Going on adventures with friends is a big part of survival games. Whether it’s finding dungeons, loot-filled areas or taking on baddies, doing it together is always better. But, due to the nature of Nightingale’s character-based progression, you won’t always have an online partner to assist you. Instead, this is where Nightingale’s companion system comes into play, helping you with gathering, being an extra backpack, and also serving as a formidable combat ally. Here’s everything you need to know about Companions in Nightingale.
Complete the Aid or Defense quest, and you can recruit a companion (survivor) in Nightingale to serve you.
How to Recruit Companions in Nightingale¶
After completing the tutorial, players can get their hands on Companions by completing certain types of quests on the map. If you’re in that position, look for any quests called Aid on the map, or any of the Defense quests. Both of these quests award Companions for completing them. Every map typically has an Aid quest next to an Essence Trader, which should make it easy to find a companion in the early game.
To tell if an NPC is recruitable, you’ll often find they have a name, alongside a guild below their name. When the quest is completed, that guild name typically changes to recruitable. If that’s the case, you can walk up to them and recruit them. You’ll then get a follower who will be with you every step of the way and have their own gear, tools, and backpack space.
Completing this Defense task awarded us with two potentially recruitable companions.
How Many Companions Can You Have in Nightingale?¶
At the time of writing, players can only have one active companion following them. If you intend to build an army, you will need to dismiss your other companion at your base, go into a new realm, and look for more recruitable companions. This will only work if you dismiss the characters in the realm they are from though, as they will despawn and leave behind a chest called NPC Belongings. If you want the army, then look for a world with several aid and defense objectives, as that is how you get multiple companions in the same realm.
Multiple Followers in Co-Op¶
If you’re playing a co-op game and only intend to play co-op, then you will need to actively look for other companion quests so that all members of your co-op party can bring along their own friends.
Remember that the companions are only as good as the tools they are given. Make sure to upgrade their gear over time, especially their equipped tool, as this allows them to gather more materials for you as you explore. You can also set storage chests in your base to be companion drop off points for their inventory, helping you track the items you give them or the materials they like to gather when out and about.
As Early Access continues, the developers have mentioned they wish to expand the controls of companions over time, so you can give them orders to gather materials, patrol areas, and perform other tasks. But for now, the companion system is in its basic state.
This concludes everything you need to know about Companions in Nightingale at the early access launch.
Sign up
This article and possibly others for Nightingale is going to have to be fact-checked. Dismissing your recruits at your base does NOT keep them around. They will despawn and leave a box behind named "NPC Belongings" that you can recover their equipment from. It's a beautiful box so you can even consider strategically dismissing companions, but once they're dismissed away from their original realm, you cannot get them back.
I trusted this guide and got burned for it, lost one of my favorite followers. :(
Then fix your guide, because it's incorrect.
Okay just ran another test. The other realm character disappears after a short delay. Meh sorry for your loss :<
Hey mate. I just double-checked this, and my companion stayed after dismissing them in my base. I think you had a bug. Either that or its a companion from another realm, maybe?