Song in the Smoke

Song in the Smoke
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	17-BIT
Publisher	17-BIT
Platform	Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, SteamVR, Viveport, PlayStation VR2
Device	Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, Valve Index, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, PlayStation VR2
Operating System	Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Type	Game
Genre	Action, Adventure, Survival
Input Device	Tracked motion controllers, PlayStation Move, PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers
Play Area	Seated, Standing, Room-scale
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	October 7, 2021 (Quest, Rift, PlayStation VR); December 16, 2021 (SteamVR); February 22, 2023 (Rekindled, PlayStation VR2)
Price	US$29.99 (launch price on Quest, Rift and PlayStation VR)
App Store	Meta Quest Store, Steam, PlayStation Store, Viveport
Website	https://17-bit.com/home

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Song in the Smoke is a single-player virtual reality survival adventure game developed and published by 17-BIT, the studio behind Skulls of the Shogun and GALAK-Z. Set in a prehistoric world of strange beasts, it has players craft tools, weapons, clothing and medicine, forage and hunt for food, and fight with clubs and bows to survive. Its visuals are built on concept art by the Japanese illustrator Katsuya Terada.

The game launched on Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR on 7 October 2021 and on SteamVR and Viveport on 16 December 2021. A remastered edition, Song in the Smoke: Rekindled, was released for PlayStation VR2 on 22 February 2023 as a free upgrade for owners of the PlayStation VR version. UploadVR named it the best PSVR game of 2021.

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Announcement, delay and per-platform release dates, SteamVR update and difficulty modes, Rekindled features, upgrade terms and price, gameplay details, comfort options, Kazdal quotes, review scores and awards checked against the 17-BIT press releases, Meta blog posts, PlayStation, PlayStation Store and Steam pages, UploadVR, Road to VR, PlayStation Universe, Metacritic and OpenCritic. About review dates.

Gameplay

The player is woken by a three-headed crow at the edge of a forest and travels through eight stages, from forests through ancient valleys to frozen peaks. The PlayStation page describes visions of a shaman who guides the player toward a distant giant tree. 17-BIT says the game uses sound, sight and smell for spotting threats: players can track prey by smell and footprints, stalk it from tall grass, or avoid creatures with stealth. Combat uses clubs and bows, with blocking, parrying and striking for melee fights. Creative lead Jake Kazdal described the game as "an interconnected series of small open worlds".

Each level is self-contained. Road to VR reported that the player must find three hidden "Song Stones" in a level to summon its boss creature and move on, and that dream sequences between levels gradually reveal the story. Survival depends on managing hunger, fatigue and an inventory of food, potion ingredients and firewood. A player who sleeps without enough fire at night is attacked by a spirit called "The Darkness". Progress is saved only at campfires, which UploadVR said take eight stones to build and can be placed almost anywhere; Road to VR wrote that a level allows three campsites and that there is no autosave.

Crafting is done by hand rather than through menus. Players carry a bone knife and a billet for working wood and stone, crush herbs in a mortar and pestle to make potions, and can cook and then dry food to stop it spoiling. Road to VR counted around 15 to 20 main craftable items, with harder rock and wood in later levels serving as the main weapon upgrades. Later areas also call for warmer clothing made from animal pelts. Kazdal told Meta that the interface was the team's biggest challenge, because they wanted players to do everything normally done in menus "with their own hands". Before launch, UploadVR reported that, according to 17-BIT, creature behavior depends on conditions such as hunger: an animal that is calm and well fed may be easier to hunt, while a hungry one may be more nervous and scare more easily.

Steam describes the campaign as taking 12 to 20 hours. Road to VR's reviewer finished it in about 14 hours.

Comfort and difficulty

At launch the game offered smooth and teleport movement, smooth and snap turning, adjustable blinders, and standing and seated modes. Climbing up or down steep ledges used teleportation because the original release had no direct climbing. It launched without difficulty settings. The December 2021 update that came with the SteamVR release added Gentle, Normal and Savage difficulties plus a hidden harder mode, along with quality-of-life changes and more graphics and VR tuning options. 17-BIT made the update free on all earlier platforms.

Development

17-BIT was founded in 2009 in Seattle as Haunted Temple Studios by former staff of Sega Japan and EA Los Angeles. By the time Song in the Smoke was announced it had moved to Kyoto, Japan. Song in the Smoke was the studio's first VR game. When it was announced, Kazdal said: "With Song in the Smoke, we dove even deeper into unknown territory: a VR survival adventure, with all new rules, in a completely new medium."

Katsuya Terada, whose credits include The Legend of Zelda, Blood: The Last Vampire and The Monkey King, supplied the concept art for the game. The Japanese documentary studio Archipel made two behind-the-scenes videos about the game. One covers Kazdal's inspiration from the wilderness around Kyoto; the other covers Terada's contributions.

Release

17-BIT announced the game on 3 March 2021 for PlayStation VR, Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift, with a spring release window given in the press release's subheading. On 1 September 2021 UploadVR reported a release date of 18 September 2021 for Quest, PSVR and Rift. According to UploadVR, that date was changed a few days after its reveal, and the game launched on 7 October 2021 at US$29.99. On PlayStation VR the game supports PlayStation Move motion controllers.

On 16 December 2021 it was released on SteamVR, with compatibility for Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headsets, and on Viveport. 17-BIT called it "the ultimate version" of the game, with extra graphics options for high-end PCs. The Steam page lists the developer and publisher as 17-BIT and the game as single-player.

Platform	Edition	Release date
Oculus Quest	Song in the Smoke	7 October 2021
Oculus Rift	Song in the Smoke	7 October 2021
PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4)	Song in the Smoke	7 October 2021
SteamVR and Viveport (Windows)	Song in the Smoke	16 December 2021
PlayStation VR2 (PlayStation 5)	Song in the Smoke: Rekindled	22 February 2023

Song in the Smoke: Rekindled

Kazdal confirmed the PlayStation VR2 remaster in issue 380 of Edge magazine, as Road to VR and UploadVR reported. He said: "It wasn't a light upgrade - it was a ton of work and up-rezzing of so many visual systems." At that point the studio wanted to offer the new version as a free upgrade to original PSVR owners, but Kazdal said they "still need to figure out the logistics of that". On 19 January 2023 the PlayStation Blog included it in the PlayStation VR2 launch-window lineup, where 17-BIT's entry stated that it would be a free upgrade from the PlayStation VR version. Road to VR also included it in its list of free PSVR 2 upgrades.

The PlayStation Store lists these PS VR2 additions: remastered graphics and effects, a free jump movement mode, an eye-tracked clambering system for climbing, a 90 fps frame rate, and haptic effects on the PS VR2 Sense controllers. The PlayStation product page also lists Sense controller trigger effects. According to the store, the product includes both the digital PlayStation VR and PlayStation VR2 versions, and owners of the PlayStation VR version can get the PS VR2 version at no extra cost; owners of a PlayStation VR disc must insert it in the PS5 to download or play the PS VR2 version, so disc owners with a PS5 Digital Edition console are not eligible. The PS5 version needs PlayStation VR2 and the Sense controllers, uses headset vibration, and supports sitting, standing and roomscale play. It costs US$29.99 on the US store, and a free Rekindled demo is available for PS5. In its review, PlayStation Universe noted the headset haptics, for example the headset rumbling when the player stands under a waterfall.

Reception

Song in the Smoke received "generally favorable" reviews according to Metacritic, which lists a Metascore of 78 for the PC version from seven critic reviews. OpenCritic shows a Top Critic Average of 76, with 75% of critics recommending the game across 12 reviews.

Jamie Feltham's UploadVR review said the game "deftly balances its mix of survival mechanics and earthy undertones". He praised the hands-on crafting, the boss structure and the atmosphere, and criticized muddy textures, dated character models, skittish enemy AI in combat and some bugs. Road to VR's Scott Hayden scored it 7.5 out of 10. He wrote that "combat isn't super engaging, and visuals feel a little too muddy to be awe-inspiring", but that the large levels hide many secrets. He also gave its comfort options high marks. In UploadVR's Best of 2021 awards it won Best PSVR Game; the outlet wrote that it would also have won an award for "the nicest surprise of 2021" had one existed. Road to VR named it its PSVR game of the year for 2021.

Rekindled has a Metascore of 73 ("mixed or average") for PlayStation 5 from six critic reviews. PlayStation Universe gave it 8.5 out of 10.