Nightingale is Survival of the Grandest Scale | Gamescom 2023

ign.com:

In most survival games you’re lucky if you have a shelter fashioned from a few sticks and leaves. Maybe a little fire you can use to cook nasty-tasting berries that do just enough to keep hunger at bay. And while Nightingale starts off in a similar way, with little more than a handful of sticks and stones to keep you alive, it’s not long until you’re able to build something altogether more impressive.

Axes are pretty simple to craft early on and are extremely useful for chopping down trees, which can then be turned into logs. Before long you have enough to build a simple log cabin; nothing too fancy, but it provides shelter from both the elements and the local wildlife. It looks quick and simple to make too; although I wasn’t able to play Nightingale at gamescom 2023, the developers did showcase how it’s created a simplified crafting system designed to make building anything – from simple tools to impressive buildings – quick and easy. So much so, in fact, that within a few minutes our base has expanded to include additional rooms and levels, plus crafting benches that enable you to build bigger and better things. Moments later, we’re able to upgrade once again, switching out bland log panels for ornate pagodas. If this is what life is like when you’re on the brink of survival, count me in.

At its most basic, Nightingale is a survival game like Sons of the Forest and Valheim, but that’s doing it a disservice because it’s by far the most stylish and elegant survival game I’ve ever seen. The Realm Walkers are the epitome of Victorian chic and even manage to make an animal skin look great, and the way they use umbrellas to glide from high ledges smacks of Breath of the Wild crossed with Mary Poppins, and it’s wonderful.

Nighti