How Nightingale Approached Adding Historical Figures and Fictional Characters

Highlights

• Nightingale stands out among survival games by incorporating both fictional characters and historical figures, adding creativity to its world.
• The developers carefully consider how these characters fit into the gameplay and lore, molding and shaping them to make sense in the game world.
• Nightingale features a diverse roster of characters, including both fictional ones like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and historical figures like Nellie Bly and Ada Lovelace. The cast will continue to grow as the game enters early access.

Nightingale is a survival crafting game set in an alternative historical timeline with the existence of Fae Magick and portals to otherworld realms. Nightingale is not the first game to feature the Fae, but all of its elements, including how it utilizes both fictional characters and historical figures, make it stand out among other survival games. How Nightingale approaches incorporating such appreciated characters and figures into its world requires a lot of creativity.

Game Rant recently spoke with Inflexion Games CEO Aaryn Flynn, among others, about Nightingale‘s approach to incorporating historical and fictional characters from the Victorian era and beyond. The team also spoke more about some of these characters, including their favorites ones, and what the future holds for Nightingale‘s diverse roster of NPCs as it enters early access.

How Nightingale Approaches Incorporating Fictional Characters into its World

The developers explained that the fictional and real-life characters added to Nightingale first had to make sense from a gameplay and lore perspective. After that, the NPC has to be purposeful in the game world for players. In terms of their approach to incorporating fictional characters, Flynn went on to explain the process:

When it comes to implementing a fictional character, we start by familiarizing ourselves with the source material. Once we have a good sense of the character, we start to mold and shape them to fit in our world. One important thing to consider is that, if this fictional character is no longer fictional in our world, how true is their portrayal in the piece of fiction published about them?

This approach offered the team a lot of creative freedom to portray characters as they saw fit in Nightingale. That’s not to say they’ve drastically changed them, but both time and fiction have a way of leaving things up to interpretation. It could also be a fascinating prospect for many, especially avid readers or fans of video games based on books. Some of the fictional characters players can expect to find in Nightingale include Victor Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who acts as the player’s guide, and Allan Quatermain from novels by Sir H. Rider Haggard including King Solomon’s Mines

Nightingale’s Approach to Including Characters from History

Speaking about the approach to incorporating real-life historical figures into Nightingale, Flynn also explained how, in many ways, the process was similar to the inclusion of characters from fiction:

In a lot of ways, it’s actually a similar process. We familiarize ourselves with the historical figure and what they did or represented. We also read any publications or letters of theirs that are available to get a sense of their voice, but then we also consider how this person may have changed if the Fae were an important part of their world.

Some of the real-world characters players can expect to appear in Nightingale include:

• Nellie Bly
• Ada Lovelace
• Bass Reeves

Nightingale‘s cast of characters is also set to grow, meaning there are a ton of possible historical and fictional characters that could fit the bill, but it also means no fitting character is off the table. While talking about some of their favorite characters, including Nellie Bly, Bass Reeves, and Viktor Frankenstein, Flynn also looked ahead to the future of Nightingale‘s characters as it enters early access:

Many of our other favorites are still to come as patches get released during Early Access, so our cast will keep growing with time.