Nightingale can’t outfly “the stark realities of the industry” as creators Inflexion close UK office and lay people off

Inflexion Games are closing their UK office, laying off staff and restructuring their main Canadian studio after failing to find commercial success with their Victorian fantasy survival game Nightingale. Reportedly, at least 22 people have been let go.

Nightingale launched in early access in February this year. At the time, we said it had significant charm but also, significant flaws, with Ed eventually summarising it as “a numbers grind disguised as a gaslamp survival game”. The developers soon treated the early access build to a comprehensive overhaul, shifting the focus away from procedurally generated landscapes and toward “handcrafted” stories. But it hasn’t been enough to keep the wolf from the door.

In a social media update this week, Inflexion CEO Aaryn Flynn writes that “like many other studios over the past few years, we have been hit by the stark realities of the industry, and after exploring every possible option, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to let go of some of our remarkable and talented team members”. The early access launch, he goes on, “hasn’t been commercially successful enough to continue development at our studio’s previous size”.

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Reports that Inflexion had shut down their UK division began to circulate last week, following developer posts on LinkedIn. An anonymous studio source has told GamesIndustry.biz that at least 22 people have been laid off, based on internal correspondence.

Flynn is the former general manager of BioWare. He founded Inflexion in 2018 as part of Improbable, who sold the studio to Tencent in 2022. In February this year, Flynn spoke to me about the difficulty of establishing a new online survival builder like Nightingale in the face of “evergreen” giants like Fortnite and Minecraft. I certainly don’t fancy the chances of anybody going up against those games, but again, Nightingale launched with some obvious issues, not least an interface as baroque as the setting.

I’m still hoping Inflexion can turn it around, as a fan of Carrollian whimsy and Tarot cards, but that’s of no use to the people who’ve lost their jobs. If you’re among them, best of luck.