A new survival game for Steam looks like what New World dared not be

MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus is excited about the new trailer for the upcoming survival game Nightingale. As a survival expert, he’s blown away and sees many similarities to New World and Valheim. Only that Nightingale probably does a lot better.

Nightingale’s gameplay looks like the very things that New World cut so much. Amazon’s MMO was itself a PvP-focused survival game early in development, but was then transformed into a PvE MMO.

But New World shied away from going all-out for survival. Why? One can only speculate. Instead, there is now a system that is semi-class and weapon-based and more MMORPG-oriented.

However, remnants of the original idea can still be found in New World. You have to cut down thousands of trees and break down stones to achieve something in crafting. Cities are built, but only through quests, not through actual “building”.

It just wasn’t pulled through. Maybe you didn’t trust yourself or the players with so much ambition.

I’ve personally had a lot of fun with the New World system, but I’ve heard from some MMO fans who hated the odd mix. Nightingale is now taking these “leftovers” and making a new game out of them. But see the trailer for yourself:

This is what makes the new trailer so special: The latest trailer shows Nightingale’s gameplay. A short scene starting at minute 1:30 is particularly exciting, in which the players apparently created an entire city together, over which an airship later flies.

New World also allows guilds to own an entire city, but only according to given parameters. Nightingale lets us (hopefully) build everything ourselves the way we want it to be.

The second point that grabbed me right away is the crazy monsters. From minute 0:47 you can briefly see some wacky swamp monster. Nightingale is said to be full of fairy creatures. If they all not only glitter, but also have a good dose of horror, the world can only become awesome.

And then of course there is the end. At the very end of the trailer, a scary vending machine woman suddenly appears, whose head turns into a skull. Story and survival result in a mixture that just works again and again.

PvE, Co-op and Survival – The perfect mix

What is Nightingale anyway? The new survival game from Inflexion Games, where former BioWare developers also work, focuses entirely on PvE. The game describes itself as a “First-Person PvE Open World Survival Crafting Game” that is intended to be played solo or in co-op.

The focus is on exploration, crafting and collaborative building. You are to explore and gain a foothold in the world, as your old world will soon be destroyed by a magical storm. In this new place, however, there are also new dangers.

Other gameplay that I was allowed to preview include giant attacks and horned satyrs destroying your buildings.

What makes the game special is the setting. Nightingale is set in a Victorian fantasy world known as “Gaslamp Fantasy.” Here elements of industrialized England are mixed with fairies and monsters.

When is the game out? Nightingale is scheduled to be released in Early Access for PC on Steam and Epic Games in 2022. However, an exact date is still open.

After the successes of Valheim and most recently V Rising, I see Nightingale as the next potential hit for survival fans. The mix of survival, PvE and an amazing setting has worked well before and will certainly do so again.

In any case, indie games like to have a good knack for realizing their own vision well. Some of the best survival games come from self-publishing studios like Nightingale:

The best survival games of 2022 for PlayStation, PC and Xbox