Originally published under the title Nightspawn, the game's name was changed to Nightbane after legal threats from the lawyers of Todd McFarlane, creator of the Spawn comic book.

Some critics have noted strong similarities between Nightbane and the works of horror author Clive Barker, particularly the novella Cabal (1988) and its film adaptation Nightbreed (1990).

[1] After it had been out of print for some years, the property was revived by Palladium in 2009 with the release of the Nightbane Survival Guide written by Irvin Jackson and Mark Oberle.

However, Swan loved the morphus creation rules, which allowed him to design "a bat-winged humanoid toad whose skin was covered with razor blades."

He concluded by giving the game an average rating of 4 out of 6, saying, "Richly imagined, exorbitantly detailed, Nightspawn [Nightbane] is like a splatter film designed by philosophy majors; its a cheesy, brainy delight.