How far would you go to create art for the world? Where would you draw the line between creating what speaks to your soul and producing what the consumer wants? For those in the creative space, is there even a line that can be upheld between the two and still offer some semblance of gratification? These are the questions Project Songbird from solo developer, Connor Rush of FYRE Games, asks us to ponder. The bigger question is whether or not his message manages to resonate in its execution.

Our protagonist, Dakota.

Project Songbird follows the story of Dakota, a young musician who is struggling with a bad case of writer’s block. In order to work past this and produce some new music, Dakota, at the behest of their manager, agrees to stay in a remote cabin in the Appalachian forest for a few weeks in the hopes of unlocking some inspiration and creating new songs for an upcoming album. While the offer seems like exactly what Dakota needs, it appears that there’s more to the forest than anyone expected.

The premise is solid, and certainly captures attention. From the very beginning, we’re shown that Dakota has suffered a tragic loss, one that haunts them constantly. This is the driving force behind the whole game and shapes the entire narrative. If you think you know where the story is going, I assure you that you’re only partially right, as Project Songbird takes an unexpected turn in the last act. 

Looks inviting. Nothing sinister going on here.

Honestly, it’s this bizarre shift at the very end of the game that sours the whole experience, at least in my opinion. Enemies are set up and never explained. Characters are introduced through audio logs and letters, but then end up having no relevance in the story. Sometimes characters are brought up for one small section and then disappear entirely. By the end of the game, most questions remain unanswered and the protagonist doesn’t seem to care.

Then, and I’m going to try to explain my biggest issue with the game without getting into spoilers, there’s a huge meta moment at the very end. I believe Connor Rush was trying to relate his personal experiences with the overall theme of the game, but the metaphors were already so apparent that this did nothing more than over-explain things, losing its impact. Then it went on far too long and ended up almost becoming a desperate plea to not give his game a bad review. Ironically, it was this plea and whole end section that dropped the score even further than I was originally resting on. The placement of this meta shift, coming in before even Dakota’s own story came to a conclusion undercut the weight of her ending. Ultimately, the meta aspects in the game fall short and I feel hindered the narrative more than added to it.

The themes of the game’s message are woven into some of the puzzles, like this one about losing pieces of yourself as an artist.

The gameplay in Project Songbird is a mixed bag. Where it excels is with its walking sim roots, where Connor Rush has already proven his skill with games like Summerland and We Never Left. There’s a nice variety of puzzles that aren’t overly difficult to solve, nor are they too easy to be enjoyable. Figuring out the solutions to puzzles in order to progress was my favorite aspect of the game.

There’s also a camera and a sound recorder you can use to capture the local wildlife on film and audio, but nothing ever ended up coming from either of these. Dakota mentions using the sounds of nature to add to her music, but you don’t really see (or hear) the results of those recordings. You don’t even get to use them the one time you participate in the music making mini-game. I know there’s an achievement for recording all the sound samples and using up all the camera’s film, but as to what purpose either of those items served within the game is beyond me.

The recorder allows you track enemy movements in other rooms using sound detection. Not that you’ll need it for this guy who pants loudly the entire time it chases you.

Project Songbird also integrates new gameplay mechanics, such as combat and stealth, and neither work particularly well. The combat in Project Songbird is incredibly frustrating, as the hit detection boxes are irregular. Sometimes you’ll hit an enemy, other times you’ll miss, even when you’re shooting them point-blank or cleaving through their skull with an axe. Blocking with your axe also seems to have varying degrees of success, regardless of how much you’ve upgraded its durability.

There’s also a misleading upgrade for your axe saying “damage-free blocking”, which I took to mean that the axe would no longer break after using it a few times. Apparently, it just means that you don’t take the minimal damage you receive while blocking attacks. I found out the difference the hard way when attempting to take down several enemies roaming some corridors, only to have my axe snap in half while I was fighting off two at once. That was a nasty surprise to say the least.

There aren’t many upgrades for each weapon, but I highly recommend increasing the damage on each ASAP.

Speaking of enemies, they seem to greatly vary in difficulty the further along you progress. At times, they’ll stick to a pre-determined path, other times, they’ll charge and hunt you down for seemingly no reason. Project Songbird tries to encourage stealth options, but the intended stealth alternatives seem broken, at least within this early build at the time of writing.

For example, throwing bottles (which the game constantly encourages), does absolutely nothing. The bottles break, they make a shattering sound, but they don’t distract the stalking enemies in the least. Crouching only works about half the time, and sometimes enemies will spot you even if you’re fully behind something. I had one spot me from the other side of a solid wall and stalk me, even though there was no way for it to see me, and I was crouched and not moving. The combat and stealth sections are agonizing to get through.

I won’t lie, this bastard gave me quite the jumpscare.

Visually, Project Songbird goes for something unique, which I do appreciate, even if it didn’t work very well. The whole game has an effect to make it all look like it’s in old film grain, but between the staticky, fuzzy picture setting and the overblown bloom effects, it’s difficult to make out certain things. It’s extremely distracting, as the strange choice to have Dakota’s head bob and weave around constantly, which only adds to the distracting nature of the art design choices. Thankfully, you can turn these off in the settings menu, which makes the game much easier to deal with.

Now the sound design is where Project Songbird excels. The cast is pretty impressive, featuring Valerie Rose Lohman (What Remains of Edith Finch, Wolfenstein: Youngblood), Jonah Scott (Dying Light 2: Stay Human, Date Everything), and Aleks Le (Persona 3: Reload, Ghost of Yotei). Each deliver wonderful performances filled with emotion and depth. The soundtrack was composed and performed by Jacob Noska, and Jonah Henthorne (members of the band Auric Echoes), and is hauntingly beautiful. The ambient sounds of the forest help with the overall  immersion as well. 

Searching for clues in Room 237.

I’m frustrated and disappointed with Project Songbird because it started off with so much potential. True, a lot of the ideas have been done before, but it was still compelling. The combat and stealth were awful (Connor even straight up talks about how he was only comfortable making narrative walking sims and he was coerced into adding these gameplay elements), but the puzzles were a lot of fun.

Then the rug pull of an ending happened which undercut the whole experience, with out adding anything to the game’s actual story or answering any questions. For a moment when it was first introducing the meta element, I thought it was going to go in a specific direction, which would have been bold, yet brilliant. But then it ends with an almost weak plea to not say anything negative about the game, which ruined the whole thing. Connor has some great ideas, but I think sticking with making the types of games he’s most comfortable with would be the best way to go for the types of stories he wants to tell. Unfortunately, Project Songbird squawks more than it sings.

Project Songbird is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.

A copy of Project Songbird was provided by the publisher.