Nightingale is set to sweep us away on an intriguing dark fantasy adventure when it launches later this year, and according to Inflexion Games boss and former Bioware lead Aaryn Flynn, it's a deliberate step away from the kind of worlds and storytelling techniques seen in Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
In issue 379 of Edge magazine, Flynn discusses Nightingale's magical Victorian-era setting, saying that the team was keen for a fresh theme that's more familiar to players. "Quite frankly, we'd done sword-and-board fantasy with Dragon Age, and we'd done high sci-fi with Mass Effect," Flynn explains. "And we thought there's a lot of really interesting stories we can tell when you can relate to the world a little more because you recognise it."
While it will still contain RPG elements, this is, first and foremost, a survival crafting game set across a shared world, so how the team at Inflexion are telling the story also differs from Bioware's offerings. Instead of the vast dialogue options and branching narrative we witnessed as Commander Shepard, Nightingale's narrative is more focused on player stories.
"It's not nearly as sophisticated as the kind of storytelling we did on the BioWare games," says Flynn. "The conceit of this game is in many ways a giant sandbox for player stories. Whereas what we did at BioWare was a well-written story that had branches but ultimately all ended up coming to the same conclusion. Maybe there's a few variations there, but broadly speaking you're all enjoying a similar story. Whereas this is meant to be a sandbox where players are going to engineer and create their own stories and ultimately cohabit."
The full interview features in Edge #379, which is now available via Magazines Direct.
