Songs of Silence is a 4X strategy auto-battler set in a fantasy world with a stunning Art Nouveau style. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth playing.
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 |
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| Price | $35-40 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Songs of Silence Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Stunning Art Nouveu Visuals Informative and Interactive Tutorial World-building Masterclass Immense Variety |
So-so Auto Battles Could Use More Cinematics |
Songs of Silence Overall Score - 84/100
Songs of Silence eloquently champions the notion of video games as an art form, seamlessly blending the majestic Art Nouveau style with Hitoshi Sakimoto’s distinctive sound. The grandeur of this game’s artistry cannot be overstated, despite certain gameplay aspects—particularly its auto-battle system—potentially facing criticism. Nevertheless, beauty often coexists with imperfection, and Songs of Silence undeniably stands as a specimen of exquisite artistry.
Songs of Silence Story - 8/10
Songs of Silence’s story is rich, expansive, and well-written, with sturdy pillars for world-building and character development to boot. Combine that with a generous sprinkling of flavor text and some strong visual storytelling, and you’ve got quite the epic on your hands. It’s a little too long for the casual player, but fantasy fans will surely enjoy it.
Songs of Silence Gameplay - 7/10
Songs of Silence’s gameplay has the variety, content, and balance one might expect from a 4X game, though it does suffer as an auto battler. Without a means to speed up battles or enemy AI turns in the overworld, combat can sometimes be a slog. Still, the tactical cards and kingdom management bits are fun and even the auto-battles have their highlights as well.
Songs of Silence Visuals - 10/10
I’m going to have to agree with this game’s developers when they said that " strategy doesn’t have to be ugly" because Songs of Silence is very clearly someone’s magnum opus. Evoking the Art Nouveau style of sinuous, asymmetrical curves and lines gave this game an ostentatious mood that paired well with its fantastical narrative concepts.
Songs of Silence Audio - 9/10
Songs of Silence’s developers really made a big deal about the game’s score being made by Hitoshi Sakimoto and I can see—or rather, hear—why. From the first notes that greet you whenever you start the game to the rising crescendos of the game’s battle music, this game’s soundtrack is a collection of masterpieces rivaled only by the game’s grand aesthetic.
Songs of Silence Value for Money - 8/10
$39.99 is a darn good price for a game of Songs of Silence's pedigree. Apart from the masterful visuals and audio, Songs of Silence is just chock-full of content, including 150+ unique units, 15 heroes, 80+ tactical cards, and 20 locations to skirmish through. Add in the prospect of 1-6-player multiplayer, and it’s as golden as the filigree in its character design.
Songs of Silence Review: Splendid Nouveau 4X Strategy
Much like the art movement its visual style is trying to evoke, Songs of Silence is an ostentatious display of story-telling across the senses. As you’ll come to realize, there’s a lot of pedigree going into this game—in some areas more than others—so I’m glad to delve into the grand design and gilded filigree of Songs of Silence and figure out exactly what makes it a splendid nouveau 4X strategy.
We’ll begin with the game’s most striking feature: its Art Nouveau-inspired visuals. I’d say that Songs of Silence wears its design inspirations on its sleeves, but that comparison does not do it justice. Forget sleeves, this game wears its inspirations on its frills, its jewel-bedecked ring, and its gold-trimmed raiments.
I can’t take my eyes off this game with just how beautiful the character portraits are. It’s like I booted up the game and somehow ended up in an art museum featuring the complete works of Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha.
And it’s not even limited to just the hero portraits either, as every single unit has its own Art Nouveau-inspired art to go with its stat breakdown whenever you inspect one. The cards have the same grand design too, even if they’re mostly for the game’s tactical layer than anything else.
This visual feast extends to the game’s UI, with every menu, button, and slider adorned in golden curls. If this game were a person, they’d be dazzling from head to toe in the flashiest, most asymmetrical, yet utterly captivating ensemble you’ve ever seen—and I mean that in the best way possible.
Well, we all look at the game’s Mucha-esque visuals first but don’t sleep on this game’s soundtrack—not that it’d let you. The grand fanfares and evocative strings of Hitoshi Sakimoto’s work are the perfect supplements to the latticed frames and detailed linework of this game’s visuals.
The majestic and grandiose scale of the game’s music is something royalty-free fantasy tracks could never capture. When it comes to portraying such golden grandeur, no one does it better than Sakimoto—except, perhaps, Howard Shore.
Moving on to Songs of Silence’s gameplay, it’s an odd array of genres and features that really shouldn’t go together but do. If I were to explain the jumble of genres in Songs of Silence, I’d call it a turn-based tactical 4X game with a sprinkle of auto-battlers, RTS games, kingdom-management sims, and roguelites.
The overworld is where most of the game’s 4X inspirations manifest, with its movement point-based traversal, terrain bonuses, and miniaturized army models. Each of your conquered territories is also upgradable based on their prosperity and can be besieged as if they were strongholds if necessary.
These act as bases of operation for your heroes and their attached armies, allowing you to heal, buy new units, garrison existing units, deposit pillaged goods, and change formation. You can even exchange units between armies here, so they play an integral part in your campaign, and holding them is an important task.
But let’s be real, the pausable auto-battles are the star of the show…or at least they should’ve been. I’ll preface this criticism by saying that the weakest link of an otherwise immaculate execution is still good, just not in comparison to the rest of the game’s facets. That said, I’m not a big fan of the game’s auto-battle system.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s novel as heck and performs extremely well, I just think that a lot of the game’s moving parts and deliberate intricacy, if not outright undermined, is lost in the hands-off gameplay offered by auto-battles.
Every unit has something that makes it tick like additional power or CC immunity and I appreciate that as a fan of tactical RPGs. What I dislike about the auto-battles is how inconsequential such bonuses are in the face of overwhelming force.
I can barely call it tactical when the best you can do is throw an odd buff here, a heal there, and maybe summon some units in the backline while your army does whatever the heck it wants. When faced with great numbers, you’ll almost always lose because, in my opinion, your tactical options are far too limited to overcome overwhelming odds.
I would’ve appreciated this game more as a pausable RTS than a pausable auto-battler, but honestly, I’d settle for a fast-forward button because these skirmishes take forever despite their name.
It’s a blemish in an otherwise amazing game so, like a wayward stroke on a nearly finished portrait, everyone’s gonna notice it even if everything else looks good.
In terms of story, you can’t go wrong with a little bit of Tolkien-esque high fantasy mixed with early-medieval themes and unique world-building. I’m certainly a fan of the game’s unique setting and the stunning visuals only serve to reinforce it through its visual storytelling.
All in all, this is a game that’s gilded by the raw skill of those who made it. I cannot deny the quality that went into this game’s art direction in terms of visuals and music, but I also cannot allow such a so-so gameplay aspect to go unnoticed.
Still, tarnished gold and weathering canvas can still embody greatness, and this game has that by the legions.
Pros of Songs of Silence
| Things Songs of Silence Got Right |
|---|
|
Stunning Art Nouveau Visuals Informative and Interactive Tutorial World-building Masterclass Immense Variety |
Stunning Art Nouveau Visuals
I’ve gone on and on about this game’s visuals in the main review but it bears repeating. There’s no shortage of visually rich 4X strategy games—what with Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, Stellaris, and Age of Wonders IV—but Songs of Silence is in a league of its own.
This game is positively steeped with the themes, paradigms, and techniques of its derivative art movement and, despite the saturation, it never comes off as cheap or irreverent. Simply put, this was Art Nouveau done right.
Informative and Interactive Tutorial
4X games usually have the most detailed tutorials due to the density of their game mechanics and with that detail comes the issue of creating an effective tutorial. There’s always the risk of info-dumping on a hapless newbie so interactive tutorials are usually the way to go. Songs of Silence accomplished this by making the entire first chapter of the game’s campaign one long tutorial.
The gradual pacing mixed with the interactive aspects of the tutorial made picking up the game’s plentiful mechanics a breeze. And for the more visual learners among you, the game also has a detailed tutorial archive for you to peruse.
World-building Masterclass
I take world-building very seriously and consider it an integral part of a game's story when it's needed. While not every game requires an entire universe to function, some undeniably do—and Songs of Silence is one such game.
What makes Songs of Silence’s world-building so great is the attention to detail given to the culture, people, and geography of the setting and how they should interact. Characters, locations, systems, and histories are well and good, but they aren’t part of the world until they interact with it.
Songs of Silence managed to evoke everything from storied histories to intricate interpersonal relationships through visual design, well-written dialogue, and masterful storytelling. Everything is connected to the world around it and the game’s general homogeneity is a result of it.
Immense Variety
To round off this game’s accolades, let’s talk about the sheer variety and volume of content present for no additional cost. The game’s developers have stated that this game will not have microtransactions and that the full experience, not including the 1-6-player multiplayer mode, will have dozens of hours worth of content to go through.
With over a hundred unique units, 20 areas, 15 heroes, and over 80 tactical cards waiting to be unlocked, I’m inclined to agree.
Cons of Songs of Silence
| Things That Songs of Silence Can Improve |
|---|
|
So-so Auto Battles Could Use More Cinematics |
So-so Auto Battles
This game’s auto-battle mechanic is its weakest aspect, although it’s still pretty decent overall. It made the mistake of being ordinary while being surrounded by greatness, so it’ll be outed more than it ought to. That said, this game’s auto-battle system would definitely benefit from a few improvements.
Among other things, I suggest a fast-forward button for long engagements. As it is now, there’s far too much downtime between your tactical card cooldowns and I find myself spending more time worrying than acting. Needless to say, that doesn’t make for great gameplay.
Could Use More Cinematics
This is less of a critique and more of me being greedy. I appreciate how the game presents its narrative now by keeping it to mostly to dialogue. The game is grand as it is and I think too many cinematics would actually take from the experience. That said, it could do with just a few more cinematics similar to the 2.5D one in its intro.
Is Songs of Silence Worth It?
Definitely Worth Your Time and Treasure
$40 might seem like a lot of money at first glance, but given the exceptional quality of the game's visuals, audio, and gameplay, this seems reasonable—though the mediocre auto-battles might cause some hesitation. If that doesn't bother you, however, you're in for a grand and gilded time.
| Steam |
GoG |
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| Price | $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.
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Songs of Silence Product Information
 | |
| Title | SONGS OF SILENCE |
|---|---|
| Release Date | June 4, 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 |
