Just two days after launch, Inflexion Games announced that the developer is now prioritizing the development of an offline mode for Nightingale. In its current state, Nightingale requires a consistent online connection to the game servers. Having just released into Early Access, this is what every player hopes to see. A developer open to changing its game to fit community feedback, which it appears Inflexion is willing to do.
Adding online to a connected world
Without a doubt, the biggest hurdle for adding an offline mode to Nightingale is going to be at a fundamental design level. One of the core systems of Nightingale is that all of the Realms or worlds are connected via a portal network, creating an interconnected series of Realms. As such, Nightingale is more of a universe of connected realms rather than one world or server. As such, co-op is a big part of its design including epic boss encounters tuned around cooperative play.
However, “Always Online” games just haven’t quite caught on, even for AAA releases like Diablo 4. Players still like the opportunity to just boot up and play solo in their own offline world without it restricting their gameplay experience. The biggest issue with online play is when servers are down or congested, it can become literally impossible to play, which is never fun for anyone. Thankfully it appears Inflexion has seen community feedback and is willing to make the fundamental design change to Nightingale.
“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. Looking back on that decision, we misjudged what some of you were looking for in your experience.
We are now prioritizing and developing an offline mode that we plan to release as soon as feasible. Keep an eye on our social channels and Discord for updates in the coming weeks alongside other things we’re working on.”
–The Inflexion Team
