The survival-crafting game will feature multiple faces from real-world history and literature.

This interview was transcribed from a video interview and edited for clarity.

Were there other names kicked around that you think might fit into this world as a Realmwalker?

Neil Thompson: When the team was very small, we always intended to put real people in here.

Are there fictitious characters planned as well, outside of real-world historical figures?

This way we can capture both Haggard and his creation Quartermain in the lore at the same time.

We have other fictitious characters, like Henry Hyde, that come forward and become prominent in our lore.

Flynn:There are others, but we’re saving them for when you get into the game.

Could there be more meetups between real-world authors and the characters they’ve created?

Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes would be an interesting pairing, for example.

What’s in those realms is entirely up to us.

We started designing them as recognizable biomes–deserts, swamps, forests, etc.

The setting of Nightingale lends itself to a lot of different gaming genres.

What about the survival-crafting genre made the most sense?

Flynn:The world came first, for sure.

We thought about this thing we wanted to do and places we wanted to go for a long time.

We also have a deep love for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which is a big influence.

We don’t have to bring along heavy-handed storytelling tropes or big cinematics or stuff like that.

That’s a big difference."

In our AAA experience, it was “why are you taking a risk?

That seems bad, why don’t you just do the tried-and-true things that we know work?”

Did we pick the right one?

The fundamental difference for me is the culture of risk-tasking.

That’s the biggest difference for me.

It’s definitely a revelation when you start doing it after not doing it for 20 years.

Do you find a lot of value, from an educational standpoint, in bringing players in so early?

Flynn:The thing that’s so exciting nowadays is that players aresosophisticated these days.

It’s been wonderful.

We really enjoyed this!"

and you’re like, “Oh, that’s great, let’s pay that off.”

Flynn:We’re still in it!

(laughs) I think we’ll be in it until we ship, honestly.

We thought that was super clever, and now that’s our mechanic in-game.

Some players, after losing all of their stuff, may not want to go back and keep playing.

You have to besoinvested in a game so you can get over that mental hurdle.

Nightingale will be PC only at launch, and then eventually it will come to consoles.

What about that approach made it appropriate for your dev cycle?

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