Nightingale was originally announced at The Game Awards in 2021 for an early access release at the end of 2022, followed by a full release. But in a statement posted on Twitter on August 11 by the game’s developer, Inflexion Games, it was confirmed that Nightingale will not be released at all in 2022. It listed several reasons for the delay, but one of the biggest was the desire to move the game to a new engine before release, rather than postponing the update later.
Nightingale is a shared—world survival game being developed by some former Bioware developers who previously worked on popular franchises such as the Dragon Age series. This new game will be presented in a fantasy setting with multiple worlds, where portals are the gateway between different areas in Nightingale, such as swamps, deserts and jungles. The game is more focused on creating and exploring creation, but players won’t have to do it alone; Nightingale can also be played in co-op. However, adventures in these worlds will now have to wait. Nightingale has been postponed until the first half of 2023.
According to the message published by the developers, it was decided to postpone early access until 2023 in order to transfer the project to Unreal Engine 5, as well as for general polishing and improvement of the entire gameplay. This makes Nightingale, the first game developed by Inflexion, one of several games whose release was postponed from 2022 to 2023.
As Inflexion Games noted in a tweet, a serious reason for this delay was the developer’s desire to move the game to Unreal Engine 5 instead of waiting for the release and for gamers to play it, and then decide to update the game later. Many fan projects have demonstrated what Unreal Engine 5 is capable of, and there are several games in development that have been confirmed to use Unreal Engine 5, such as the next installment of the Tomb Raider franchise. So the desire to transfer the game to the engine before the release makes sense. More time to polish the game and make it as good as possible before people start playing it, even in an early access state, is also quite common when it comes to game delays.
As frustrating as delays may be for some gamers, especially for a development team with a relatively solid track record, delays usually lead to a better product and a better experience for players. Although this news may disappoint many people, especially BioWare fans, the developers from Inflexion Games clearly want their first project to be remembered.
Nightingale will be released in early access in the first half of 2023 for PC.
