Nightingale News

Realmwalkers,

Our server maintenance has concluded and our servers are now back online.

Please update your game to ensure you can access Online Mode once again. The below items will not apply to the Offline Mode until you update the game.

It's recommended to restart Steam/Epic or verify your game files to make sure you're on the latest version. The game version shows in the main menu when you start the game.

[h2]Highlights[/h2]

• Pepys Box - allows players to access storage between other Pepys boxes
  
• Zephyr Anchor Points - build to fast travel within Realms
  
• Climbing Pick Grapple Ability
  
• Online to Offline Mode Character Export - get your Online Mode character save here
• Offline Mode now available on Steam Deck
  
• Offline Mode now compatible with Steam Cloud
  
• Closing the Spark of Hope event
  

[h2]Game Changes[/h2]
[h3]NPCs[/h3]

• Community Event trader and Hopeful Wisps are no longer available
  
• Prodigious Explosive Grenade Satchel and Dauntless Throwing Knife Sheath are now purchased at The Watch Dauntless Tools Essence Trader
  
• Rugged Throwing Knife Sheath can be obtained in Ascended Provisioner Swamp Realms
  
• Rugged Explosive Grenade Satchel can be obtained in Ascended Provisioner Desert Realms
  

[h3]Player Character[/h3]

• Player loadout clothing recipes can now be obtained from Vendors
  

[h3]Resources[/h3]

• Added Charm of Brawling which allows for friendly fire for all players who have it equipped and have opted in via doing an in-game emote
  
• Hopeful Essence will no longer be dropped. Existing Hopeful Essence can be extracted into regular Essence
  
• Adjustments to Basic Spyglass resource requirement
  
• Raw Mushrooms should now list Attribute Bonuses in the description
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
[h3]Building[/h3]

• Carnute will no longer regrow trees through player estates. As long as a stump is under foundation or shelter, the tree will not grow even if the Carnute calls
  
• Adjustments to the build limit counter to show more accurate item counts
  

[h3]NPCs[/h3]

• Sun Giant should no longer summon unintended amounts of Automatons in Offline Mode
  

[h3]Resources[/h3]

• Bound Ichor can no longer be refined into Spice
  
• Tools built before 0.3 that lost their ability to use spells should now be able to cast
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Optimized shaders, reducing the installation size about about 10GB
  
• Additional memory optimizations
  

Thank you for your patience and for joining us on this journey!

- The Nightingale Team (Inflexion Games)

Realmwalkers,

Servers have been taken down for maintenance to push a game update. Offline Mode can still be played at this time, but the Online Mode will be unavailable until the update is complete.

Please note the changes below will not be applied to Offline Mode until you update the game (you can see the version number in the main menu).


[h2]Highlights[/h2]

• Pepys Box - allows players to access storage between other Pepys boxes
  
• Zephyr Anchor Points - build to fast travel within Realms
  
• Climbing Pick Grapple Ability
  
• Online to Offline Mode Character Export - get your Online Mode character save here
  
• Offline Mode now available on Steam Deck
  
• Offline Mode now compatible with Steam Cloud
  
• Closing the Spark of Hope event
  

[h2]Game Changes[/h2]
[h3]NPCs[/h3]

• Community Event trader and Hopeful Wisps are no longer available
  
• Prodigious Explosive Grenade Satchel and Dauntless Throwing Knife Sheath are now purchased at The Watch Dauntless Tools Essence Trader
  
• Rugged Throwing Knife Sheath can be obtained in Ascended Provisioner Swamp Realms
  
• Rugged Explosive Grenade Satchel can be obtained in Ascended Provisioner Desert Realms
  

[h3]Player Character[/h3]

• Player loadout clothing recipes can now be obtained from Vendors
  

[h3]Resources[/h3]

• Added Charm of Brawling which allows for friendly fire for all players who have it equipped and have opted in via doing an in-game emote
  
• Hopeful Essence will no longer be dropped. Existing Hopeful Essence can be extracted into regular Essence
  
• Adjustments to Basic Spyglass resource requirement
  
• Raw Mushrooms should now list Attribute Bonuses in the description
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
[h3]Building[/h3]

• Carnute will no longer regrow trees through player estates. As long as a stump is under foundation or shelter, the tree will not grow even if the Carnute calls
  
• Adjustments to the build limit counter to show more accurate item counts
  

[h3]NPCs[/h3]

• Sun Giant should no longer summon unintended amounts of Automatons in Offline Mode
  

[h3]Resources[/h3]

• Bound Ichor can no longer be refined into Spice
  
• Tools built before 0.3 that lost their ability to use spells should now be able to cast
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Optimized shaders, reducing the installation size about about 10GB
  
• Additional memory optimizations
  

Thank you for your patience and for joining us on this journey!

- The Nightingale Team (Inflexion Games)

Heya Realmwalkers,

Ahead of the Grapple and Travel Update for tomorrow, here's a new Developer Update video where we discuss what to expect tomorrow and beyond.

Topics covered:

• Grapple Ability
  
• Zephyr Anchor Points
  
• Pepys Box
  
• Craftable Outfits
  
• Charm of Brawling
  
• Online to Offline Mode Migration
  
• Steam Deck Offline Mode
  
• Steam Cloud Saves
  
• Community Event Conclusion
  
• Update Cadence
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Heya Realmwalkers,

We’re pushing an update tomorrow (June 26) at the following approximate time:
9 am PDT / 10 am MDT / noon EDT / 5 pm GMT / 2 am AEDT

Here are the details you need to know:

[h2] Spark of Hope Event [/h2]

The Spark of Hope community event will be coming to an end tomorrow with this update.

The end of the event means the following:

• Removal of Hopeful Wisps
  
• Hopeful Essence no longer drops
  
• Event Trader will be removed from Abeyance Realms
  

Make sure that you spend your Hopeful Essence with the Event Trader before it closes! All unspent Hopeful Essence can still be converted to regular Essence after the event is over. Don't worry if you missed out - we'll be making these items available again in the future. Thanks for jumping into the Realms during the event!

[h2] Server Maintenance [/h2]

Servers for the Online Mode will be taken down tomorrow (June 26) for maintenance to push a game update at the following approximate time:

9 am PDT / 10 am MDT / noon EDT / 5 pm GMT / 2 am AEDT

This update includes the following:

• Pepys Box
  
• Zephyr Anchor Points
  
• Climbing Pick Grapple Ability
  
• Online to Offline Mode Character Export
  
• Steam Deck Offline Mode
  
• Offline Mode Steam Cloud Saves
  
• Closing the Spark of Hope event
  
• Additional bugs fixes and game adjustments
  

Full patch notes will be provided when server maintenance begins.

We’re expecting maintenance to take approximately 1 hour to complete and will provide an update when servers are back online. The Offline Mode can be played during the maintenance window.

Thank you for your patience and for joining us on this journey!

- The Nightingale Team

The most common Bound enemy that you’ll fight in Nightingale is The Bound Minion. They’ll be familiar to both experienced and novice Realmwalkers alike as the first type of Bound creature encountered in the Realms. While these lower-tier enemies are relatively easy to defeat individually, they can quickly overwhelm you in larger numbers. We’ve chosen to focus on these fiendish foes in this edition of our behind-the-scenes blog series, and to give us more insight into their creation, we've invited our Art Director, Neil Thompson, to shed some light on the design and lore behind these devilish grunts.

Please let us know if you have any requests for specific Creature Features on Discord or the Forums!

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How did creating the Bound begin?
The Bound Minions were the first enemy type to be created. The original intention was that they would be a ‘popcorn’ fight without much strategic importance or difficulty. We wanted a starting point for future enemy types from a gameplay standpoint and art direction.

The initial design process started with sketches that evoked a type of horde army, with a signature look that would tie (pun intended) all future Bound archetypes together. We went through several rounds of concept designs before we finally hit on a look that we felt satisfied with.

What inspired the lore behind the Bound? When did you know that you had the look for Bound?
The original idea for the Bound was, in retrospect, quite horrifying. Human prisoners were captured by the Fae and, through a ‘Binding Ceremony’, compelled to do their bidding. In this case: Kill All Humans. As a Realmwalker, your only defense was to use whatever tool was at hand to kill these poor unfortunates. Conscious and aware but unable to change their fate, it was a tremendously dark conceit that ultimately we moved away from as it didn’t sit well with the overarching tone of adventure that we believe Nightingale to be. So their back story changed so that they are now constructs of the Fae; grown in vats via magical means. You can feel much better about hitting them in the head with an axe now without the moral dilemma.



This image by Casper Konefal was where we knew we now had the main themes for our Bound look. Even though we changed the origin from human to bestial in nature (as a result of the change in origin story), the visual language defined here became the lasting template that we still refer to today when starting any new Bound archetype.

How did the early development of the Bound change their design?
The Bound Minions were the first enemy type we playtested with. The core idea of these enemies hasn’t changed much, but the art direction for The Bound took off from this point. We iterated off of some initial in-game models until we got to the Bound Minions that you see today. As development and playtesting continued, we evolved the Bound Minions into different enemy types.

Looking at Nightingale today, the palette of distinct Bound types has now flourished into a diverse set of enemies that can operate independently or as a collaborative group.



What is the object or goal of the Bound design? What story are you trying to tell?
The Bound are unified by their aggression and strange ligatures on their skin. The idea behind their evolution is that Minions become Bound Lanterns and other minion types. We wanted The Bound to have a unique bestial quality yet appear capable of metamorphosis into the tougher variants.When we moved away from the initial backstory, we wanted the Bound to signify a soulless appearance, propped up by Fae magic. While these enemies have a physical form, they are an enemy that powerful Fae have created to prevent Realmwalkers from growing in strength.

One thing will always remain true with any Bound archetype: to be Bound is to be in pain, hence the uncomfortable posing and binding of limbs. If it’s not uncomfortable, it’s not Bound.

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Thanks, Neil! That’s all for this behind-the-scenes blog! Stay tuned for more creature features!