Nightingale: early access, trailer, story, and more

Everything you need to know ahead of Nightingale’s release date

Image credit:Inflexion Games

What is Nightingale, and when is it coming out? As you’ll know if you read through our compendium of our most anticipated games of 2024 , Nightingale is the game I’m most excited to play this year. It’s a gaslamp fantasy survival crafting game by Inflexion Games, which tasks players with traversing an endless network of Fae realms, gathering resources, building bases, battling wonderfully - horrifically - designed creatures, and more.

Below we’ll give you the chance to become as excited about Nightingale as I am. In this guide we’ll walk you through everything we know so far about Nightingale, from its early access release date to its story, setting, gameplay, multiplayer aspect, and more.

Nightingale early access release date

When Nightingale does launch in Early Access, it’ll be available on PC only - sorry, console players. You can wishlist it on Steam and the Epic Games Store so you’re notified as soon as Early Access begins. The devs predict Nightingale will be in Early Access for nine to 12 months, and they expect the game “will evolve and expand significantly” during this period.

Nightingale developers: Who is making the game?

Nightingale is the first game by Inflexion Games, a new 100-person Canada-based dev team. Inflexion Games is led by its founder, Aaryn Flynn, a 17-year veteran from BioWare - creators of Mass Effect , Dragon Age , Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, and many more beloved RPGs. Flynn was in fact general manager of BioWare from 2009 until 2017, so his name is fairly well-known.

The team at Inflexion Games are currently developing Nightingale in Unreal Engine 5.

Nightingale trailer

Above is the latest Nightingale trailer released by Inflexion Games. This short, 30-second trailer is all about the updated release date change, confirming the game will launch on February 20 2024 instead of the previously announced date of February 22nd 2024.

For a more thorough look at Nightingale, the original release date trailer revealed during Gamescom 2023 gives us a much better look at the game in action. The 2-minute trailer showed glimpses of the much-demanded third-person mode that devs hope will be ready in time for the early access launch.

This feature, which first appeared in a playtest last year, was put to good use in the trailer, with the game’s stunning environments being explored in third-person mode. The trailer also showed the game’s nightmarish fae creatures being battled in first-person mode, along with other mechanics like base building and character customisation. The ability to glide around the map Mary Poppins-style with your umbrella, which featured in a previous trailer , also made a welcome appearance again.

If you’d like to see more of Nightingale, below are a couple of other trailers released by Inflexion. The first is the official gameplay trailer for Nightingale, which shows off some lovely rain, chopping trees, and the Realm Card system (more on this below). The second is the original reveal trailer used to announce the existence of Nightingale.

What is Nightingale about?

Nightingale is a fantasy story that takes place across a number of interconnected realms. Humans come from one particular realm, which is a Victorian-era Steampunk-esque world of top hats and flintlock firearms. This realm is connected to various others via a sprawling arcane portal network. But that network has suddenly collapsed, and the player is stranded in the Fae Realms - a far wilder and deadlier land filled with all manner of horrific beasts.

But how did they get there? As is explained in Inflexion’s video journal on the World of the Realmwalkers, the home of humans is experiencing a cataclysm due to a mysterious phenomenon known as “the Pale”. The humans attempted to escape through the portal network to Nightingale, a magical capital city where historically humans journeyed to learn and practice Fae magic. But the portal network collapsed and those attempting to escape to Nightingale were cast about the various realms, lost.

The player’s long-term aim is to reach Nightingale City. But in the short term, that means putting a lot of focus purely into surviving from day to day, building shelters, gathering materials, and doing the whole survival crafting game thing. With the right materials and tools, players can begin to use the portal network once more to generate and transport yourself to entirely new realms, which means Nightingale doesn’t just have one fixed setting.

Nightingale gameplay

Nightingale is a first-person survival crafting game, that can also be played in third-person. You’ll start off with nothing, and must chop trees, gather stones, find food, find or make shelter, fend off attacks from hostile eldritch beasts, and so on. It’s all very familiar stuff for players of survival crafting games, but Nightingale does do some things rather differently to most.

The biggest unique selling point of Nightingale’s gameplay is its portal network, which allows you to generate new realms through which your character can traverse. This is done through the use of Realm Cards (below), which gives you a fair degree of control over what you’ll find on the other side. It’s an important aspect of progression through the world of Nightingale, because your starting realm won’t containing everything you need. To progress beyond a certain point, you’ll need the resources and secrets of other realms to help you.

Image credit:Inflexion Games

Combat is partially melee, partially firearm-based, with numerous moments in Nightingale’s trailers showing off some lovely-looking flintlock rifles, shotguns, and pistols that the player can presumably craft and use to face off against the fae creatures that assail you. As well as the fae beasts, you’ll also encounter “incursions by the twisted Fae mimicries of humanity known only as the Bound”, according to the game’s website.

Building is also a large part of Nightingale. You can designate any one realm you choose to be your “Respite Realm”. This is where you respawn if you die, and where you are allowed to start constructing your estate. Nightingale features a modular base-building system similar to other survival crafting RPGs like Grounded or Valheim , with floors, walls, stairs, and dozens of other components that can be placed down by the player wherever they like.

What are Realm Cards in Nightingale?

Realm Cards are craftable items which you can use to generate new realms via Nightingale’s portal network. To open a portal to a new realm, you will open up a screen which allows you to place down various Realm Cards of different kinds - and the combination of Realm Cards you place down will determine the type of world that you’ll find on the other side of the portal.

Realm Cards can be crafted out of paper, ink, and various other materials. There are three types of Realm Cards available:

• Biome Cards - determines the overall biome of the realm (Swamp, Desert, Forest, etc.)
• Major Cards - add significant changes to the realm, for example an increased number of hostile creature spawns.
• Minor Cards - add minor changes to the realm, for example the weather, time of day, season, etc.

It’s not yet clear whether Major and Minor Cards are necessary - perhaps you might be able to create a “vanilla” world based purely on a biome - but we do know that you must play exactly one Biome Card to create a portal, and there appear to be four slots for additional cards alongside the Biome Card.

Is Nightingale multiplayer?

Nightingale is indeed a multiplayer game, with players able to team up in groups of up to 10 per server and adventure across the Faewild and the portal network together. The game is described at every turn as a PvE (player vs environment) rather than PvP (player vs player) game, which means it’s unlikely that players will be able to fight each other on a server. Instead, they’ll be working together to tame the Faewild. We also know that players will be able to follow others through to a new realm even if they aren’t the one who created it - and even if they don’t yet have the ability to create such a realm yet.

Of course, co-op multiplayer is not forced upon the player in any way, and it’s perfectly viable to play Nightingale solo.

That’s everything we know about Inflexion Games’ upcoming fantasy survival crafting game Nightingale. For more on the studio’s first game, find out what Aaryn Flynn, the developer’s CEO, said when we spoke to him soon after the game’s reveal and when we caught up with him later on at Summer Game Fest . We’ve also got the lowdown on Tencent buying Inflexion not long after Nightingale was first revealed, as well as details on the accessibility options available when early access launches.

Nightingale

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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