One of the best virtual reality (VR) titles to arrive in 2021 for Meta Quest, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR was 17-BIT’s epic survival adventure Song in the Smoke. The first VR experience from the Japan-based studio, it seems the complexities in creating an immersive videogame as well as global factors have dampened the teams desire to build upon Song in the Smoke at the moment.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, 17-BIT CEO Jake Kazdal was very honest when it came to the question of launching the videogame last year: “It’s a perfect storm of shit, to be frank.” Having previously built Skulls of the Shogun and 2016’s Galak-Z, Kazdal explained that part of the issue was not enough player feedback due to the lack of events: “Normally, with Skulls of the Shogun and Galak-Z, we’re showing at multiple PAXes, TGS, E3, and all these shows. We’re getting tons and tons of feedback. We’re watching 1,000 people play the first hour of the game. We’re getting so much great feedback on where the game is at.”
With the pandemic restricting movement and events going online (or closing entirely), this made the development process and Song in the Smoke’s refinement even harder. “With VR, it’s a lot harder on a good day because it is such a solitary thing… And then you couple that with this whole COVID bullshit and no trade shows. And even if there were, it’s not like people are going to be willing to put on a headset that’s been on 1,000 other people’s faces. We had so little user feedback moving into this that it was really difficult for us,” he said.
This meant 17-BIT had to spend longer polishing the title, no bad thing considering what the team accomplished. But this has led to the studio playing down the idea of another VR title. “I don’t think we’ll be exploring VR in the short-term again. There’s some fatigue for sure in the studio.”
Even so, Kazdal still has a lot of love for VR and the opportunities it affords gamers: “I think in terms of interactive media, there’s not much higher to shoot for than something really engaging in VR. It really is an incredible next step as a gaming medium.” And like every VR gamer passionate about the tech, the slow consumer adoption is still surprising: “I kind of can’t believe how long it’s taking to get going. It’s stunning and it surprised me it didn’t take the world by storm in the way I thought it would because I was so absolutely blown away by it on day one.”
That continued belief in VR’s ability to entertain audiences in new ways has kept the industry going for many years, it has also claimed many a victim with poor sales. 17-BIT hasn’t released any figures just yet so maybe Kazdal will reconsider VR development if they’re good. However, he notes the team are: “excited about the next project, but it is a radical departure again.”
For all the latest VR updates, keep reading VRFocus.
One of the best virtual reality (VR) titles to arrive in 2021 for Meta Quest, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR was 17-BIT’s epic survival adventure Song in the Smoke. The first VR experience from the Japan-based studio, it seems the complexities in creating an immersive videogame as well as global factors have dampened the teams desire to build upon Song in the Smoke at the moment.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, 17-BIT CEO Jake Kazdal was very honest when it came to the question of launching the videogame last year: “It’s a perfect storm of shit, to be frank.” Having previously built Skulls of the Shogun and 2016’s Galak-Z, Kazdal explained that part of the issue was not enough player feedback due to the lack of events: “Normally, with Skulls of the Shogun and Galak-Z, we’re showing at multiple PAXes, TGS, E3, and all these shows. We’re getting tons and tons of feedback. We’re watching 1,000 people play the first hour of the game. We’re getting so much great feedback on where the game is at.”
With the pandemic restricting movement and events going online (or closing entirely), this made the development process and Song in the Smoke’s refinement even harder. “With VR, it’s a lot harder on a good day because it is such a solitary thing… And then you couple that with this whole COVID bullshit and no trade shows. And even if there were, it’s not like people are going to be willing to put on a headset that’s been on 1,000 other people’s faces. We had so little user feedback moving into this that it was really difficult for us,” he said.
This meant 17-BIT had to spend longer polishing the title, no bad thing considering what the team accomplished. But this has led to the studio playing down the idea of another VR title. “I don’t think we’ll be exploring VR in the short-term again. There’s some fatigue for sure in the studio.”
Even so, Kazdal still has a lot of love for VR and the opportunities it affords gamers: “I think in terms of interactive media, there’s not much higher to shoot for than something really engaging in VR. It really is an incredible next step as a gaming medium.” And like every VR gamer passionate about the tech, the slow consumer adoption is still surprising: “I kind of can’t believe how long it’s taking to get going. It’s stunning and it surprised me it didn’t take the world by storm in the way I thought it would because I was so absolutely blown away by it on day one.”
That continued belief in VR’s ability to entertain audiences in new ways has kept the industry going for many years, it has also claimed many a victim with poor sales. 17-BIT hasn’t released any figures just yet so maybe Kazdal will reconsider VR development if they’re good. However, he notes the team are: “excited about the next project, but it is a radical departure again.”
For all the latest VR updates, keep reading VRFocus.
What a year it has been for the Oculus Quest 2, sorry, Meta Quest 2, with that name change being one of the more defining – and confusing – moments. Whatever you want to call it, the Quest 2 has had a stunning year when it comes to content, with some truly huge videogames making their way to the platform. So if you’ve just picked one up or were very good this year and got one as a present, then these are just some of the titles you should be adding to your library.
Apart from being awesome, one critera for VRFocus’ favourite Quest videogames meant that all of them had to be natively available on the Oculus Store. So titles like Lone Echo II that require a PC connection won’t make this selection.
The Best Meta Quest Games of 2021
Resident Evil 4
Let’s start with probably the biggest exclusive that hit the standalone headset this year, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4. Rebuilt by Armature Studio specifically for the Quest 2, this version of Resident Evil 4 – and there’s been a couple – is the definitive version by a mile. Whether you already love the Resi franchise or are completely new to it, this puts you in the heart of the survival horror, with plenty of accessibility options to cater to all players.
Resident Evil 4 takes you to a remote region of Europe as Leon S. Kennedy who’s on a mission to rescue the U.S. President’s daughter from a dangerous cult called the Los Illuminados. All the action from the original is there, whether that’s dealing with rabid villagers, monstrous mutations or taxing boss fights. Plus all the puzzles and Quick Time Events (QTE’s), the latter is the only real annoyance.
There’s lots of new stuff too. You can physically grab and reload guns, dual wield to mix weapon combinations up, and interact with the environment, opening doors and pushing stuff out the way. Oh, and it’s now entirely in first-person, for that fully immersive experience.
For those that love survival adventures that offer hours of entertainment and a proper bang for your buck game look no further than 17-BIT’s Song in the Smoke. The first VR title from the Japan-based team, Song in the Smoke takes place in a mystical, primordial wilderness where you’re given only basic tools and an understanding of how things work before being let loose.
While there are mysterious, magical elements at play, the gameplay is heavily survival-based, so you’ll need to forage or hunt for food so you don’t starve, make weapons to defend yourself, make cloths so you don’t freeze, and most importantly of all, gather resources to build fires and make it through the night, because when darkness comes the jungle wakes up.
Song in the Smoke is made up of eight biomes, ranging from lush forests and ancient valleys to frozen peaks. Each more inhospitable than the last, it’s easy to get lost in the experience, you can be so engrossed in surviving that unlocking the narrative almost plays second best.
Time for a far more chilled and relaxing VR experience. After a stint on Oculus’ App Lab, Puzzling Places arrived on the official store in September, offering a tranquil slice of 3D jigsaw gameplay.
With 16 puzzles to complete, you can up the difficulty from 25 pieces to 400 pieces for each puzzle. Whilst 400 may not sound a lot compared to traditional jigsaws, the three-dimensional element further helps to scale that difficulty. The charm of Puzzling Places also comes from the fact that each puzzle is a realistic, scanned location using photogrammetry with plenty of detail. And to aid immersion, they each have audio tracks make the setting even more lifelike.
So if you’re looking for a more modern take on a classic, then check out Puzzling Places.
Time for some multiplayer action with Resolution Games’ turn-based board game Demeo. This is a dungeon crawler where up to four players choose their characters and then battle monstrous foes, think D&D but in VR.
Taking on the roles of characters like the mystical sorcerer who can summon area-of-effect (AOE) spells or a knight with loads of armour, each has their own particular specialities to aid the quest. You can pick up your player piece to move the character around the dungeon whilst utilising ability cards to attack opponents.
Originally released in May 2021 with one dungeon, the studio has now expanded that to three, Roots of Evil arriving in December, taking players above ground for the first time. And don’t worry if your mates are busy, Demeo can be played solo to get some practice in before the next team meetup.
Another big blockbuster title that made its way to Quest 2 in 2021 – but not the original Quest at the moment – After the Fallis a co-op shooter in a similar vein to videogames like Left 4 Dead.
From Vertigo Games, the same team behind Arizona Sunshine, After the Fall is set in a dystopian future where a climate disaster has taken place and Los Angeles is now a winter hellscape. Just to make things worse, a large chunk of the population has turned into horrific monsters called Snowbreed, and they’re less than friendly. The core gameplay revolves around going on Harvest Runs to collect valuable supplies to upgrade weapons and such. Up to four players can team up – AI bots fill in if there’s not enough – with the main hub enabling up to 32 players to socialise before each Harvest Run.
Out in the field, it’s a non-stop action fest as you cull hordes of Snowbreed before encountering at least one of four special mutations that can do some serious damage. Or if you want a different challenge, After the Fall has a competitive PvP mode where you can fight other players instead.
Another great title if you have a few buddies into VR.
A Township Tale
Looking for an entirely different multiplayer experience from those previously mentioned? Well, take a look at A Township Tale by Alta. Taking the idea of building a fully-functioning village where everyone can specialise in a particular task, A Township Tale makes co-op gameplay an essential component to truly unlock its potential.
Up to eight friends can team up on one virtual server to build their town and head out on quests. Choose to become a blacksmith, woodcutter, miner, archer or warrior, each essential to the running of the town and to the success of quests. While you can mix and match, professions like the blacksmith require a lot of work, becoming easier if some players collect resources whilst others build tools or other items.
Then you can explore, heading into the forests or mines to collect new, rare resources to craft enhanced weapons to deal with the various monsters you’ll encounter on route. Or you can try and tackle A Township Tale solo, which is when you’ll realise how much there is to the experience. One to lose hours and hours in.
Schell Games’ original puzzler I Expect You to Die has become a VR classic and its 2021 sequel is no different. Continuing the narrative where you step into the shoes of a secret agent trying to save the world from an evil villain, you don’t need to have played the first to enjoy what’s on offer here.
I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy And The Liar is all about foiling the evil plans of Dr. Zor and his Zoraxis empire across six deadly six missions. The title is very literal in its description that death is expected and expected frequently, as any wrong move can result in an instant, elaborate death. Poison gas, explosives, giant swinging axes, a suspicious sandwich or simply just getting shot, death is around every corner, sometimes you can take your time but there are moments where quick reflexes are essential.
Whilst each mission has a plethora of primary and secondary objectives, what makes I Expect You To Die 2 an essential VR experience is the fact that any player should find it accessible. There’s no locomotion whatsoever, so you can play it seated or standing (best seated) with everything within arms reach, ideal for those new to VR but with enough difficulty for veteran gamers.
Resident Evil 4 might be on this list but if you want to really feel chills down your spine then Cosmodread is the place to be. From the indie studio behind Dreadhalls, Cosmodread is a sci-fi horror that evokes atmospheric movies such as Aliens or Event Horizon.
You’re stuck on a dying spaceship completely alone, which you have to explore to find and fix critical systems in a bid to get home to Earth. The only problem, an alien entity is aboard the ship transforming the crew into monsters. Armed with one weapon initially, scouring the ship for resources will unlock new items, oxygen to keep you alive and crafting resources.
However, Cosmodread is a roguelite VR experience just like In Death: Unchained or Until You Fall, where death means returning back to the start. You might be a little wiser but the levels are procedurally generated, so the environment, item locations and enemy spawn points alter for each run. If you love a good scare then give Cosmodread a try if you dare.
Want a gorgeous looking VR videogame for your new Quest 2 as well as a physical workout? That’s where Crytek’s The Climb 2 comes in. Expanding upon the 2016 original with new locations and features, The Climb 2 for those who love extreme sports but maybe not the death-defying climbing so much.
With locations taking you atop beautiful snowy vistas, up towering skyscrapers, and sun-soaked mountain ranges, The Climb 2 challenges you to find small cracks and ledges to grab hold of and work your way up. You’ll need to chalk your hands to maintain grip and as the levels progress you’ll be offered multiple routes to the top, so you can choose your own route each time.
To make the climbing experience even more realistic, new features include dynamic objects like ropes, containers, ladders, and climbing equipment that react to your weight. There are also customisation options with 32 gloves, 25 watches, and 36 wristbands to unlock along the way. A visually sumptuous VR experience that’ll give your arms a nice workout.
You can’t own a VR headset without owning at least one rhythm action title. One of the best to arrive in 2021 for the Meta Quest was Ragnarock. With a Viking theme, Ragnarock puts you at the helm of a Viking longboat, hammering away at a set of four drums to inspire your crew to row. The faster they row the more likely you are to achieve a gold medal.
Another VR project that arrived by way of Oculus App Lab, Ragnarock’s gameplay is delightfully simple, hit the drums in time with the music to unlock speed boosts and speed those rowers up. Developer WanadevStudio went for a far more rock-themed rhythm action game in comparison to others, with songs from Alestorm, Gloryhammer, Saltatio Mortis, Wind Rose and more.
Offering both solo and multiplayer modes, solo you can race against your ghost once you’ve completed a song. Multiplayer pits you in a race against five other players to the finish line across various difficulty levels.
Its mix of Celtic rock and metal tracks alongside that drumming action makes Ragnarock a compelling VR experience that’s hard to put down.
What a year it has been for the Oculus Quest 2, sorry, Meta Quest 2, with that name change being one of the more defining – and confusing – moments. Whatever you want to call it, the Quest 2 has had a stunning year when it comes to content, with some truly huge videogames making their way to the platform. So if you’ve just picked one up or were very good this year and got one as a present, then these are just some of the titles you should be adding to your library.
Apart from being awesome, one critera for VRFocus’ favourite Quest videogames meant that all of them had to be natively available on the Oculus Store. So titles like Lone Echo II that require a PC connection won’t make this selection.
The Best Meta Quest Games of 2021
Resident Evil 4
Let’s start with probably the biggest exclusive that hit the standalone headset this year, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4. Rebuilt by Armature Studio specifically for the Quest 2, this version of Resident Evil 4 – and there’s been a couple – is the definitive version by a mile. Whether you already love the Resi franchise or are completely new to it, this puts you in the heart of the survival horror, with plenty of accessibility options to cater to all players.
Resident Evil 4 takes you to a remote region of Europe as Leon S. Kennedy who’s on a mission to rescue the U.S. President’s daughter from a dangerous cult called the Los Illuminados. All the action from the original is there, whether that’s dealing with rabid villagers, monstrous mutations or taxing boss fights. Plus all the puzzles and Quick Time Events (QTE’s), the latter is the only real annoyance.
There’s lots of new stuff too. You can physically grab and reload guns, dual wield to mix weapon combinations up, and interact with the environment, opening doors and pushing stuff out the way. Oh, and it’s now entirely in first-person, for that fully immersive experience.
For those that love survival adventures that offer hours of entertainment and a proper bang for your buck game look no further than 17-BIT’s Song in the Smoke. The first VR title from the Japan-based team, Song in the Smoke takes place in a mystical, primordial wilderness where you’re given only basic tools and an understanding of how things work before being let loose.
While there are mysterious, magical elements at play, the gameplay is heavily survival-based, so you’ll need to forage or hunt for food so you don’t starve, make weapons to defend yourself, make cloths so you don’t freeze, and most importantly of all, gather resources to build fires and make it through the night, because when darkness comes the jungle wakes up.
Song in the Smoke is made up of eight biomes, ranging from lush forests and ancient valleys to frozen peaks. Each more inhospitable than the last, it’s easy to get lost in the experience, you can be so engrossed in surviving that unlocking the narrative almost plays second best.
Time for a far more chilled and relaxing VR experience. After a stint on Oculus’ App Lab, Puzzling Places arrived on the official store in September, offering a tranquil slice of 3D jigsaw gameplay.
With 16 puzzles to complete, you can up the difficulty from 25 pieces to 400 pieces for each puzzle. Whilst 400 may not sound a lot compared to traditional jigsaws, the three-dimensional element further helps to scale that difficulty. The charm of Puzzling Places also comes from the fact that each puzzle is a realistic, scanned location using photogrammetry with plenty of detail. And to aid immersion, they each have audio tracks make the setting even more lifelike.
So if you’re looking for a more modern take on a classic, then check out Puzzling Places.
Time for some multiplayer action with Resolution Games’ turn-based board game Demeo. This is a dungeon crawler where up to four players choose their characters and then battle monstrous foes, think D&D but in VR.
Taking on the roles of characters like the mystical sorcerer who can summon area-of-effect (AOE) spells or a knight with loads of armour, each has their own particular specialities to aid the quest. You can pick up your player piece to move the character around the dungeon whilst utilising ability cards to attack opponents.
Originally released in May 2021 with one dungeon, the studio has now expanded that to three, Roots of Evil arriving in December, taking players above ground for the first time. And don’t worry if your mates are busy, Demeo can be played solo to get some practice in before the next team meetup.
Another big blockbuster title that made its way to Quest 2 in 2021 – but not the original Quest at the moment – After the Fallis a co-op shooter in a similar vein to videogames like Left 4 Dead.
From Vertigo Games, the same team behind Arizona Sunshine, After the Fall is set in a dystopian future where a climate disaster has taken place and Los Angeles is now a winter hellscape. Just to make things worse, a large chunk of the population has turned into horrific monsters called Snowbreed, and they’re less than friendly. The core gameplay revolves around going on Harvest Runs to collect valuable supplies to upgrade weapons and such. Up to four players can team up – AI bots fill in if there’s not enough – with the main hub enabling up to 32 players to socialise before each Harvest Run.
Out in the field, it’s a non-stop action fest as you cull hordes of Snowbreed before encountering at least one of four special mutations that can do some serious damage. Or if you want a different challenge, After the Fall has a competitive PvP mode where you can fight other players instead.
Another great title if you have a few buddies into VR.
A Township Tale
Looking for an entirely different multiplayer experience from those previously mentioned? Well, take a look at A Township Tale by Alta. Taking the idea of building a fully-functioning village where everyone can specialise in a particular task, A Township Tale makes co-op gameplay an essential component to truly unlock its potential.
Up to eight friends can team up on one virtual server to build their town and head out on quests. Choose to become a blacksmith, woodcutter, miner, archer or warrior, each essential to the running of the town and to the success of quests. While you can mix and match, professions like the blacksmith require a lot of work, becoming easier if some players collect resources whilst others build tools or other items.
Then you can explore, heading into the forests or mines to collect new, rare resources to craft enhanced weapons to deal with the various monsters you’ll encounter on route. Or you can try and tackle A Township Tale solo, which is when you’ll realise how much there is to the experience. One to lose hours and hours in.
Schell Games’ original puzzler I Expect You to Die has become a VR classic and its 2021 sequel is no different. Continuing the narrative where you step into the shoes of a secret agent trying to save the world from an evil villain, you don’t need to have played the first to enjoy what’s on offer here.
I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy And The Liar is all about foiling the evil plans of Dr. Zor and his Zoraxis empire across six deadly six missions. The title is very literal in its description that death is expected and expected frequently, as any wrong move can result in an instant, elaborate death. Poison gas, explosives, giant swinging axes, a suspicious sandwich or simply just getting shot, death is around every corner, sometimes you can take your time but there are moments where quick reflexes are essential.
Whilst each mission has a plethora of primary and secondary objectives, what makes I Expect You To Die 2 an essential VR experience is the fact that any player should find it accessible. There’s no locomotion whatsoever, so you can play it seated or standing (best seated) with everything within arms reach, ideal for those new to VR but with enough difficulty for veteran gamers.
Resident Evil 4 might be on this list but if you want to really feel chills down your spine then Cosmodread is the place to be. From the indie studio behind Dreadhalls, Cosmodread is a sci-fi horror that evokes atmospheric movies such as Aliens or Event Horizon.
You’re stuck on a dying spaceship completely alone, which you have to explore to find and fix critical systems in a bid to get home to Earth. The only problem, an alien entity is aboard the ship transforming the crew into monsters. Armed with one weapon initially, scouring the ship for resources will unlock new items, oxygen to keep you alive and crafting resources.
However, Cosmodread is a roguelite VR experience just like In Death: Unchained or Until You Fall, where death means returning back to the start. You might be a little wiser but the levels are procedurally generated, so the environment, item locations and enemy spawn points alter for each run. If you love a good scare then give Cosmodread a try if you dare.
Want a gorgeous looking VR videogame for your new Quest 2 as well as a physical workout? That’s where Crytek’s The Climb 2 comes in. Expanding upon the 2016 original with new locations and features, The Climb 2 for those who love extreme sports but maybe not the death-defying climbing so much.
With locations taking you atop beautiful snowy vistas, up towering skyscrapers, and sun-soaked mountain ranges, The Climb 2 challenges you to find small cracks and ledges to grab hold of and work your way up. You’ll need to chalk your hands to maintain grip and as the levels progress you’ll be offered multiple routes to the top, so you can choose your own route each time.
To make the climbing experience even more realistic, new features include dynamic objects like ropes, containers, ladders, and climbing equipment that react to your weight. There are also customisation options with 32 gloves, 25 watches, and 36 wristbands to unlock along the way. A visually sumptuous VR experience that’ll give your arms a nice workout.
You can’t own a VR headset without owning at least one rhythm action title. One of the best to arrive in 2021 for the Meta Quest was Ragnarock. With a Viking theme, Ragnarock puts you at the helm of a Viking longboat, hammering away at a set of four drums to inspire your crew to row. The faster they row the more likely you are to achieve a gold medal.
Another VR project that arrived by way of Oculus App Lab, Ragnarock’s gameplay is delightfully simple, hit the drums in time with the music to unlock speed boosts and speed those rowers up. Developer WanadevStudio went for a far more rock-themed rhythm action game in comparison to others, with songs from Alestorm, Gloryhammer, Saltatio Mortis, Wind Rose and more.
Offering both solo and multiplayer modes, solo you can race against your ghost once you’ve completed a song. Multiplayer pits you in a race against five other players to the finish line across various difficulty levels.
Its mix of Celtic rock and metal tracks alongside that drumming action makes Ragnarock a compelling VR experience that’s hard to put down.
VR survival gem Song In The Smoke has a new update which, among other things, adds in a more immersive ‘Minimal UI Mode’.
In the launch version of 17-Bit’s VR debut, status ailments like hunger and tiredness are displayed like cave paintings appearing from the sides of your vision. It’s a smart way to alert players to impending problems, but some fans claimed they found this feature distracting. This new minimal UI mode reduces the appearance of these elements so players can instead focus on the world around them.
Also included in this update is the ability to adjust the position of a bow when holding it so you can fire in a way more natural to you, and rare stones have been a bit easier to find, along with “fairer” clothing degradation. There are also some other requested additions like controller-oriented locomotion on Oculus headsets and the usual bug fixes. You can find out more on the developer’s Discord.
We loved Song in the Smoke when it released in early October, awarding it a ‘Great’ rating. “It’s rough, yes, and some of its design ideas need a second pass,” we said. “But it’s also an intoxicating trip, an experience directly connected to the beating heart of nature and acutely aware of the structure and interaction needed to make its survival gameplay work in VR.”
Currently the game’s available on PSVR and Oculus headsets, but it’s also coming to SteamVR soon. We have our fingers crossed that a PSVR 2 version could be on the cards whenever that headset releases, too.
Excellent VR survival game, Song in the Smoke, will soon be available on more PC VR headsets via SteamVR.
17-Bit’s VR debut first launched on PSVR and Oculus Quest earlier this month. It also launched on PC, but only via the Oculus Store meaning it could only be played on Rift headsets or Quest via Link. Last week, however, the developer confirmed the game would be coming soon to Steam. No word of a release date yet, but the developer assured it won’t be too far down the line.
Song In The Smoke SteamVR Launch Incoming
The SteamVR listing also includes confirmation that the game will work natively with the HTC Vive and Valve Index headsets. No word on possible Windows VR support just yet but, given this a SteamVR release, there’s a chance it works out of the box all the same.
It’ll be great to see more people have access to Song in the Smoke – the experience is one of the best of the year. We gave the game a ‘Great’ rating when it launched last month saying: “It’s rough, yes, and some of its design ideas need a second pass. But it’s also an intoxicating trip, an experience directly connected to the beating heart of nature and acutely aware of the structure and interaction needed to make its survival gameplay work in VR.”
Are you going to be picking up The Song In The Smoke on Steam? Or are you already playing it elsewhere? Let us know in the comments below!
We’re back with a Song in the Smoke graphics comparison! How do the three versions of the game stack up? Find out below.
If you haven’t heard by now, we really think you should play Song in the Smoke. It’s a vast, beautiful survival game with real texture. It’s also one of the rare releases to pull off a simultaneous launch on Oculus Quest, PSVR and PC VR all at the same time. That’s impressive in its own right, but it only becomes more so when you consider just how big of a game has been squeezed onto each platform.
Song In The Smoke Graphics Comparison
Song in the Smoke features large environments with minimal loading times when traveling between them. How developer 17-Bit pulled this off — especially on Quest — I’m not quite sure, but it’s a pretty amazing technical showcase.
Visually, the Quest version of course is paired back from PSVR and PC, but it remains remarkably close. You can see some of the moss taken away from walkways and water loses its transparency in favor of a more simplistic look. You’ll also spot some missing environmental details like flies.
But, honestly? The game retains its looks where it counts. Yes the animal models still look muddy and the game has its rougher edges on all three platforms, but it still features some pretty stunning art direction I don’t think you can find anywhere else in VR. It was crucial that the technical constraints of the Quest 2 didn’t detract from that and, for my money, they haven’t.
In other words, wherever you play Song in the Smoke, you’re in for a bit of a treat.
What did you make of our Song in the Smoke graphics comparison? Let us know in the comments below!
Song in the Smoke is a prehistoric-flavored survival game that puts a clever, but not incredibly deep crafting system at its core. Far from damning, this introduces the sort of gameplay friction that will always leave you with just enough useable resources to move forward, but never enough to be comfortable as you explore the game’s one-way trip through an interesting and complex set of bespoke levels. Combat is a little lackluster and visuals feel muddy at times, but Song in the Smoke still manages to charm you even as you’re being hunted by a giant ethereal beast bigger than an SUV.
Song in the Smoke Details:
Available On: Oculus Quest, Oculus PC, PSVR Release Date: October 7th, 2021 Price: $30 Developer: 17-Bit Reviewed On: Quest 2
Gameplay
Song in the Smoke features a string of self-contained levels, each of which includes a few standard objectives you need to accomplish before you can summon a level boss and continue onward. You need to hunt around for three hidden ‘Song Stones’ in each level to unlock the otherworldly beast, which is oftentimes able to kill you in just two or three shots if you’re not careful. Along the way you experience dream sequences, which feel more like a jolt into a waking reality than your current otherworldly realm, and help unfold the mystery of what’s going on. Scrounge, craft, eat, sleep, search for easter egg health upgrades, and fight your way through till the end.
Now for the nitty gritty. Like most survival games, there’s a crafting element to Song in the Smoke which I would describe as wide, not extremely deep—but always satisfying. There’s only around a 15 or 20 main items to make by hand, and a few other directly supporting bits like feathers for fletching, stone for arrowheads, etc. Each successive level has harder rocks and wood, which make for basically the only weapon upgrades you’ll be able to craft.
Here’s me making your bog-standard health potion with an scavenged herb, which you need to do by physically muddling the herb with a mortar and pestle. Stuff like whittling at sticks and attaching stones and other bits feels surprisingly rewarding, and adds a touch of manual labor to the whole survival affair that will really make you miss those lost arrows, and pay more attention to the health of your weapons before you have to roll out your inventory and repair stuff by hand.
Before all of that though, you’ll have to go on the hunt for adequately-shaped sticks that all do very specific tasks—if you can grab them all that is. The amount of times I got that big red ‘NO FREE STORAGE SLOTS’ warning as I supermarket-swept my way through the level to get enough firewood for the night still haunts my dreams. There’s usually enough laying around for one night, but never enough room to store it all.
Sticks of any size can be burnt in a fire pit, which requires you to toss in ample amounts of all stick types to make sure it stays lit throughout the night. The fire’s full meter fills up and slowly goes down to nothing, so you better stay on top of it. You can cook hunted meat on the fire, which is one of the best one shot hunger-killing meals in the game.
Depending on their size, sticks can also be fashioned into devices like tanning racks for making clothes or drying racks for preserving food, but they can also be made into hand-held tools or weapons with your trusty stone knife. A large stick can be whittled into a club for defense, an extra larger for a bow, a small stick becomes an arrow shaft, medium sticks become torches—the search for the right type of stick for the job at hand is truly a never-ending pursuit. Those tools let you eek out a pretty meager existence amidst a world filled with things designed to kill you.
Grinding for basic items is such a big part of the game that there’s truly little rest for the ill-prepared, and only slightly more rest for those that get into the rhythm of prioritizing the best methods of battling against hunger, cold, fatigue, and all manner of things that go bump in the night.
And you’re always hungry and tired. Balancing your inventory to make sure you have a ready supply of food and potion supplies on hand, alongside enough firewood to make a fire before the sun goes down and you’re attacked in your sleep by a pervasive demon called ‘The Darkness’, is fundamental.
The first time I naively went to sleep without a big enough fire was a harrowing experience, as you’re awoken by the two-headed creature screeching and floating towards you. The only recourse is lighting another fire if you happen to have supplies on hand, or running into the night for more, where other danger likely awaits. Combat is pretty basic and not a super involved experience, and I talk more about that in the Immersion section below.
Outside of dying in a multitude of ways, one of the biggest friction points is undeniably the game’s inventory, which although can be grown to include more slots and a camp-based storage satchel, is always painfully limited. This is exacerbated by some stability issues at current which scatters (or outright despawns) your neatly stacked supplies on the ground when you move between levels, which made me rely entirely on my inventory/satchel combo. I think if I could trust the ground to hold my things, I would have a lot less to say about inventory.
There are some other artificial boundaries set on the player. You’re only allowed to construct three campsites per level, which act as both places to sleep out the night beside the safety of the fire and places to save your progress. Get killed, and you’re given the option to either start from your last save, or to load another save state from your list of three save slots.
In the end, it took me around 14 hours to finish the game. That’s entirely dependent on your play style though, as I took time to grind out basics and build camps in each level in effort to ease some of the constant worry of health, hunger, etc. The developers say it can take anywhere between 12 – 20 hours, since there’s no variable difficulty.
Immersion
As you’d imagine, all of these outside pressures make you feel a gnawing sense of dread every day. Even when the grind becomes second nature, and you learn to adequately plan where to get a good source of firewood so you have enough to sleep a night or two without the threat of the evil Darkness spirit, there’s still the fear the next day that you’ll lose all progress by dying and get sent back to your last manual save point (re: no automatic saves).
All of the word’s beasts function on a basic AI, which can be hit and miss at times when you’re hunting a prey animals like a deer, or trying to fend off a predator like a giant car-sized panther. Here’s a level boss that took me an unreasonably long amount of time (and ready supply of clubs) to kill. The cool cosmic pain job tells he means business.
Anyway, I came across moments when the AI bugs out and a crowd of deer, feathered raptors, lions, and panthers all populate the same area and summarily ignore each other as they either gang-attack you or sprint away from you in a mixed heard of predator and prey. Harder levels offer a greater range of animal types, so I found this happening more often than not in the later half of the game, but I never saw wildlife interact with each other, like a panther hunting a deer or something.
Fighting is very much an ‘unga bunga’ experience when it comes to battling beasts. Once an animal has locked on and decides to engage, they’ll rear up into a fight animation that can be blocked by hitting a large red hit-marker with your club that will translate to a hard blow on the enemy. There’s no heath bar or any other real indication that you’re near to felling any of the beasts, so it’s mostly a game of ‘smack them until they’re dead’. The other main weapon is the bow, but I found this really only helpful in hunting prey beasts rather than using it as an actual offensive weapon since it does comparatively less damage.
As far as visuals go, much of the game’s textures feel a bit dark and muddy, which offers depressingly little visual contrast. It’s a shame, because level design provides engaging multi-level pathways to an objective which really feels like true exploration, and the general vibe of the world is nearly worth admiring when you take a pause. Granted, I haven’t seen the game via PC VR yet, as I played on Quest 2, but that’s how it was for me. Environmental effects like rain and fog are a fine touch, which complement the day-night cycle.
Comfort
The game requires teleportation to climb and descend steep ledges, which is unavoidable since there’s no direct climbing involved. Default movement in Song of the Smoke is based on smooth forward motion and snap-turning. Check out the full spectrum of movement options below.
In any case, it was easy for me to play Song in the Smoke for hours at a time thanks to these variable comfort options. Some users may find the speed and frenetic nature a little more intense than say, a room-scale only game, but I’d still consider it exceedingly comfortable from even a beginner’s standpoint.
Song in the Smoke Comfort Settings – October 7th, 2021
Turning
Artificial turning
Smooth-turn
Adjustable speed
Snap-turn
Adjustable increments
Movement
Artificial movement
Smooth-move
Adjustable speed
Teleport-move
Blinders
Adjustable strength
Head-based
Controller-based
Swappable movement hand
Posture
Standing mode
Seated mode
Artificial crouch
Real crouch
Accessibility
Subtitles
Languages
English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese
Song in the Smoke deftly balances its mix of survival mechanics and earthy undertones for a rare experience that nails gameplay and atmosphere. More in our Song in the Smoke review.
It doesn’t really matter that Song in the Smoke is, visually speaking, a little rough around the edges. Though leafy and lush, its forests are linked by walls of muddy textures and dated character models, but developer 17-Bit more than wins you over with a rare and extremely raw spirituality. Fantastic, otherworldly creatures that equal parts enamor and terrify, arresting supernatural sights that capture an enormity of the universe beyond and soulful audio work that steeps this prehistoric adventure in a sense of deep respect for culture make it a thing to behold at any one moment. Truly, Song in the Smoke is a game with a seldom seen majesty to it.
It’s also, helpfully, a really good survival game.
Song in the Smoke Review – The Facts
What is it?: A VR survival game set in prehistoric times in which you’ll craft items and hunt increasingly dangerous creatures. Platforms: Quest, Rift, PSVR Release Date: Out now Price:
17-Bit’s VR debut has the depth of its flatscreen contemporaries with an understanding of what needs to change to make them work inside a headset. Song in the Smoke has aim and direction, giving players a series of areas to discover and complete objectives in (which are impressively big for a Oculus Quest) before moving on to the next and managing their energy and food supplies at the same time. Crucially, the laws of this jungle are tough and unforgiving but also don’t waste your time with antiquated UI or overly complex crafting, and it has its own ideas about how to expedite or enhance some of the genre’s more mundane elements for VR. The result is a uniquely assured gameplay experience.
So, yes, you’re collecting sticks and stones to make arrows and rocks. You’re going to get hungry, you’re going to get tired, often at times that are very inconvenient. But you’re also going to actually enjoy managing these systems; you’ll always have the tools to craft wood and stone — a bone knife and billet respectively — in your inventory that allow you to quickly make use of any of the plentiful resources you’ll find at your feet. While they won’t solve everything, special plants can help combat fatigue and health without having to return to a campfire and waste away a day sleeping.
Most importantly, there’s a rare tactility to using these items, doubling down on Song in the Smoke’s connection to nature. Crushing petals with a mortar and pestle is rightly rustic work, and there’s a strangely wholesome satisfaction to running a knife alongside a stick of wood until it turns into kindling for a fire. Striking stone on the side of a wall to spark up a flame, meanwhile, never gets old.
Streamlined, perhaps, but not entirely unforgiving. The game only lets you save at campfires that, with eight stones, you can make pretty much anywhere. But death will take you back to the last time you stored your progress, meaning there’s often the genuine threat of losing a crucial set of resources or a hard-fought victory.
It doesn’t completely sidestep the more exhaustive side of surviving. Hunting animals uses up a lot of laboriously sourced arrows and, when you kill something, it’ll take up a chunk of the day to carve even just one of the three or four items you can get from it. Costing time translates to an increase in hunger and fatigue that makes reaping the rewards of your hunt a slightly bitter pill to swallow.
But, for every time Song in the Smoke frustrates, there are more than enough great ideas to balance it out. Status ailments are brilliantly displayed as hallucinogenic smokescreens that keep you aware of your condition without being too invasive, food can be cooked and then dried to keep it from deteriorating in your inventory, and a broken bow or club can be near-instantly replaced with the sticks at your feet. Most survival games release in Early Access and take months, if not years to find the right groove, but Song in the Smoke seems to have it right out of the gate.
And there’s evolving structure beyond that survival core. In every area of the game you’ll first have to seek out three stones that will, in turn, unlock a boss fight elsewhere in the map. These encourage you to fully explore your surroundings before learning a new technique to help you overcome new threats. Sometimes it’s as simple as crafting exploding arrows for more damage and, at others, it involves first luring a beast into a false sense of security. New areas bring new conditions that will need warmer, more defensive outfits crafted from animal pelts, and the strength of the natural resources around you will improve too.
It’s a winning formula that makes Song in the Smoke feel as much like a campaign-driven epic as it is a wide-open survival experience. It also means the game offers plenty of content – each area will likely take you at least an hour of exploring, upgrading, surviving and battling, and then there are hidden health boosts to find by risking going out at night. It’ll take you past the nine hour mark with ease unless you’re dedicated to rushing it.
Having said that, combat is one of the game’s weaker elements, let down by the enemy’s skittish AI that aims to reproduce the primal, erratic nature of, say, a hungry lion, but often ends up just having them run in circles. You also have an upgradable arrow quill that can only hold a certain amount of ammo, while the rest is stored in your pouch. I’d often find myself running out of arrows mid-fight, which doesn’t make sense when I’d have another 10 just sitting in my backpack, and the game doesn’t pause to let you restock them. I can understand why 17-Bit made the decision (if you could fire 40 arrows at will, fights would be over in no time), but this isn’t as elegant a solution as you’d hope. You also can’t swap items in your hands without dropping them, which is a little inconvenient.
What I like most, though, is the game’s admiration for its ecosystem and otherworldly heritage. Song in the Smoke is about embracing the wilderness, imagining the chill around your ankles as you hunt for fish by a waterfall or applying planning and patience to a hunt. There’s haunting beauty to each of its elements, from the way a lion slowly decays into a ghoulish husk days after a fierce battle or the ethereal appearance of boss creatures, which look like a cosmic window into the far reaches of space.
Song in the Smoke Review – Comfort
Song in the Smoke offers both smooth and teleportation-based locomotion with other comfort options for the type of turning. Though it’s a long experience, the relatively slow-paced nature makes its quite comfortable.
This carries through to the game’s plot which, while light, makes its mark with a handful of cutscenes that bind the levels together. Without spoiling anything, they’re flashbacks that are hypnotic to watch, a mix of gorgeous ritualism and tribal decoration in which you’ll struggle not to find a sight to be arrested by, be it the watchful gaze of a crow above you or the carefully-plotted choreography of an elder in action. It’s utterly engrossing.
A few bugs will break the spell, though. The game gives you three save slots and I strongly encourage you to alternate between two and keep the third for just before you start a new level – I lost about an hour’s progress when I realized one area didn’t spawn the collectables I needed to progress and I even encountered areas of the map that just straight up didn’t load if I approached from one angle, leaving me staring into a misty abyss with the resources I need just out of reach.
Song in the Smoke Review – Final Impressions
I am, if you couldn’t tell, quite in love with Song in the Smoke, then. It’s rough, yes, and some of its design ideas need a second pass. But it’s also an intoxicating trip, an experience directly connected to the beating heart of nature and acutely aware of the structure and interaction needed to make its survival gameplay work in VR. All of this is thrown into a mortar and crushed beneath a pestle to conjure a game in which you can practically feel the slip of wet mud, scrape of scrambling over a cliff face or chill of water flowing over your feet. Like the healing potions and mystic concoctions you’ll brew, Song in the Smoke is a hell of drug.
For more on how we arrived at this rating, read our review guidelines. What did you make of our Song in the Smoke review? Let us know in the comments below!
Cold, wet and with a suspicious-looking mushroom you’ve only just picked off a fallen tree your only source of nourishment, your survival isn’t looking good unless you can make it back to your campfire and get it lit before the sunlight fades. Even then, your safety isn’t guaranteed because if that flame goes out whilst you sleep or you’ve chosen a really poor location for your campfire, making it through the night becomes a nightmarish journey that’s as scary as any horror videogame. Welcome to Song in the Smoke, one of the toughest VR adventure’s out there.
The very first virtual reality (VR) title from Japanese developer 17-BIT wastes no time in offering you some hard truths, this is a videogame about patience and determination. In this beautiful primordial world, everything is trying to survive and you become both hunter and hunted as the landscape unfolds, with evermore expansive and twisting environments just begging to be explored.
Song in the Smoke gives a short sharp introduction to the continual process of trying not to die, showing you how to make a knife, use a pestle and mortar to crush certain plants and most importantly of all, making fire. It can’t be overstated enough how vital the campfire is to make it through each and every day. This is where you can find warmth, sleep, cook food and make other useful kit like a drying rack to put animal skins on. Oh, and one other thing, this isn’t an experience for those that don’t like hurting animals, there’s a lot of killing as their skins are vital for survival.
So Song in the Smoke is all about that hunter-gather lifestyle, surviving from day to day. But, interwoven with this is a far more mysterious narrative that helps drive the gameplay forward and out of the safety of your cave. There’s a really weird bird creature you encounter along the way, it’s weird because it has three crow heads and a human face on its chest. Nevers says anything, just occasionally squawks. Each biome has glowing purple rocks to locate. Find them all and you’ll then be instructed to hunt a special spirit animal. Kill it and a portal to the next area unlocks, giving you access to new resources and new creatures.
There’s no rush to anything in Song in the Smoke, you can spend as many in-game days as you like foraging, hunting and collecting those stones. In the latter stages, it’s almost too easy to spend hours exploring all the nooks and crannies of the environment as there are hidden secrets like health bar increases or skull pots with random goodies inside. But doing leads to a lot of repetition, especially where the campfire is concerned, constantly looking for wood and making sure you’ve got enough to last the night.
Most of the experience is based around fairly realistic physics and interactive gameplay. You have to bash small rocks to make arrowheads or use your knife to slice up some kindling. It’s all very physical, hence why you have a stamina bar and have to sleep eventually. This means you need that fire to burn all night so you’re safe, building it up with kindling, then small sticks, medium sticks and large sticks. These all burn differently, with a big indicator circling the fire so you know what burns when and how long you’ve got – like the train scene from Back to the Future: Part 3. If the fire burns out too early and you’re out of wood then welcome to darkness…and the dangers that lurk within it.
Only three campfires can be made per level so a great deal of thought needs to go into where you hunker down. On the top of some cliffs is good, stops the animals getting to you but then if it rains that’s your fire destroyed. This simple idea is even tougher when you first enter an area as the map on your chest is blank until you uncover some of the environment. This seemed to be where you become most vulnerable, with numerous deaths occurring from wild animals (panthers, wild boars, lions) whilst trying to get a feel for the landscape. What makes it more frustrating is the complete lack of checkpoints.
Going through to a new area or locating all three stones you might think that an autosave might be dropped in. Oh no, all saving is manual at the campfire so you have to remember to save, save and save some more. Suddenly realising you’re close to death and you haven’t saved for an hour isn’t great. And there are numerous ways to meet your end, not just being lunch for a stealthy predator. Cold, bleeding out, hunger, fatigue, they’ll all have an effect on depleting your health. Keeping an eye on your inventory is critical so you’ve got food and other resources, adding another layer to Song in the Smoke long list of things to keep you busy.
Whilst there is plenty to do, see and interact with, providing an amazingly rich VR experience that you can get lost in, there are a couple of mechanics that don’t make sense; breaking the finally crafted immersion. These are made instantly apparent in the tutorial and are two of the key features in Song in the Smoke, eating and climbing. With so much work on the intricate crafting mechanics, why is it that when anything is eaten a big scroll wheel appears to show you’re chewing? Instantly breaking that sense of immersion, made worse by the fact that you have to regularly eat, constantly popping up in your face. Definitely not a fan of that.
And when it comes to climbing the only option you have is teleporting, with a little green indicator having to momentarily charge up before you can jump/climb up or down a ledge. Song in the Smoke has plenty of physicality to it but no climbing? Plenty of VR titles utilise physically grabbing ledges as a means of grounding you in their worlds, to bypass a mechanic like that just seems odd. It means even if your settings are on full immersion (smooth locomotion and turning) you still have to teleport. Likewise, all the usual comfort settings are there so most players should find a happy medium.
Even with all that said, Song in the Smoke is thoroughly engrossing to play. The level design is magnificent and becomes a real challenge the deeper in you get. Every day feels fresh and new, a mixture of joy when a new area is discovered and dread when a menacing growl suddenly appears from behind you. It’s a huge experience that you can get lost in, spending hour upon hour taking it all in. Song in the Smoke looked like it was something special and it is, one of the best VR games of 2021.
