The upcoming open-world game Nightingale heavily focuses on survival and crafting, but puzzles will be a major element as well. As players explore the various Fae Realms, they will encounter environmental puzzles that can earn them valuable rewards. Nightingale's Inflexion Games revealed that the game's Early Access release will feature several types of environmental puzzles and shared a few tantalizing details about what players might expect.

In a conversation with Game Rant, Inflexion CEO Aaryn Flynn explained that completing puzzles will be a key part of progressing in Nightingale. Players can upgrade their abilities using a substance called Essence, and one of the main ways Essence is obtained is by completing puzzles found in the Fae Realms. "Essence is picked up by individual players and given out separately after players complete environmental puzzles and points of interest in a Realm," Flynn explained. Solving puzzles will be key for Nightingale players who hope to gain power as they journey toward the titular city.

Memory Puzzles Require Matching Tones

Two types of puzzles that will be available for players to solve in Early Access are Memory puzzles and Glyph puzzles, among a handful of other types such as mazes and agility puzzles. Bjorn Taylor, the lead designer of Nightingale, gave this description of Memory puzzles:

Memory puzzles require players to locate a series of tonal artifacts and memorize the order they play their tones. They must interact with each in order to unlock their reward.

Solving these puzzles will require, as the name suggests, a keen memory and the ability to differentiate between different tones. It brings to mind the iconic musical puzzles in Silent Hill and Resident Evil Remake or the songs played on the titular instrument in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Luckily, players experiencing Nightingale in co-op mode will be able to team up and complete the puzzle together while still harvesting individual Essence rewards.

Glyph Puzzles Are a Game of Hide and Seek

Glyph puzzles initially seem simpler than Memory puzzles, but could certainly prove to be trickier than expected. According to Taylor,

Glyph puzzles are simply a matter of finding all the glyphs and interacting with them.

Taylor's discussion of Glyph puzzles is teasingly vague - they must be found and interacted with, but how well are they hidden? Will the glyphs be large and obvious, or will it be a "needle in a haystack" search similar to hunting down a Korok or seeking musical notes in Banjo-Kazooie? The only thing that has been confirmed is that Nightingale will feature hundreds of different Fae Realms for players to explore, and they will feature these environment puzzles to some degree.

In the interview, Taylor also stated that solving puzzles in Nightingale will not require specialized skills or equipment. However, he did reveal that some of the puzzles will be hidden in hard-to-access locations within the various Fae Realms. He suggested that players seeking out environmental puzzles to solve should bring along equipment such as "climbing picks, firearms, and mining picks." All of these items can be created using Nightingale's extensive crafting system, which is one of the game's major focuses.

As Nightingale will begin its life as an Early Access title, more types of puzzles will likely be added to the game in the future. Regarding what kind of puzzles might be added, Flynn said, "It depends on the feedback we hear from our community. We’re eager to hear what the players want to see in the game."