Co-op survival game Nightingale delayed again

Victorian people coming out of magic portal
(Image credit: Inflexion)

You can keep your bowler hat and bustle gowns in the closet a little bit longer: co-op Victorian fantasy survival game Nightingale is facing another delay. Originally planned for an early access release in 2022, Nightingale missed the mark and re-targeted for the first half of this year. Now it's been nudged once again into the future.

In a new Nightingale developer update video, Inflexion Games CEO (and former BioWare general manager) Aaryn Flynn announced "we've come to the decision to move our early access launch date to the fall of this year, which is spring if you're in the southern hemisphere."

If you're a little foggy on the details of Nightingale, it's set in a Victorian alt-history where you've become trapped in a mystical realm and must build an estate, battle monsters, craft gear and dapper outfits, and open gateways to dangerous realms to find rare resources. The survival game can be played alone or in co-op PvE.

Flynn says the delay is based on a few things, like feedback from playtesters, the desire to incorporate more quality of life improvements, and the fine-tuning of player progression. Flynn also says the delay will give the devs time to upgrade the game to Unreal Engine 5.2 and "will allow us to continue the progress we've been making while not jeopardizing the health of our team."

There's no specific release date yet though Flynn says one will be announced sometime this summer. A new playtest is coming soon as well, and will span two full weeks and weekends. Inflexion expects to send out about 10,000 invites for this new playtest, so keep an eye on the official website for that announcement. 

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.