Songs of Silence Review — The Hymn of Valor

Songs of Silence is a 4X strategy game making an exciting launch after its Early Access period. Full of fantastic art, incredibly interesting fantasy concepts, and engaging gameplay, it’s easy to get sucked into Songs of Silence, and while the game isn’t flawless, it hides its imperfections pretty well.

The first thing you’ll notice about Songs of Silence is the game’s incredible setting.

Songs of Silence takes place in an intricately crafted, original fantasy setting full of political intrigue, drama, magic, multiple dimensions, and otherworldly horrors of varying shapes and sizes. The game excels at both building its setting and introducing it to the player through digestible tidbits and firsthand interactions.

The campaign, which quickly sucked me in for six-plus uninterrupted hours, mostly follows newly crowned Queen Lorelai as she flees the destruction of her house’s capital and attempts to find a new home for her refugees.

This campaign excellently introduces the game’s intricate lore, factions, and mechanics. Generally speaking, each mission is a level-capped introduction to a faction that gradually increases your access to units, buildings, gameplay concepts, and the difficulty. It’s a great campaign, and I enjoyed it more than the skirmish mode, which is rare for me with 4X titles.

Mechanically, Songs of Silence is a 4X title that starts you on a map with a capital city providing basic income and a place to heal and recruit units. By expanding outward (one of the Xs in 4X), you gain access to more materials and territory, allowing you to upgrade your cities and, in turn, your forces.

Combat is a big part of the gameplay, playing out as a sort of auto-battler with limited player interaction. As you watch your units fight, you influence the battle by playing cards earned primarily by leveling up your hero, which affects the battlefield in various ways.

Since cards are the only way to influence a battle outside the army-building screen, they become the main strategy. Different units have different stats and passive abilities, but generally, the automated combat lacks depth beyond which army has more and stronger units. You’ll often buy the best units available with little thought to army composition, especially when ahead of your enemy in production and hero level.

The AI that determines how units fight had me a bit confused. Often, I’d watch my soldiers charge into battle and exchange a few hits, only to retreat (taking damage as they did) before turning around and fighting back. Whether this was due to the morale system or strange AI pathing is beyond me, but it made for perplexing battles. It also made cards that directed attacks or moved units feel very valuable—Lorelai’s cavalry charge card quickly became a favorite.

Cards make a big difference, though again, the strategy behind them is limited, and you mostly just want to use them all as quickly as possible. Some card combos can feel much stronger than others. A good rule of thumb was that any cards adding damage or preventing it could drastically change the battle. I quickly got stuck in the campaign due to the AI’s card that provided shields, creating a slugfest where five entire units of mine were wiped out by the last enemy.

In truth, Songs of Silence’s gameplay could use improvement. The combat, at best, lacks meaningful strategic depth and, at worst, can be frustratingly unbalanced. The 4X gameplay, which exists solely to gatekeep access to better units and provide a win condition, can also feel shallow.

However—and this is a big however—I found that even when faced with the game’s shortcomings, I didn’t really mind.

Despite its flaws, Songs of Silence won me over with its writing, characters, and world-building. Only in areas where the writing became less frequent, or I played as a less interesting character or faction did the game start to lose me. With the excellent art and interesting concepts, I found myself fully immersed in building my faction, especially during the campaign, and kept going simply to unlock and field new units, see new cards and spells, and fill out the encyclopedia.

Far from the most complicated gameplay, Songs of Silence takes just interesting enough gameplay and makes you hooked with all the fantastically interesting things going on around it. To say the game is immersive is an understatement. Fans of 4X and fantasy writing are sure to have a new obsession.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Songs of Silence is available on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox.