Nightingale Critic Reviews

Nightingale is an enchantingly pretty game that can't hide the fact that there's not much interesting beneath the surface. Those familiar with survival games may find this one too familiar, though it's rarely offensive - with the exception of some technical and server issues.

Nightingale is starting off in an okay place as an early-access title. With time and some polish, Nightingale could capitalize on its unique setting and strong core mechanics to stand out from its peers. In its current state, however, Nightingale is a tough sell. For players who love its aesthetic or the genre overall, Nightingale likely has enough on offer that is worth exploring. For others, though, it is likely better to wait for the developer’s planned updates and improvements to be released.

Nightingale doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking to the survival genre, and its gameplay is overburdened with bloat and needlessly time-consuming mechanics.

Nightingale is brimming with potential and can grow into something truly fascinating, but it has a long way to go.

Overall, Nightingale is an engaging survival game and one that feels like you can have low commitment to in order to have fun. It’s easy to pick up and put down, and has some solid foundations. Even in its early stages, Nightingale has a lot to offer players, even if it is very clearly in Early Access. I’m eager to see what the game will be further down the line when some of these issues are ironed out, and what the core narrative of the game will eventually turn out to be. For now, I’m content logging into Nightingale for a few hours every few days just to hang out with friends and explore the vast wealth of Realms the game has to offer.

Nightingale, in its current early access game, is a $30 release. I should under no circumstances be required to be connected to the internet to enjoy it. This, I feel, is especially true for the genre; Some of my best experiences in games like Conan Exiles, 7 Days to Die, and other survival crafts have been offline, especially when the game has such an emphasis on story content and PVE or exploration… like Nightingale does.

Nightingale is a game I wanted to love. It's a game I kept telling myself and others about whenever more information came out about it. I was excited, enthralled, and mystified by the idea of it. It pains me to say my experience left a sour taste in my mouth. It's as though everything is half-baked at this point. With that said, it's early access, and what the developers have lined up could be a fascinating game once finished.

Nightingale is both fun and frustrating in different intervals. It has interesting base building mechanics and beautifully-crafted Realms, but it's held back by a stale gameplay loop and some unfortunate quality-of-life issues.

While I understand Nightingale's in early access and things are subject to a tweaking, I can't help but feel that its problems lie deeper than surface level numbers and UI. I respect how it's tried to push the survival genre forward with its realm-hops and gear scoring, but both of these fundamentals aren't implemented very well. The realms strike me as re-skins once the novelty's worn off, and the way progress is tied to numbers only serves to make survival feel like a grind. Unless things change dramatically, I think I'll pass on reaching Nightingale.

Nightingale has a cool setting and some fun ideas at its Early Access launch, but right now its compelling survival-crafting progression is bogged down by frustrating pacing and an underserved story.

For now, though, Nightingale isn’t quite there. I’m still interested in seeing where the game gets to by the time it leaves Early Access, because I’m still intrigued by its promise, but for now, it needs some work.