What are Realm Cards in Nightingale? Explained

If you’re excited to jump into Nightingale, you should learn about what Realm cards are. Realm Cards are what define how Nightingale’s Realm mechanic works.

Whether you’re playing by yourself or with some friends, Realm Cards are a vital part of Nightingale that you should learn about to understand what you’re working with.

Nightingale: Realm Cards, explained

In this survival crafting game, players can explore different procedurally-generated Realms. What Realm Cards are in Nightingale is a way for players to generate new Realms to explore. It involves a ton of player agency in what they want to find in new Realms, but there’s still a ton of unpredictability with Realms that makes them exciting.

To explore new Realms, you can craft Realm Cards based on recipes you’ve acquired and discovered. After crafting your very own Realm Card, you can head to a portal and play the Realm Card in unique combinations. It’s basically like creating a recipe for a procedurally generated world to explore.

Main Realm Card types

The portal will form, and you can head right through to see what you created. To make things easier, Realm Cards are categorized into different types:

• Biome Cards: Different environments like deserts, swamps, forests, etc.
• Major Cards: Big things/events that’ll happen inside the Realm.
• Minor Cards: Tiny adjustments on what’ll appear inside the Realm.

As a reminder, in a recent developer update, Inflexion Games stated that you can only create Realm Cards using Biome and Major Cards. Minor Cards can now only be used at Realmic Transmuters to play the Minor Card inside your Realm, and it’ll instantly apply the changes to your Realm with no load times!

On launch, you’ll only be allowed to play one Minor Card at a time, but it seems like you’ll be able to apply multiple in a future update. There are currently 50 Minor Cards available at launch as well.

Crafting a great Realm Card depends on the biome you’re itching to explore, and you can fine-tune the big events that will appear inside your Realm. This should make it easier to go hunting for a specific beast or resource.

If you craft the same Realm Card you’ll be able to head to the same world you created after you’ve closed the portal and left that Realm. You also have the option to enter a whole new Realm using the same Realm Card combinations.

Related: Is Nightingale Steam Deck compatible? Answered

Respite Realms

What if you fall in love with a Realm, and you want to make it your home? Well, you can do that! Nightingale will allow you to make a created Realm your “Respite Realm.”

This will be the place you’ll return to upon dying, and you can build your main base in this Respite Realm. You and your friends, if you’re playing in multiplayer, can all have a base together in this Respite Realm.

Multiplayer Realm Cards

In multiplayer, it’s important to note that Realms are assigned to the player. So if you want to return to an old Realm, the person who opened the portal with that Realm Card must do it again. If someone else decides to use the same Realm Card, it’ll create a different Realm.

Player Cards

You can also create Player Cards for your Realm to then give to a friend. This will allow that friend to visit your Realm whenever they please. This can even work when you’re not online.

As a reminder, this player will have total control over this Realm. Essentially, they can destroy your base if you don’t give it to a trusted person.

Public Realm

When creating Realm Cards, you can make it a Public Realm. This means that other random players online can jump into this Realm if they create the same combination of Realm Cards and turn on the Public Realm setting.

Be careful about which Realms you do this with because random players who gain access to your Public Realm can destroy your base and access all your chests.

If you’re super excited to play Nightingale, but you’re wondering if it’ll be available on Xbox Game Pass, we have an answer to that question.