‘Nightingale’ focusing on offline mode after rocky Early Access launch

23 February, 2024

'Nightingale' Early Access screenshot

Inflexion Games has said it is focused on creating an offline mode after Nightingale launched in Early Access.

Inflexion Games is the studio of ex-Bioware boss Aaryn Flynn with Nightingale, their first release. The PVE open-world survival crafting game can be played solo or cooperatively with friends and launched in Early Access on Tuesday (February 20).

However, following player feedback, the studio is now prioritising an offline mode.

As it stands, all players need to be online, even if they’re playing solo. “This is a fantastic and fun game so far. However, I’m playing single player and am often getting ‘network error’ due to having to be online all the time,” reads one review on Steam. “I’ve spent 20 minutes this morning trying to get into my single player game with no luck at all.“

“We’ve seen a lot of discussion in recent days around our decision to make Nightingale online-only at our Early Access release. We understand that this can be frustrating for a number of reasons,” said a statement from Inflexion.

“Our vision for the game since inception was to create an interconnected series of Realms, with the idea of allowing for co-operative exploration in mind – a universe bigger than a single Realm or server. That meant we made a choice early in development between supporting co-op from day one or focusing development on an offline mode.”

“Co-operative gameplay associated with having party members across multiple Realms was the more technically challenging problem and therefore the one we chose to tackle first,” they explained.

“Looking back on that decision, we misjudged what some of you were looking for in your experience. We are now prioritising and developing an offline mode that we plan to release as soon as feasible,” they added.

A further update confirmed that development on other quality of life updates, new content and fixes continues “uninterrupted.”

Speaking to NME, Flynn said: “We want to give players a world that they feel connected to, that feels alive and rich with history [in Nightingale]. It was something before they got there, and will be something after they leave.”

In other news, it has been confirmed that Game Of Thrones author George R.R. Martin did not contribute any new ideas to Elden Ring expansion Shadow Of The Erdtree.

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