Song in the Smoke: Rekindled Review (PS5 / PSVR2) | Push Square

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Now virtual reality has been around the block a bit and begun to age out of its awkward teenage years, the technology has gotten a deluge of games in a small morsel of genres. First-person shooters, puzzlers, and rhythm games have proliferated — undoubtedly due to how intuitively and painlessly they make the transition to the medium. Enter 17-BIT — an indie team willing to take on the impractical task of making a survival game exclusively for virtual reality with Song in the Smoke.

What was the de facto best virtual reality survival sim when it initially released in 2021 still preserves its spot atop that throne today. This latest Rekindled edition brings the tightly focused effort onto far more capable hardware that helps the game burn even brighter despite its imperfections.

Song in the Smoke casts aside the base-building and multiplayer shenanigans that run rampant in the survival genre to instead focus on the basics — exploration, resource management, and combat. That simplicity allows the developers to hammer home the things that matter most and work best in a virtual reality space.

The game's greatest accomplishment is its establishment of atmosphere. Each of its stages surrounds you with the chirps of crickets, rustling of leaves, and crackling of branches. As night falls, the songs of birds and prattling of marsupials subside and give way to the eerie footsteps of something stalking in the darkness.

The ridiculously detailed soundscapes allow for equal parts magnificent tranquility and intense exhilaration. It's one thing to know that an enemy is chasing you in a video game, but it's another thing entirely when you can hear that enemy's footsteps growing louder behind you and feel your head rumbling with