Nightingale’s hopping on the card game wagon in its new gameplay trailer

Nightingale, the upcoming PvE open-world survival craft ’em up from former BioWare boss Aaryn Flynn’s new studio, is getting into the card game business, according to its latest gameplay trailer shown at tonight’s Summer Game Fest. Its freshly flaunted Realm Cards will be your ticket to navigating its mysterious portal network, although naturally you’ll need to craft them by pulping different resources together first. Anyone spot a paper press in the new trailer below?

The portals are an important part of Nightingale’s whole setup, as the reason you’re stuck crafting and having to survive in these fantastical realms is because they all burst at the beginning of the game. My money’s on the magical Fae having something to do with it, as they’re the ones you’ll be defending your makeshift settlements against as the game goes on. You can either do so alone or in co-op with other strandees.

Now we know how you’re going to get out of there. Sort of. The Realm Cards can be infused with all sorts of different attributes, according to developer Inflexion games, including the environment type, weather patterns, the types of challenges you’ll face, and more. Each realm in Nightingale is procedurally generated, you see, so the cards allow you to set the foundations for the world you want to create, while the game fills in all the fiddly bits.

It looks like you’ll have to fend off all manner of magical beasties while those realms are being conjured, though, so you might want to take more than a pickaxe with you to help defend yourself. The trailer also gives us a glimpse of a new Fae enemy type, too: the incredibly creepy Automatons who have horrible swivelly heads. Think I might stay put, thanks, if it means I don’t have to run into one of those.

Nightingale was first announced at The Game Awards last year, and Imogen (RPS in peace) spoke to Flynn earlier in the year about some of its inspirations, including Susanna Clarke’s popular fantasy novel Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrel. Indeed, squint hard enough and it almost sounds like Bertie Carvel doing the voice over in the new trailer this evening, who played Mr Strange in last year’s BBC adaptation.

Nightingale is set to enter early access toward the end of this year, and you can find out more over on Steam and the Epic Games Store.

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