As most of you fine readers likely know, I was something of a fan of Nightingale. I enjoyed the previews I was a part of. I enjoyed playing the early access game when it released. I enjoyed its aesthetic and some of the things it did to the survival sandbox genre. Sure, it wasn’t anywhere near perfect, but I found a few of its wrinkles to be endearing.
But that was until I got to the very last section of the game, where it was mostly going to be about joining others in adventurous delves. On paper, it sounded great, but in practice it dumped a huge bucket of cold water on my enjoyment, primarily because the few times I did get to play with others it felt like I was being tugged along on a leash, barely able to keep up with the frenetic pace, take in the scenery, or worse yet, meaningfully assist in combat. It killed my desire to play, and I didn’t bother to come back.
Of course, that was all before Inflexion Games put out its big revamp-sized Realms Rebuilt update, which tries to make some of the game’s pain points better. So, how did it stand up? It’s hard for me to say since I had to start from scratch like everyone else and thus didn’t get to the very tippy-top, but I will say that so far it’s been better. Not a golden bullet, but a strong start.
I’ll get my complaints out of the way first: If combat in Nightingale wasn’t interesting to you before, there’s probably not going to be a lot to change your mind here. A while ago Inflexion did add a couple of additional Bound enemy types, but in the early game, that mostly just meant having to deal with melee combatants who mindlessly ran towards you and bomb-tossing combatants who ran away constantly to hurl explosives. In other words, the refreshed combat isn’t really more engaging, just a new level of slightly more obnoxious.
I will also say that some of the survival caveats that existed previously are not fundamentally changed, which shouldn’t be too obvious. Food still works as before, material gathering and crafting is still the same (including all of the little added wrinkles of placing improving little doodads near crafting tables still being important), and all of the tools familiar to the game before are very much present here. If you’ve refined how you set up your crafting stations, there’s little to rock that boat.
My biggest complaint, however, is related to the extremely guided opening portion. Sure, Nightingale had some guided quest lines to move you along before, but for the most part that involved mechanics being slightly less regimented while also opening up earlier realm travel. In this build, you don’t really get to build your own portal – not immediately anyway – and are instead left to perform very specific tasks within your abeyance realm. In short, the walls of the guidance tunnel are now even closer than before.
Even though I felt as if I was being guided along like a child in a mall, I will admit that this newly crafted abeyance realm is quite pretty. The level of care in the zone’s craft was immediately apparent to me, especially coming from a build of the game where everything was procedurally generated. Still, I’m not entirely sure I like it too much, but then I also didn’t really despise it. It’s conflicting.
In spite of these personal problems, I will openly admit that the fixes that were applied are indeed mighty. Gone are the days when you had to open up a realm and wander through it in order to find an NPC to buy recipes with essence; now you can just open up a progression skill tree and spend the essence right then and there to get all of the recipes you could want. It’s literally just a matter of spending the essence earned directly from that UI element, and in my experience through the T1 essence-giving abeyance realm, the shiny globes flow like wine – even after Inflexion removed the ability to simply extract essence from grass to become a millionaire.
Not only that, but wandering around the world finding “treasured items” highlighted in certain places now automatically unlocks those recipes for free, meaning that there was still a reason to explore. I even unlocked additional building styles when I made it into the next realm for free simply by having walked into the realm in question. This is more than convenient; it’s a major improvement and made me appreciate how much the previous unlocking method sucked.
Another significant improvement added to the game since I’ve been away has been NPC companions who are much less braindead. The follower you get to join you on your adventures still isn’t what I’d call the sharpest knife in the drawer, but now I had the option to stop her from walking blithely to every single rock and tree in creation and gather it all like some resource-hungry beaver.
Let me circle back to combat for a moment: While the battle encounters didn’t really thrill me too much in the open world, the added abilities and additional weapons are pretty nice. The knife now has a damage-negating parry mechanic. The hand sickle can be boomeranged forward a short distance to both slice foes and gather resources. There are ammo-less throwing knives and grenades now, which regenerate their use as long as they get repaired. While having to manage ranged and melee foes at once is a bit annoying, I have to point out that there are a couple of new tools to mitigate it. I just wish they didn’t feel so much like a requirement.
And of course, some of the good stuff that existed before hasn’t changed. The aesthetic is still very much there, Puck is still a delight to listen to, and the realms that I’ve visited and the places I’ve plumbed have been absolutely stunning.
But I must also admit I’m unsure whether some of my own personal concerns were addressed. I obviously wasn’t able to get back to the Watch in the time I’ve been back, so I can’t say for sure whether the same problems I experienced in playing with other people persist. And I’ll be honest, if they are still there, then I see no reason for this game to remain on my drive.
Despite those misgivings, I have to pat Inflexion on the back for making the right moves thus far. After all, things like this are what’s important in early access. Now time will have to tell if the studio will be able to keep pushing forward in this new path that it laid out for Nightingale. I’ll certainly keep my fingers crossed.
Early access MMOs are a minefield of underdeveloped releases and almost immediate buyer’s remorse. That’s where Massively OP’s Progress Bar comes in: It’s Chris Neal’s monthly look at developing online multiplayer early access games – and whether they’re worth your money and attention.
