The November 2023 closed playtest of Nightingale was a significant event, with Developer Inflexion Games inviting a vast number of 12,000 players known as 'Realmwalkers', to explore its expansive worlds. This playtest also revealed several intriguing aspects and highlights of the game, including the fascination with character creation and some wildlife mishaps.
Inflexion stated in a recent playtest postmortem that one of the standout features of the playtest was the character creator. The developers of Nightingale have clearly put a lot of thought into this aspect, offering a range of customization options that kept players engaged much longer than they expected. On average, players spent around 10 minutes in the character creator, with some spending more than 90 minutes customizing their character. The final tally was over 11,500 characters were created with over 2000 total hours spent of players fiddling around with their toon’s aesthetics. The addition of unique options, such as the ability to add metal teeth was just one example the team chose as an explanation of the depth of customization offered.
The team also outline a recurring bug that led to aggressive wildlife behavior, notably from wolves and boars, which unexpectedly heightened the game's challenge. This issue, while notable, did not deter players from engaging these beasts, with over 60,000 combined wolves and boars were eliminated by players during the playtest. The weapon of choice for the vast majority of players was the wooden axe which emerged as the most common weapon used in these encounters, which denotes those players likely chose something easily accessible during their play through.
Beyond the gameplay mechanics and character customization, Inflexion highlighted several player creations from the test. Some of the screenshots shared included intricately designed estates in different realms like desert and forest, and unique constructions using the game's building materials. Building within different realms is a major selling point for Nightingale and it was fantastic to see so many different examples of how the team plans to implement this upon the Early Access launch in February.
After the positive news of Nightingales playtest success. It is evident that Inflexion is giving ample attention to the game so that it not only offers a rich and engaging experience for Realmwalkers, but also fosters a sense of creativity and community among its players bolstering the survival and adventure aspects the game is intends to portray. Follow along with their development every Sunday in our Indie MMO Spotlight.
