That’s just one of several historical
figures inhabiting the Victorian world
of Nightingale. Chemist and physicist
Marie Curie is in the game, too, a
scientist naturally drawn to study
magic in the world of Nightingale.
And according to Thompson, there
are “plenty of others”.
“We lean into that. We like it a lot,
bringing in these potentially
recognisable characters into the lore,”
adds Flynn. “Things like that, famous
19th century personalities who
players are going to get a chance to
interact with.”
Some NPCs will serve even more
of a purpose than historical flavour
and quest-giving. While this feature
won’t be available immediately upon
Nightingale’s release in Early Access,
but is planned for later on in the
game’s development, eventually some
NPCs will be recruitable and can
help you build and service the
structures you build.
“You don’t have to necessarily do
all the work yourself,” says Flynn.
“You can come across these other
NPCs who are lost in the same
situation you are, perhaps some of
them have been in the realms for a
long time. And you can connect with
them, then you can bring them to
your estate and you can have them do
things for you. They also can join you
on adventures so you can bring them
along to help you hunt, help you
defend yourself, etc.”
Just try not to think of these NPCs
as simple hired hands or soulless
robots who will complete a list of
chores. They sound more like
companions in an RPG, which isn’t
surprising considering Inflexion was
founded by Flynn, the former general
manager at BioWare, and
Nightingale’s 1 00-member team
includes other BioWare veterans.
“I think an important thing to talk
about, that we as a studio think of a
lot is, to bring that sense of kind of
balance to the world, the NPCs aren’t
just people you hire,” says Leah
Summers, director of production.
“What are their desires? How do you
need to take care of their needs or
satisfy them so that we’re not just
kind of hiring out a bunch of peopleto do mundane chores. There’s really
choices and interesting consequences
to what you’re doing with the NPCs.”PORTAL WARS
The ultimate goal for players is to
find a way to open a portal back to
the city of Nightingale, but many
other portals will need to be opened
first (Nightingale itself, as a location,
won’t be present in the game when
it enters Early Access). Within the
Fae realm, players will be able to
open magic doorways to new areas
and discover zones that harbour
new resources. I’m shown a
desert-like biome at the edge of an
ocean, where, intriguingly, a
wrecked ship lies off the coast,
framed by the setting sun. (“The real
question is, is it a human ship?” says
Thompson. “Or is it a Fae ship?”)
Players can also expect to open
gateways to tropical jungles, murky
swamps, dense forests, and whatever
bizarre dimension that giant bronze
clockwork god resides in.
Naturally, base-building is a big
part of the experience, but to match53
Nightingale