Nightingale, the neo-Victorian survival game being developed by Aaryn Flynn's Inflexion Games, is holding a stress test on Friday, but you'll have to be quick if you want to get in: It's only scheduled to run for three hours.
To get into the Nightingale stress test, head over to the Steam page and click the "request access" button. Inflexion will start granting access at 10 am MT/12 pm ET on February 2, while servers will go live one hour later, at 11 am MT/1 pm ET. The test will come to an end at 2 pm MT/4 pm ET.
The good news is that everyone who signs up should get in: More players will be invited to take part in batches as the test unfolds, based on factors like how many people are playing and how the servers are holding up.
"Our goal is for all players who signed up for the test to be able to participate," Inflexion said. "How quickly that happens will be dependent on how the test progresses."
The test itself will feature "a tailored version of Nightingale’s early game experience" that will give players upgraded tools and gear, and a number of unlocked recipes roughly equivalent to what they'd pick up in Nightingale's first 10 hours. Players will also be able to immediately join friends in co-op, Inflexion says. Server stress levels permitting, presumably.
The playtest will not be under NDA, so players can make videos, share screenshots, talk about it, or whatever, but if you do, Inflexion asks that you please ensure it's "explicitly obvious" that the content is based on the stress test and not the full release.
As for why the stress test is only running for a few hours rather than a few days, Inflexion said it's simply looking to cram as many people as possible in, all at the same time.
"We're running the stress test in a compressed time frame as we're looking to test our servers under launch conditions, rather than spread users over several hours or days," a rep explained. "This way we'll get the best data in terms of how our servers will handle an influx of players when we launch into Early Access."
The rep added that this stress test will be the final public test before Nightingale launches into early access, which will happen on Steam on February 22.
