In 1889, people from around the world flocked to Paris for the Exposition Universelle, a stunning display of art, engineering, and architecture that famously featured the unveiling of the Eiffel Tower. Inflexion Games chose to have the Exposition, also known as the Paris World Fair, play a major role in its open-world survival crafting adventureNightingale. InNightingale,the Paris Exposition serves as the backdrop for a series of events that fundamentally changed the world as the human and Fae realms collide.
Speaking to Game Rant, the Inflexion team excitedly shared the research they had done to blend history and fantasy together while creatingthe unique setting ofNightingale.Historical figures such as journalist Nellie Bly and programmer Ada Lovelace appear in the game, as do fictional characters such as Shakespeare’s Puck and Victor Frankenstein. The Paris World’s Fair is represented as the epicenter of the world-changing events that led to the events ofNightingale,as players become Realmwalkers and are plunged into the dangerous Fae Realms.
The 1889 Paris Exposition Celebrated Humanity
There is something deliciously ironic about an exposition meant to celebrate how far humanity had come serving as the source of an event that fundamentally changes, and in many ways destroys, human society. The Exposition Universelle was the fifth of ten such fairs held inParisbetween 1855 and 1937, and the last to turn a profit, as future fairs fell prey to rising costs and declining visitors (in the real world). 32 million people traveled to Paris for the event, which lasted several months and commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille.
The centerpiece of the Exposition was the Eiffel Tower, which was unveiled to the public for the first time during the Exposition’s opening ceremony. At 1083 feet tall, it was at the time the tallest man-made structure in the world. During the Exposition, nearly two million people climbed the Eiffel Tower. Other exhibits on display included the massive Gallery of Machines, a pavilion dedicated to the inventions of Thomas Edison, a recreation of a street in Cairo, Egypt, and over a dozen pavilions representing other participating nations. Visitors included the Shah of Persia, the Prince of Wales, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, inventorsNikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, and P. T. Barnum’s circus.
Nightingale’s Paris World Fair is a Site of Panic
InNightingale,theEiffel Towerserves as one portal to the Fae Realms, but it ends up kicking off the apocalyptic event known as The Pale. When asked why they chose the year 1889 as a setting, the Inflexion team cited the Exposition as their primary reason:
The Pale flows out of the Paris Portal (located in the Eiffel Tower) and the date coincides with the Paris World Fair, which seemed an opportunity too good to miss as there would be many travelers in the city already, all seeking a way home in the ensuing panic.
Many people inNightingale -possibly including the player - will have been displaced from their homes due to visiting Paris at the time The Pale occurred. This will create astruggle for survival, as many of the standard forms of transportation will no longer be available and many people, including important world leaders, will be unable to find their way home. It is for this reason that the titular city of Nightingale becomes a key location in the game’s new world, as it offers some hope of stability in a continent now becoming rife with chaos and danger. The Paris World Fair, once the celebration of humanity’s triumph, now becomes the site of its shattering.
Nightingale
WHERE TO PLAY
Nightingale is a PVE open-world survival crafting game played solo (offline or online), or cooperatively with friends. Build, craft, fight and explore as you venture through mystical portals into a variety of amazing and fantastical realms.You are stranded beyond our world, cut off by the collapse of the arcane portalnetwork. This catastrophe has left you fighting to survive in a labyrinth of beautiful and dangerous Fae realms.Your goal: become a skilled Realmwalker, and navigate the web of transdimensional portals. Only then can you discover your way to the magical city of Nightingale, the last known bastion of humanity.Prepare to make your way through Faewild forests, harrowing swamps, and shimmering deserts as you unlock the portals leading deeper into the lands of Fae. Cook meals, build shelter and muster the spirit to persevere in the face of adversity.
