Highlights

  • Nightingale's early access offers plenty of content, but it could use features like animal taming and a bestiary in future updates.
  • Nightingale can tap into classic survival game aspects by adding creative mode, expanded melee combat, and mod support.
  • The game could also benefit from mounts and vehicles, interchangeable hot-bar slots, key bindings, and improved NPC functionality.

Nightingale’s early access kicked things off with an impressive amount of content for players to experience. Keeping in mind that Nightingale is set to receive ongoing development throughout early access and beyond, there are still a few missing or incomplete features that would be nice to see in time for the game’s full release, which is anticipated for early 2025.

So far, Nightingale’s commitment to player feedback has already shaped the game in major ways. As such, fans continue to offer discussions and suggestions for the types of changes that Inflexion Games should consider adding to Nightingale. Between traditional survival-crafting game features that are missing from Nightingale to areas where the game could use some specific tuning, here is everything that should make it into the game.

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Missing, Incomplete, or Highly-Requested Features For Future Nightingale Updates

Animal Taming

While the pets and NPC companions in Nightingale help to make the game’s atmosphere feel more lively, tamed animals could also add to the player’s home Realms. Not to mention, taming animals could give players additional ways to earn animal products and other renewable resources.

Bestiary

Players shouldn’t sleep on Nightingale's journal to provide helpful tutorials and guidance, but there currently isn’t a journal tab for animals, monsters, or other NPCs. Consequently, it can be hard to keep track of where to find certain characters and creatures, as well as what kinds of resources they will drop without. Given how crucial it is for players to have the right ingredients in Nightingale’s crafting system, a bestiary is a must-have feature that needs to happen in a future update for Nightingale.

Custom Journal Entries

While Nightingale’s Hope Score system, quests, and other pages in the game’s journal can give players a good sense of where to go next and how to find certain resources, it’s still easy to get lost at times. Consequently, players on Nightingale’s Subreddit have suggested that being able to create personal journal entries could help players remember their goals and to-do lists between play sessions.

Creative Mode

Any survival-crafting game arguably needs a creative mode, but Nightingale in particular could greatly benefit from this kind of feature. Nightingale will take players through a recurring loop of completing quests, building, crafting, exploring, and fighting, which has proven to be somewhat divisive so far. For example, players who aren’t particularly invested in the base-building mechanics in Nightingale can hit a barrier that will prevent their progression, which is understandably frustrating.

Expanded Melee Combat and Weapon Variety

Most of the melee weapons in Nightingale are harvesting tools that double as weapons. Also, melee weapons are generally outperformed in combat by firearms in Nightingale after players progress past a certain point in the game, which is another reason why Nightingale should add more endgame melee options. Allegedly, swords and daggers are already intended to come in a future update, but Nightingale shouldn’t stop there. It could upgrade melee combat with a counter-attack/parry system on top of new weapon varieties to make melee more viable throughout the late game.

Mod Support

As a PC-only game, Nightingale doesn’t necessarily need integrated mod support, although this could be a helpful accessibility feature, especially if the game ever comes to console platforms. Instead, mod support for Nightingale means not enforcing negative consequences for players who use community mods while playing Nightingale online with other players or solo.

Mounts, Boats, and Other Vehicles

In general, there are little to no traversal options besides the umbrellas in Nightingale. Otherwise, Nightingale’s gaslamp fantasy setting could stand to give players access to thematic vehicles or boats to solve this issue. While this is debatable, especially if Nightingale allows players to tame wild animals, it should also add mounts.

Other Miscellaneous Features

  • Interchangeable Hot-Bar Inventory Slots
  • Fully Mappable Key Bindings
  • Improved NPC Companion Functionality