Nightingale devs are making the survival game more unsettling with realistic thunderstorms
"We wanted Nightingale's weather effects to feel as realistic as possible"
With Nightingale set to launch in Early Access next year, the team at Inflexion Games is hard at work bringing its beautiful fantasy world to life.
The developer's latest blog post reveals how it's making adventuring through the Fae Realms more atmospheric and unsettling with realistic thunderstorms. The team has gone to great lengths to make these adverse weather effects look incredibly lifelike, spending an entire week studying slow-motion videos of lightning storms to ensure the branching looked just right.
"We wanted Nightingale's weather effects to feel as realistic as possible," the developer says. "As a storm comes in, you'll see cloud lightning off on the horizon, but as the storm approaches, you'll start to see cloud-to-cloud discharges, and then when the storm gets really bad, you might even see the bolts hit the ground."
It's also been working on additional points of interest for players to discover. New images show an airship hanger situated in a dusty desert-like locale, and a mysterious and mighty stone monument, which you can see below, just waiting to be explored.
Be sure to check out the blog post for more, including some rather hilarious footage of the developer's "bug of the month", which shows trees spectacularly defying the laws of physics after being chopped down. Hey, who said making games was easy?
If Nightingale has thus far flown under your radar, then let us get you up to speed. It's the first title from Inflexion Games, the studio formed by ex-Bioware lead Aaryn Flynn and is a survival-crafting game with a rich Victorian fantasy setting. You use portals to travel between different regions, each brimming with wonderous sights and dangerous creatures. The game was originally due to launch in Early Access in 2022 but was recently delayed to "the first half of 2023." The delay is partly due to an upgrade to Unreal Engine 5, and to allow the team at Inflexion to deliver "the best possible experience".
Don't miss this year's biggest upcoming releases with our guide to new games 2022.
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Originally from Ireland, I moved to the UK in 2014 to pursue a Games Journalism and PR degree at Staffordshire University. Following that, I've freelanced for GamesMaster, Games TM, Official PlayStation Magazine and, more recently, Play and 12DOVE. My love of gaming sprang from successfully defeating that first Goomba in Super Mario Bros on the NES. These days, PlayStation is my jam. When not gaming or writing, I can usually be found scouring the internet for anything Tomb Raider related to add to my out of control memorabilia collection.