Nightingale's CEO has expressed unhappiness with the current state of the game, and has promised sweeping changes and improvements are on the way as part of the game's short to medium term roadmap. This news comes as it emerges the player count for the game has dropped significantly from launch, giving Inflexion Games a real incentive to win back players.
News in brief
- Player counts for Nightingale are down
- Updates are coming, with a focus on stability and bug fixing in the short term
Nightingale is a survival game set in a "Gaslamp Fantasy" world. Think Steampunk Victorian and you're not far off. The unique spin here is that players use mystical portals to jump between fantastical worlds, using their skills and resources to survive. It's an intriguing concept, and one which captured thousands of players. Unfortunately, while it sat at a respectable 47,569 players at peak, current player counts have dropped to less than a quarter of that.
Bugs, crashes, and a lack of quality of life features have led to a number of players being turned off the experience. Some feel that the game was launched too early, and should have been held back until it was more polished. Thankfully, Inflexion Games have recognised this, and the first series of patches will focus around balance, fixing bugs, adding stability, and other such quality of life improvements. After that, the medium term plan is to start building on that base, adding new NPC interactions, missile weapons, the ability to craft from storage, and other useful features.
It's clear that the bugs and issues in the game were a particular bugbear for the team, as is evidenced by the CEO's statement.
"While we’re happy with some elements of our launch, we’re not satisfied with a number of others. These include network issues, confusing or missing features for core systems like crafting, and important updates to combat. With yesterday’s patch, we started addressing many of the most urgent gaps and bugs in the overall game experience."
While Nightingale was never on the level of such recent blockbuster launches like Palworld and Helldivers 2, it had certainly carved itself a small niche, and was showing some real potential. There's no doubt Nightingale has an uphill battle to regain the players it's lost, but this roadmap shows it's definitely on the right track.