A few months ago someone in the comments on this blog recommended Nightingale, a new survival fantasy game that had just hit Early Access on Steam. In the game, humans encountered the Fae during the Victorian Age and learned to access the Realms, pocket worlds that could be travelled to via portals.
Some worlds were beautiful, others terrifying, but all were dangerous and full of secrets and the fae lore. Humans established various institutions to study the realms and set out exploring them. Then out of the portals came the Pale, a fog filled with horrible corrupted that slaughtered everyone they came across. The human cities have fallen, and you, the lone survivor, are trying to not get killed and make your way to the mythical Nightingale, a city deep within the realms where the human civilization can restart anew.
It all sounded amazing, and I bought the game; however, it had some issues. The combat was a little clunky and the dungeons were placeholders. The crafting system seemed overly complex, because you had to build all these different stations, and run around trying to find traders to buy the recipes. The clothes were awful. There was too much grind. Just across the board, too much pointless work.
They released a new update, and it is everything I wanted it to be. This was a really good edit. Click to slightly enlarge images. As you can see, clothes no longer hurt the eyes.
The crafting progression is streamlined. No more running around. The recipes are unlocked through essence, the game currency which you get from killing monsters and completing challenges, and it is very clear as to what each augment station does. The number of augment stations seems to have been reduced and everything is labeled properly. Nothing is confusing.
The augment bench is gone. Each weapon can now have 1 charm, two spells, and an infusion. The properties of different metals make sense. The addition of the bow was excellent. Good ammo can be crafted earlier and kicks butt.
There are now 6 storied realms, which are unique worlds with hand-crafted dungeons and challenges. There are still the usual random realms, but they look much better and the challenges and dungeons have been drastically improved.
The world is still lovely.
The grind, however, has been significantly reduced. For example, there is a spell called Oberon’s Bounty, which can be added to an axe or a mining pick of your choice. You activate it, hit the mining node once, and all the ore falls out. You can just run around, one-shotting the mining. Combined with the mining or lumberjack charm, which offers a bigger yield, it has made resource gathering so much more fun.
I am enjoying it very much. If you were on the fence about coming back to the game, I recommend giving it another shot. All the thumbs up.
those are really high quality graphics!
Will do. Thank you!
I’ve avoided video gaming because I can (will) hyper focus and will wake up 3 days after I started playing starving, dehydrated, smelly and really needing to pee.
I’m retired now. If I can manage to not dehydrated to the point of stupid maybe I’ll give videogames another chance. Because this sounds fun.
Ooh thanks for this. I had given up on it after purchasing it on release week. The grind was just too grind-y and everything felt more fiddly than it ought compared to other similar games.
Ooooh
Looks cool! I will have to recommend!
Sounds like a fun premise! Glad they fixed the bugs and you enjoy it now! 🥳
This sounds amazing!
I am afraid to go get it because I have nearly 60 test papers to grade this weekend…
Not a gamer, but it does look cool.
No, no, no, I do NOT need this game. No. . . .
Maybe. . . .
OK, I bought it.
Darn it.
#WeakWillPower
Ok, sounds interesting. I’ll take a look. Thanks for the info!
gotta love it when developers listen to their customers and actually fix problematic issues. win!
Ok, I found a Reddit by a 52 year old, now locked asking about steam games but I am still confused about how these games worked.
I loved early games from Zelda on through Sokudan. Had many Final Fantasy, but I had pain using controllers.
The steam games can be on my computer I think. How do I make things happen. I have an iPad and use fingers, no mouse. If I download game and link iPad to tv how do I control game? Do people add game controllers? If this too physical for arthritis folks?
Hi Barbara,
As far as I’m aware (please correct me other BDHers), you cannot play Steam games on an iPad unless you’re streaming from a computer and through the Steam app. It is not a platform to play stand alone games on iPadOS and iOS.
From what I’m seeing on Steam, Nightingale is only available on Windows, so would need either keyboard/mouse or linked controller, neither of which sound like a good option for you.
I just tried to get an Apple friendly game for my iPad thru Steam and it added it to my library, but not in a way I could download it to my device.
If you have Apple+, there are many of the same games there which have been coded for iPad use, which may be the better option.
I hope this helps a bit at least?
I’ve been following Nightingale since their early access release but hadn’t bought it yet. I love the conceptual underpinnings and it sounds like they made the kinds of changes I would look for. Thanks for the review!
This sounds really good. It’s on sale right now too. I wonder if it’ll run on linux without too many tweaks (I ditched windows when they killed win7. win10 is not for me)
I am a refugee from EverQuest, which I played for 10 years and enjoyed hugely. I quit for various reasons about eight years ago, just went cold turkey. Lately I’ve been thinking about getting back into a new game, and this is tempting.
One funny thing – when I first started playing EQ, the joke among my online friends was how many building interiors resembled a Steak & Ale. The interior shot on Nightingale looks EXACTLY like a Steak & Ale, and that’s a positive thing! I loved going to Steak & Ale.
I was thinking about buying it the last time it went on sale but held off. I still have it on my wishlist though. I’ll give it another looksee when it comes on sale again. Thanks!
I also bought this game when it came out and it just hurt to play. I haven’t picked it up since. But if this update fixed it maybe I’ll go back to playing. If you are ever looking for a new game to play I highly recommended CoreKeeper! It’s like terraria/Stardew valley vibes.
I’ve been playing Nightengale since it arrived with Early Access. I am a huge fan of steampunk and atompunk and this game didn’t disappoint with the setting. I completely agree that the reworks on this really helped streamline exploration, advancement, item creation and enhancement a hundred fold. If this is what the future if the game will be, I’m sure we will have many improvements over the next iterations to fuel my enjoyment of this game
OMG, I saw the WEAVE of the fabric on my sleeve and swooned in nerdjoy.
The description of the Pale reminded me of the video game Disco Elysium, where it’s also something really poetic, and a terrible horrifying concept😁
Thanks for gaming advice! I am still confused but in my 70’s things become harder to figure out since I am missing 20 plus years of game changes.
I play Disney kingdom which is fairly dull. Sigh.
I always failed at the big monsters, and would wait for my son to come home to fight my battles. 😂😂
I shared with my son and he say thanks for the recommendation!
The graphics are great. I have suggested to my husband that he takes a look. He is NOT a reader of the authorlords (yet) What should I start him on? Kate or Innkeeper?
I personally would go by length and start on Innkeeper and then move on to Kate. 🙂
This one has been on my watch list. I was waiting until it was updated a bit more. I’ll definitely check it out now. I was wondering if you’d taken a look back at No Man’s Sky since all the updates have happened. I remember you tried it at release but it got the dreaded boot to refund. I’ve been playing since then and it’s a whole new game now.
I believe Ilona tried it several times but it still wasn’t her cup of tea in the end.
Thanks for this! I’d watched some playthroughs when it was first released and decided it looked way too grind-y for me, but the idea sounded so fun I’ll have to check it out again.
Thank you for this recommendation. I have been wanting to try a game. Haven’t done them in years.
🔥
I am on my way to Carolina beach for the weekend. Will I be able to run into Kate, Curran, or conlan anytime there?
The new update to Nightingale has made this game amazing!! Definitely check it out, it’s on sale!
i did not try it before, but I might now. is it one you can play offline?