| Songs of Silence | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay & Story | Release Date | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
Songs of Silence is a stylish strategy game with elements of RTS, 4X, and turn-based deck-building set in a unique world Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Songs of Silence Review Overview
What is Songs of Silence?
Songs of Silence is a deeply detailed 4X strategy game that marries tactical kingdom management and real-time strategy tactics with auto-battler mechanics. Delve into a world of light and dark, where an encroaching corruption called The Silence threatens to plunge either side into destruction.
Take control of vast armies and legendary heroes as you participate in a gridless 4X experience on a fantastical world stage. Decide the fate of this world as strongholds, armies, and skirmishes take action at your behest.
Songs of Silence features:
⚫︎ Deeply detailed campaign mode with 8 unique chapters
⚫︎ 120+ unique units to command
⚫︎ 15 unlockable heroes with unique playstyles
⚫︎ 80+ game-changing battle and strategy cards
⚫︎ Full voice-acting with a soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto
⚫︎ Full controller support with limited Steam Deck compatibility
⚫︎ Online Multiplayer games for 1-6 players
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Songs of Silence's gameplay and story.
 Steam |
 GoG |
||||
| Price | $39.99 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Songs of Silence Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Striking Visuals Unlike Anything I’ve Ever Seen Solid World-building |
Only Marginally Better than Early-Access Fundamentally Dull Gameplay |
Songs of Silence Overall Score - 80/100
Songs of Silence is a Fabergé egg of a game: exquisitely crafted, lavishly detailed, and undeniably beautiful, yet ultimately decorative. Its true value lies in its visual splendor and evocative soundscape, gracing a gameplay core that’s serviceable but lacks the innovation or excitement that would make it truly memorable. If you buy this game, it’s purely for the artistry—for its aesthetic appeal, not for a deep or groundbreaking gameplay experience. For some, that might be worth the price; it was for me. But for others, it may not be worth the gilded exterior.
Songs of Silence Story - 8/10
Songs of Silence has a solid foundation in world-building, with compelling characters, rich histories, and themes that emerge naturally from its setting. However, the game struggles to deliver this intricate world in a way that’s easy to absorb. Instead of a symphony of immersive storytelling, it feels more like an overwhelming rush of details, leaving the player wading through too much at once.
Songs of Silence Gameplay - 5/10
Gameplay is where Songs of Silence stumbles most, and not just in comparison to its stronger aspects. Even on their own, the core mechanics feel unfocused and fall short of fully embracing any one genre—whether 4X, RTS, deck-building, or strategy. The game borrows elements from each but doesn’t quite blend them into a cohesive experience, leaving it as a patchwork of ideas that never fully form a satisfying whole.
Songs of Silence Visuals - 10/10
Songs of Silence fully commits to its visual identity, immersing players in a world adorned with Art Nouveau filigree, avant-garde color palettes, and intricate linework that would captivate any art lover. Despite the staggering level of detail packed into every corner, the style remains cohesive, resulting in an almost orchestral aesthetic. This visual harmony not only enhances the game but elevates it far above most titles, offering a feast for the eyes that feels both unique and meticulously crafted.
Songs of Silence Audio - 10/10
The game’s soundscape, crafted by the renowned Hitoshi Sakimoto, is as grand as it is delicate, enhancing the overall experience in a way that feels almost cinematic. Paired with the stunning visual design, the audio creates a mesmerizing blend of sight and sound, making it easy to forget you’re playing a game at all. Competent voice acting adds yet another layer, completing a captivating presentation that pulls you into its world with impressive finesse.
Songs of Silence Value for Money - 7/10
At a $40 price point, this game offers plenty, though its core gameplay lacks the cohesion needed to fully satisfy. While the mechanics are flawed and occasionally dull, they aren’t outright terrible. What truly justifies the price is the game’s remarkable style, which could easily be the visual backbone of multiple games. Still, while the aesthetic value is undeniable, this may not be the main draw for every player.
Songs of Silence Review: As Beautiful and Boring as Ever
Every now and then, a game emerges that transcends traditional boundaries, blurring the line between artistic expression and the medium of video games. Some, like Undertale, achieve this by doing more with less—delivering unforgettable experiences through simplicity and narrative depth. Others, like Songs of Silence, achieve it by doing more with more, layering masterful artistry in one area with equal brilliance in another to create something truly awe-inspiring.
Songs of Silence thrives in its unabashed maximalism, with Art Nouveau-inspired visuals and Tolkien-esque, detail-rich storytelling. This is not a game of moderation; it revels in the opulence of its design. While the gameplay struggles to keep pace with these ambitious aesthetics, that’s a discussion for later. For now, let’s dive into the gilded filigree of Songs of Silence’s 1.0 build to see if it truly lives up to the grand ambitions its visual style evokes.
An Amalgam of 4X, RTS, Deck-building, and Kingdom Management
Songs of Silence stands at the intersection of strategy gaming, carefully toeing the line between sub-genres like 4X, RTS, deck-building, and kingdom management. Yet, rather than fully committing to any one genre, it merely brushes up against each—more on that shortly.
At its core, the game operates on two distinct layers of strategy. The broader 4X layer spans a vast landscape of kingdoms, forests, oceans, and mountains, where players lead armies, conquer territories, and shape the fate of kingdoms. Here, you make high-level decisions: choosing battles, sieging kingdoms, assigning upgrades to conquered lands, and revealing parts of the map.
The more focused layer of strategy emerges in direct engagements, whether clashing with an enemy warband or laying siege to a stronghold. In these encounters, the game shifts to an RTS-style auto-battle, offering a closer look at the battlefield as friendly and enemy units clash. Players can pause the action at any time to play strategy cards, triggering commands like cavalry charges, healing, or unit summoning. These encounters continue until one side is either routed or eliminated.
Getting further into the strategic depth that makes each layer of strategy unique, we begin with what one can achieve from the game’s 4X strategy layer. Within the safe confines of a friendly stronghold, players have full control to refine and adapt their armies. Here, you can purchase new units, upgrade veterans, manage your reserves (units that travel with you but don’t join the fight), or assign garrison forces to guard your stronghold.
The variety of units offers diverse tactical possibilities. From melee to ranged, each unit type has specialized roles, such as summoners and mages for ranged attacks or cavalry for powerful charges. Unique traits define each unit’s combat role; some can charge headlong into battle, while others deliver devastating spells from a distance or even deflect damage entirely.
The heart of your army, however, lies with the hero units. Heroes are exceptional forces with unique abilities, resilient enough to return after every engagement, and equipped with powerful strategy cards that shift the tide of battle. As heroes level up, their cards can be enhanced to unlock new effects and bolster your tactical options. Additionally, each stronghold can be developed to support your army further, from adding new recruitment options to upgrading buildings for strategic advantages.
Victory conditions vary widely, from vanquishing rival kingdoms to outscoring opponents or completing specific story objectives. Whether you’re aiming for domination or tackling unique objectives, every path to victory offers its own challenges.
Now that we’ve covered the essentials of gameplay, let’s explore the many features that can elevate or impact the experience, for better or worse.
Striking Visuals Unlike Anything I’ve Ever Seen
Let’s start with Songs of Silence’s standout feature—its style, which is impossible to ignore and simply too captivating to overlook. This game is a masterclass in visual cohesion, weaving its art nouveau-inspired design through every layer of gameplay, visuals, and narrative. Every aspect, from the UI elements and character portraits to the 3D unit assets in auto-battle sequences, is infused with this bold artistic vision.
Even back in early access in June 2024, Songs of Silence boasted a striking aesthetic. Now, with a polished intro cinematic and a roster of new heroes and units, its style has only become more immersive. The intricate linework and vivid colors aren’t just decoration—they're central to the game’s identity. Songs of Silence would simply lose its soul without them.
What truly sets this game’s style apart, though, is not just the artistry itself, but its absolute consistency. It’s clear that the creators envisioned a world that would be nothing less than a visual masterpiece, and no detail was spared in realizing it. This isn’t just a good-looking game; it’s a testament to how dedication to visual integrity can elevate the entire experience.
Solid World-building
Following the allure of its striking visuals, Songs of Silence introduces a rich tapestry of themes, characters, and settings, making its world-building a worthy complement to its extraordinary style. This world is one of light, darkness, and music, held together by a force called “The Hymn.” The Hymn acts as a creative life force, imbuing every inhabitant with a faux soul. Its opposite, “The Silence,” is an ominous, soulless entity manifesting as a black hole-like Purgatory, spawning mindless creatures known as “Gestalts” that destroy and assimilate everything in their path.
These forces of creation and destruction underpin the epic clash between light and dark, where kingdoms rise and fall in Songs of Silence’s grand theater. In Story Mode, players step into the role of a scion of a fallen kingdom, fighting to halt the Silence’s advance and seeking a new home for her people.
The story is ambitious, complex, and full of well-crafted characters and evocative settings. Yet, while visual maximalism is this game’s strength, narrative maximalism proves to be more of a double-edged sword. The world’s intricate details and extensive lore, while captivating, can feel overwhelming, especially for players less familiar with high fantasy. The game sometimes struggles to communicate its rich lore effectively, resulting in a slow narrative pace in Story Mode that may frustrate some players.
Fundamentally Dull Gameplay
Moving on to gameplay, while Songs of Silence tells an engaging story and boasts stunning visuals, its gameplay unfortunately fails to live up to the same high standard. It’s not bad by any means, nor does it feel punishing or unfair—it’s just fundamentally dull.
Taking cues from 4X strategy games, Songs of Silence attempts to deliver on the classic pillars of the genre: Explore, Exploit, Expand, and Exterminate. Yet, it stumbles on each count. Exploration feels constrained by the limited number of warbands you can field, alongside a gridless overworld that feels more like a formality than a strategic landscape. Exploiting resources barely factor in, as kingdoms are the only areas you can truly control, and capturing one is a drawn-out, multi-turn task.
Expansion, meanwhile, lacks the expected depth due to the game’s emphasis on controlling isolated regions rather than building a true empire. Extermination—arguably the heart of any 4X game—is rendered underwhelming by the game’s auto-battle system.
This brings us to Songs of Silence’s auto-battles, an unsurprising weak spot to cap off its off-mark overworld strategy. These clashes seem intended to evoke the tactical feel of an RTS where you guide your with tactical card play. Unfortunately, the cards themselves are often too minor or irrelevant to have a meaningful impact. Instead, battles mostly hinge on numerical and positional advantages set BEFORE the skirmishes, leaving the actual combat feeling static and uninspired.
This lack of interactivity and strategic dynamism makes each clash feel repetitive, with few stakes if you’ve prepared well or insurmountable odds if you haven’t. It’s an unfortunate flaw that stands in stark contrast to the game’s otherwise well-developed visuals and world-building, creating a disconnect that makes the gameplay feel like an afterthought. If this was in any other medium, it’d be excellent, but the video game medium makes no compromise for unfun creations.
Only Marginally Better than Early-Access
What makes Songs of Silence’s uninspired gameplay particularly disappointing is that improvements were clearly attempted but fell short of making a real impact. The full 1.0 release is only a slight upgrade over the early-access version I reviewed back in June. Sure, there are some quality-of-life changes, like a fast-forward feature for auto-battles, and some optimization and balancing tweaks, but these minor improvements don’t significantly enhance the fun factor.
I appreciate the polish added to Songs of Silence in its full release, especially the refined visuals that cleared up the blurred assets from early access, as well as the snazzy new intro cinematic that enriches the story setup. These upgrades undeniably make a difference—helpful, impactful, and immersive. But in the grand scheme, they’re like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer: impressive, but not exactly what the game needed most to keep players fully engaged.
Still Looks Great, Still Not the Best Game Mechanics-wise
That about sums up Songs of Silence’s 1.0 release: while it does polish certain areas, some is the operative word here. The gameplay remains as uninspired as ever, which is a real letdown given how stellar everything else is. I’d go so far as to say this game has it all—except for engaging gameplay. Whether this dealbreaker will deter you from buying the game is up to you, but for most players, good looks alone simply aren’t enough.
Is Songs of Silence Worth It?
Worth It For the Art, Though Some May Disagree
As someone who values strong character design and immersive world-building, I find Songs of Silence’s $40 price tag reasonable, considering its quality in those areas. However, for players who prioritize gameplay over visuals, this might be a tougher sell.
The game is packed with content, both artistic and gameplay-related, but the latter’s lackluster execution could be a deterrent for some. I wasn’t discouraged, but I can see why others might hesitate.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
| Steam |
$39.99 |
Songs of Silence FAQ
What Languages Does Songs of Silence Support?
Songs of Silence supports the following language translations for its subtitles and UI elements: French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain), Czech, Polish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Turkish, and Russian.
Will Progress from Songs of Silence’s Demo Be Carried Over to the Full Release?
No. According to the game’s developers, save data from Songs of Silence’s demo will not be carried on to the full game’s release.
Game8 Reviews
You may also like...
 |
Fabledom Review | Deserves A Happy Ever After |
 |
Homeworld 3 Review | Wasn't Worth The Wait |
 |
Last Train Home Review | A Reverent Look At The Horrors of War |
Songs of Silence Product Information
 | |
| Title | SONGS OF SILENCE |
|---|---|
| Release Date | November 11, 2024 (Early access) |
| Developer | Chimera Entertainment |
| Publisher | Chimera Entertainment |
| Supported Platforms | PC(Steam, GoG) Unspecified Consoles (Later Date) |
| Genre | Strategy, 4X |
| Number of Players | Offline Single Player(1), Online PvP(2-6) |
| Rating | PEGI 12 |
| Official Website | Songs of Silence Official Website |
