Project Songbird from FYRE Games and Dojo System brings us a first-person psychological horror narrative experience on PlayStation 5. Learn more in our Project Songbird review!
Please enter your date of birth to access this video:
Project Songbird from FYRE Games and Dojo System brings us a first-person psychological horror narrative experience on PlayStation 5. For this Rated M for Mature journey, you’ll be placed in the role of Dakota, a struggling musician who, finding herself with a serious case of writer’s block, decides that the best course of action is to lock themselves up in a cabin way up in the Appalachian forest, hoping that this will make it easier to record their next album. This will, unfortunately, lead you into horror territory when you realize that there’s something lurking within the darkness.
FYRE Games is indie dev Conner Rush, who previously worked on and released Summerland, as well as We Never Left – from the Dread X Collection 5. Before you start your journey with Project Songbird, he presents the following message:
Hello!
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for deciding to check out Project Songbird! This is a game project I started developing during my sophomore year of university as a way to express and work through some difficult feelings I was having with regard to my identity and place in life. Developing this through school as well as my first post-grad job was by no means a walk in the park, but this game is nothing if not a labor of love and a deeply personal passion project.
Never did I anticipate that Project Songbird would reach the scope that it has, and I can’t thank everyone who’s helped along the way, contributing toward making this game a reality. I sincerely hope that you, the player, can take something away from your time with Project Songbird. I would love for it to be able to help someone else as much as it’s helped me.
Thank you.
Conner.
As mentioned before, the game is played from a first-person perspective, so you’ll be taking control of your character with the left analog stick as you use the right analog stick to look around you as needed. Run by pressing the L1 button. You can interact by pressing the X button, and crouch by pressing the Circle button. The game features melee and ranged combat, so you’ll be readying your weapon with the L2 button and then attacking by pressing the R2 button. Reload ranged weapons by pressing the Square button.
You can cycle through your inventory by pressing left or right on the D-Pad. Perform a quick turn by pressing down on the D-Pad. You know, for when you need to get far, far away from one of the monsters that you’ll run into! You can open your journal by pressing up on the D-Pad. From there, you’ll be able to review the notes you’ve taken so far about what is going on. Pressing in on the right analog stick will turn your flashlight on and off, so that you can hopefully be able to spot any dangerous entities in the dark before it’s too late.
The game features a permadeath system, which means that your actions can lead to your death, forcing you to start all over again. This makes every single enemy encounter carry a lot of weight, since a single mistake can spell your doom. This is why, if you’re hurt, you can press the R1 button to use some of the painkillers you’ve managed to collect. Do know that this will void one of the trophies in the game – more on these in a bit.
Something that is definitely interesting is that the vinyl records that you can find while going through Project Songbird contain full, licensed songs from real artists. This does mean that each of the artists has signed off and given their permission for their song to be used in the game, so you’ll be able to listen to songs such as Crash from Auric Echoes, Music 4 Worms from Jeron Albrets, or Foreverever from Thommy’s Party, to name some examples.
Trophy-wise, this release features a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to work on adding to your collection. The list is split into a single Silver trophy and 11 Gold trophies. What will you need to do to get that shiny Platinum trophy? Along with the trophies that will pop as you complete each of the game’s chapters and once you finish the game, there are also trophies for defeating your first enemy, finding all field recordings, using all film in your camera, getting to the end without using any painkillers, and listening to Dakota’s record collection.
Project Songbird brings us a first-person psychological horror narrative experience on PlayStation 5. For this Rated M for Mature journey, you’ll be placed in the role of Dakota, a struggling musician who, finding herself with a serious case of writer’s block, decides that the best course of action is to lock themselves up in a cabin way up in the Appalachian forest, hoping that this will make it easier to record their next album. This will, unfortunately, lead you into horror territory when you realize that there’s something lurking within the darkness.
The voice cast for Project Songbird includes Valerie Rose Lohman as Dakota, who you might know from What Remains of Edith Finch and Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Jonah Scott as Rob, who has worked on Dying Light 2: Stay Human and Date Everything, Aleks Le as Finn, who has worked on Persona 3: Reloaded, Marvel Rivals, and Ghost of Yotei), and Madelyn Murphy and Will Champion from Dungeons & Dragons The Twenty-Sided Tavern.
The game offers some customization options so that you can tailor your experience. There’s the possibility of switching between the 2:35:1 widescreen aspect ratio for the game or going with a standard native aspect ratio. The first one is an artistic choice from the developer, which is why the second one might at times feel odd, since it won’t present everything as intended. You can also activate subtitles, as well as adjust the brightness. You know, to make things as dark and creepy as you want them to be. Project Songbird launches on PlayStation 5 on March 26.
Disclaimer
This Project Songbird review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by FYRE Games.
