Since its first reveal, much has been made of its development team’s pedigree, especially the experience from BioWare. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mass Effect and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age are contenders for my two favourite series of all time, so ‘ex-BioWare devs’ is an instant sell for me. However, it also front-loads some expectations - every time I looked at Nightingale, all I could do was scoff and mutter “ugh, you’re not Dragon Age”. Having finally had a deep dive into the gameplay at Gamescom, I finally get what Nightingale isꦉ about, and Iꦯ think I like it.
It’s still not Dragon Age. This is not the devs leaving what appears to be a rapidly sinking ship in order to create a spiritual sequel. You just have to log the BioWare thing in your brain and take it as a sign of pedigree, and then forget about it. Nightingale is not Dragon Age or Mass Effect, but it is the perfect game for anyone who loves Valheim and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sons of the Forest, which as far as I can te🐻ll sܫeems to be around half the planet.
So let’s leave the BioWare stuff aside. Let’s say you’re not me. Let’s say you’re normal. What is Nightingale actually about? It’s a survival fantasy game set in 1889, in a world where Humans and Fey intertwine. The basic premise has an air of cliche to it - there’s a mysterious toxic fog that blights the land, and a mischievous Fey helper, Puck, guides you through Nightingale to solve the nature of the fog while keeping his true intentions hidden. This sort of thin set-up might irritate someone looking for, say, a spiritual successor to Dragon Age set in the Victorian Era. But in a survival game where you mak🐻e your own fun, it feels like the perfect canvas.
The game involves survival and crafting, with early hours moving as yo꧂u expect - first you build a campfire, then a tent, and then a weapon to defend yourself, and so on. However, in time you can construct regal Victorian estates and pepper box guns. You can play with up to six friends to build together, and all of the building pieces snap into place automatically. That means there may be fewer of the viral construction disasters we’ve seen༺ in other survival games, but should also make gameplay much more straight-forward.
There are also no classes in the game, with each player choosing what to specialise in over time, rathജer than choosing early on. However, there is a robust character creator, so you’ll have decent control over who you are right from the word go.
The magic system seems a little convoluted to me, but that may not have been helped by the fact this was a hands-off demonstration. You use cards to travel through portals, and need one card per des𒉰tinati꧒on, which makes sense. However, you can also add another two cards to it to influence what the place will be like when you arrive, but only if you have the right resources for your crystal ball to make them, which feels like a lot of systems for what is basically fast travel.
I will note however that the cards look gorgeous, with a Victorian Tarot aesthetic, and that even the hit points on screen have a Victorian flair which adds a sense 𓆏of whimsy, complimented well by the Fey animals like magic elephants. You also have Hope as a gauge, along with Stamina and Health, for how much will to live your character has. It’s a gauge thꦯat directly influences the other two, offering a creative interpretation of things like Sanity which feel a little overdone in survival games.
The bulk of what we saw involved watching three of the dev team fight a giant in a boss battle, and the approach itself was very hectic, but also ♑slow. It’s not a game people are going to play first and foremost to fight things. Games of this genre tend to have a lot going on, so the combat is often perfunctory, and Nightingale is no exception. However, before the battle began, the three devs built their own sniper hut crow’s nests, gunner platforms, protective barriers, and raised bridges to easier run from each side of the lake. You’re going to have to make your own fun a lot in Nightingale, but if you embrace its building systems, you’ll be rewarded.
However, I hope you’ll be a little more rewarded than the dev team were by the time the game launches in early access on Feb 24 next year. These ﷽structures were impressive and showed how you can bend the game to your will, but they were destroyed in seconds while the giant himself took around ten minutes to go down, even with the devs in God Mode to prevent death. It doesn’t feel like much of an incentive to experiment with these systems if the enemies can nullify them𝔉 in seconds - why go through the hassle of creating structures at all?
It’s a similar story with the giant itself - before the battle they were standing in the lake, doing nothing but waiting to be killed. You can offer the larger, more intelligent creatures in the game offerings, which may result in them giving you rewards via a peaceful means. It’s a good idea, but it means that the giant needs to stand there motionless until the player decides whether to attack or give an offering. A bad gift will still cause combat, so there are some layers to the mechanic, but I hope at launch these enemies make the world feel m🦂ore lived in - a lot of games I got to see at Gamescom were in semi-finished states and I have a lot of respect for devs willing to raise the curtain, but I’m not sure this was an example of this or whether the giants really do just stand there while you build a tower level with their head and make sure you have a clear shot of their eyes.
I was hoping Nightingale was going to win me over at Gamescom, and even tho🌺ugh it dღid it by going entirely in the opposite direction than I expected, I’m glad it did. While there are still some hurdles on the road to launch, I’ve never been more confident that Nightingale is in the right place.
