Nightingale beginner’s guide: 7 tips and tricks for starting out

When you launch Nightingale for the first time, there are lots of things you need to learn quickly. The game doesn’t thoroughly explain all of its concepts at the beginning, but there are several profitable things you can do from the get-go.

Even players who keep their eyes peeled might encounter issues trying to get their head around all of Nightingale‘s features. I was no exception, but after spending a considerable amount of time in the Realms, I’ve come up with a handy list of tips and tricks for beginners. This guide will make the start of your Nightingale journey easier.

7 Nightingale beginner tips and tricks

1) Explore the world early on, even the tutorial Realms

Like most survival games, Nightingale has a tutorial that guides you through each of its three biome Realms: Forest, Desert, and Swamp. It teaches you some basic skills, like starting a campfire, creating primary weapons and tools, and so on. But, it turns out there’s a lot of sweet loot to be gathered here.

The Swamp Realm is the third one you visit in the tutorial. While you need to run a few basic errands that mostly involve killing and skinning kangaroo-like monsters, you can also visit two nearby towers. They contain precious materials like Tin, Silver, and an Umbrella, which is very helpful for traversal.

Even when you finish the tutorial and head off on your own adventure, you should explore the map a bit. You will come across a few easy enemies guarding Favours and Chests with Minor Cards, which takes us to our next point.

2) Use Minor Cards and look out for Favours

In the early game, there are two ways to influence your world: through Minor Cards and Favours. You’ll find Minor Cards in chests you come across when exploring the world. To activate them, you must find a specific Temple that should be pointed out on your map. These Minor Cards often give you a certain buff, and, more importantly, are fun to experiment with.

Favours work similarly, but you don’t need to find a specific location to activate them. I encountered a Favour while exploring and activated it by solving a simple puzzle, which gave me a buff. It was incredibly useful as it elevated my Stamina, and I always sprint everywhere with my companion.

3) Recruit a Survivor and upgrade their and your own gear

Speaking of companions, once you choose your starting Realm, you are told about Traders. When you visit your first Trader in your Realm, you’ll come across a Survivor that will gladly join you if you help them with a specific errand. It’s absolutely worth giving them a minute or two of your time, since they help you in combat and collect materials.

But, once you recruit a Survivor to your party, I advise that you also upgrade their gear (and your own). Finishing early quests and scavenging the world to make a profit is far easier if you and your Survivors have better primary tools and equipment.

4) Kill lots of animals for resources

When I tried to upgrade my gear, I realized I needed lots of Bones, Leather, Fibre, Straps, and other materials that were mostly obtainable by killing animals in my starting Realm.

I had to travel quite far to gather enough resources to upgrade mine and Emma’s gear to a higher level. So, to spare you additional hunting, kill everything you while you’re exploring in the early game.

5) Don’t build your Estate on a hill

I know it sounds like a bad idea, but I made the mistake of building my first Estate on a hill, and establishing my base around it was close to impossible. Walls were impossible to build, while my other stations kept bugging out. Don’t repeat my mistakes, and look for a nice, flat surface to build your base.

6) Upgrade your equipment and base to enhance your Gear Score

Having a high Gear Score is basically your first goal in Nightingale. Getting your Gear Score to 20 allows you to proceed with the main quest, and there’s no other way of improving it besides upgrading your equipment and base.

7) Build two or three chests at the start

With so much going on, you’ll quickly run out of capacity to carry around all these resources. Luckily, once you set up your first Estate, the game allows you to create your own Caskets. I immediately created three, and my life in Nightingale drastically improved.