Song of Horror
A New Song of Horror Trailer Is Available!
I hope you are all healthy and staying safe at home. We are currently working remotely on the Final Episode of Song of Horror, and we will update you on its progress very soon.
In the meantime, we have prepared a new Song of Horror Trailer! This video focuses on the story of Daniel Noyer and his fellow companions so far, with special focus on the two elements responsible for the start of the whole plot: our dear writer Sebastian P. Husher and his cursed music box.
[previewyoutube="zL-bzkMrFME;full"]
We hope you enjoy this new video! If that's the case, we encourage you to share it with your friends and family.
With love,
The Protocol & Raiser Games Teams
And the Character That Will Return to Song of Horror is...
The poll is closed! We have gathered all your votes during the last week to find out which character you miss the most and want to play with again. And the winner, with 35% of the votes, is...
ERICA FÄRBER!
The daughter of Isaac Färber, owner of Episode 2's antique shop, has one of the most compelling reasons to join the adventure: find out where her father is when she arrives at his empty store. This premise, alongside her emotional maturity, on-going attitude, and tragic backstory, convinced you to vote for her return on the last episode of Song of Horror, where she will experience the end of her journey.
We will add Erica to Episode 5 when the Director's Cut releases this year
Thank you so much for participating in this surprise! It was really fun and interesting to know which characters you wanted to see one more time. You can take a look at the percentage of votes each character got right here:
Which character did you vote for and why? Leave a comment below with your answer!
"Christ, something's wrong... Dad, where in the world have you gone?"
Vote for Your Favorite Character To Return!
Thank you so much for your massive support. Your words of encouragement inspire us to give our best every day preparing the final part of the story while improving Song of Horror along the way. That's why we've decided that we want to give you a surprise!
We are providing you the opportunity to play with a returning character in an episode they aren't currently playable (if they survive during your playthrough, of course). All you have to do is participate in this poll right here to vote for your favorite character and episode combination. The winning character will be introduced in that episode with new texts, animations, voice lines and more!
These are the combinations you can vote for:
- Alina: Episode 2
- Sophie: Episode 3
- Etienne: Episode 3
- Alexander: Episode 3
- René: Episode 4
- Erica: Episode 5
Participate in the poll before next Wednesday, March 11th, by clicking right here.
Alexander, Alina, Sophie, Etienne... Who will return?
We'll announce the chosen character next week after the poll closes, and introduce them in their corresponding episode after the launch of the Final Episode on May 14th. Do not forget to participate before March 11th if you want to play more with your favorite character!
Good luck!
Remember, light is your ally. Noise, your enemy.
Song of Horror's Biggest Update: Here's Everything We Are Adding to Episode 4
We are introducing our biggest update to date right now! This patch features important changes to Episode 4, bringing it closer to the experience we originally wanted to create. As such, you can expect new features and improvements destined to craft a scarier, and tenser atmosphere throughout the whole episode (which means you are going to have a really bad time!).
Here's the new content we are adding to Episode 4 (and a couple of tweaks in Episode 3!):
UPDATE 1.14
EPISODE 4
- 25 new paranormal events: St. Cecilia's Abbey is officially the most haunted place in Song of Horror. You can expect more scares than ever before!
- An original collectible: The Tarot Deck. Find five fate-altering confessions from those consumed by The Presence to resist its most lethal attacks.
- New cutscenes + animation fixes: We introduced more cinematic moments and tweaked several animations from characters during said scenes.
- A new illustrated cutscene at the end of the episode, adding more context and emotion before the last episode.
- The "Ornate keys" now combine into a single item upon having more than one of them.
- Blocked a door that should not have opened from the start (It was The Presence trying to mess with us!)
- The Scriptorium blocked door can now be opened from the inside, more exploration possibilities!
- Removed Cold event from St. Cecilia's Abbey: we feel this manifestation of The Presence was redundant, and that this Episode's pace benefits from its removal.
- Deeper color scheme: both the interiors and exteriors of St. Cecilia are now visually enhanced
- Improved sound ambient: events, animations, and scenes display better sounding effects
- Several bugs fixes, gameplay tweaks, and quality-of-life improvements throughout the whole episode.
What are Daniel and Sophie talking about?
EPISODE 3
- Tweaks on Interlude: End of the Road. We reworked the main puzzle of Husher's Interlude to add more depth in both its explanation and solution.
- A new cutscene at the end of the Episode involving The Presence (spooky!)
- Lightning enhancements in the Great Library: to improve the final section of the Episode
We encourage you to keep sharing your thoughts and opinions on the Steam Forums. We are listening and considering your feedback as we move forward into the final episode. Thank you for being a part of this amazing community!
"That melody... I'm not gonna get it out of my head, am I?"
Song of Horror Final Episode Launches May 14th, Ep. 4 Update Available Tomorrow
We have important news to share with you. This has been a hard decision for us. However, we always envisioned this last episode as the completion of the story, and we believe it's important that you play the game we always intended to make when you experience Song of Horror as a whole. That is why we have decided to move this launch to May 14th.
Why we decided to launch on May
The final episode of Song of Horror (Ep.5), called "The Horror and The Song", marks the end of a journey that started in 2014, when we decided to bring to life the horror adventure we, as gamers, had always wanted to play. However, we are aware that Episode 4 still has room for improvement and polishing, and that its state does not reflect the quality level and game experience we aim for. We are fully committed to making the whole Song of Horror experience perfect. That's why we have been working on a big update that will add substantial changes to Episode 4, available tomorrow, while we continue working on a top-quality Ep.5
Episode 4 Update
- +15 new events: unique scares, unexpected encounters, haunting sequences...
- An original collectible: The Tarot Deck. Find the five cards in the Abbey to resist certain attacks of The Presence!
- Deeper color scheme: both the interiors and exteriors of St. Cecilia are now visually enhanced
- Improved sound ambient: events, animations, and scenes display better sounding effects
- Polished animations during scenes: we made some character adjustments to enhance the overall look of the cinematic moments
You will witness new manifestations of the monks of the Abbey
Thank you once again for encouraging and inspiring us to make Song of Horror. We cannot wait to witness the end of this terrifying story alongside you.
Protocol Games & Raiser Games
Episode 4 Gameplay Patch is Here! Improving Your Visit to St. Cecilia's Abbey
Thank you for playing our latest episode! Watching you roam St. Cecilia's Abbey, the domains of the cursed Abbott and his monks, has been an absolute blast. We are having a lot of fun reading your reactions to the plot revelations in preparation for the surprising conclusion to the story we have in store for you.
We have been working hard during the last week to introduce several important fixes to improve the gameplay experience of Episode 4, alongside a couple of general tweaks. Here's everything we are featuring in Song of Horror today, with the 1.13 update:
GENERAL
- The map should no longer forget to properly mark whether doors you have already interacted with are open or not, helping you to explore the episodes with more information
EPISODE 2
- Removed a bugged map interrogation icon.
EPISODE 3
- René's gun now has a unique use.
EPISODE 4
- Maxwell's Lucky Coin is now usable on intended situations. If you equip it, you'll know when you can use it.
- Fixed several blocking bugs with the cutscene playing after the four ornate keys are used.
- Fixed a bug that could block your character upon using the spirits bottle on the still.
- Fixed several minor yet very visible bugs happening during cutscenes.
- Fixed being able to remove pieces for the retractor during the animation played upon successfully assembling it.
- Fixed several white loading screens.
- Fixed being able to open the inventory/documents upon the Requiem finishing animation.
- Fixed some bugs affecting light sources on finishing The Requiem.
- Fixed a graphical bug with the cold event.
- Fixed several audio bugs with character phrases.
- Fixed several loading bugs.
- Fixed several texts which remained in Spanish.
- Fixed a few texts appearing when they shouldn't and others not appearing when they should.
- Toned The Presence down a tad to better compensate for Saint Cecilia's Abbey's vast extension (it's in its nature to misbehave)
- Parts of Saint Cecilia's Abbey should no longer fail to load.
Where are you going Daniel?!
A big shoutout to everyone on the Steam forums, who are always motivating us to move forward and give our best to deliver the horror game we always dreamed of. Your feedback, thoughts, and opinions are incredibly valuable, and we encourage you to keep being so vocal as we move forward into the final part of the story.
Here's a couple of your most inspiring comments:
"This game just keeps getting better. I'm so happy i found this game. The atmosphere presented in each episode is absolutely incredible. this episode was well worth the wait, absolutely phenomenal."
Dokedog1
"Can't describe how much we love this game. thanks you for creating it! :bite:"
Float
Beware of The Presence, lurking in the edges of your mind...
Song of Horror Episode 4: The Last Concert is now available!
Hello, horror fans,
The wait is over! You can already play Song of Horror's latest episode: The Last Concert.
This episode is a long one. We initially thought that it would take around 6 hours to beat, but it is closer to the 8-hour mark! You will despair in your perilous visit through St. Cecilia's Abbey, the biggest location we've created. This time, you can advance through the adventure in different ways depending on where you decide to go, which items you pick, who dies and who doesn't (and in which moment!)... We are giving you more freedom in this episode, more focused on open-exploration and less in a linear progression.
The designer of the St. Cecilia (and the intricate buildings in the previous episodes) studied architecture and is applying his knowledge to recreate how a real, ancient Abbey would look like... If it was haunted by The Presence!
Designing a real-looking Abbey includes creating pieces like stained glass as well
What's new in this episode?
- Discover what happened to the monks of the macabre St. Cecilia’s Abbey after interpreting the cursed song while you face the diverse manifestations of The Presence, now more powerful than ever!
- Experience a whole new narrative structure: Explore St Cecilia’s Abbey from different starting points depending on how many characters you lose. Unlock new areas to help other investigators if you happen to fall prey to The Presence.
- Experience 8 hours of exploration-based play in the biggest episode to date.
- Say hello to another new character: Meet Ernest Finnegan, a renowned archaeologist past his glory days and a dear friend of Husher. After finding out how dangerous the Abbey is, and haunted by his guilt for leaving Husher alone, he is now looking to help his close acquaintance to survive his current predicament.
- Returning characters will join the adventure depending on who you played with and who survived in previous chapters!
- Each episode in Song of Horror is inspired by a masterpiece of the horror genre. This time, we looked into Amnesia: The Dark Descent, to create this setting. Look out for the references to other games, movies, books and more!
The Abad of St. Cecilia will haunt you through his domains!
We noticed that you liked Episode 3 a lot, and we cannot wait to see your reactions to The Last Concert and the new scares we prepared for you! We are taking this opportunity to introduce a couple of fixes for Episode 3 as well:
- Fixed a bug which caused you to skip a cutscene should you die due to not having the bolt cutters at the end of the Newspaper Archives.
- Fixed a bug which could cause you to load incorrectly upon saving and quitting while going up/down stairs in the Great Library.
- Fixed a bug causing the moving bookshelf in the Interlude to appear closed on loading.
Finally, we are also working on a brand new trailer covering the four available episodes in preparation for the fifth and final one. We'll share it with you when it's ready!
Your encouragement means a lot to us. It helps us to deliver each episode with all the love we have for old-school horror adventures. Here are a couple of new comments we read on our last update that we love!
"I'm waiting for all the episodes to play, even when I already bought them! It looks dope. Congratulations and gratitude to Protocol Games for this gem. Thousand thanks." :winter2019happyyul:
Zangetsu
"This game is a f**cking masterpiece!"
Arcak
Once again, thank you for your support. Enjoy the fourth episode of Song of Horror!
Song of Horror Episode 4: The Last Concert launches on January 30th!
Greetings, horror fans,
We are launching the newest episode of Song of Horror on January 30th!
This episode, and Song of Horror as a whole, is our love letter to the masterpieces of the genre. That's why we are so happy to see that Song of Horror reminds you of games like Alone in the Dark, Silent Hill, Resident Evil and others! We missed the creeping atmosphere and unbearable tension that those games delivered in the past, and we wanted to bring that back with our personal flavor: The Presence as an unpredictable entity, and the permadeath of your characters, a terrifying thought.
This time, we are pushing things even further: we have left the biggest area of the game for this new episode! St. Cecilia's Abbey, built to honor the patroness of musicians, was once a holy place, now tainted by the influence of The Presence. Will you find the answers you are looking for in this haunted place?
You can visit Song of Horror Episode 4's page on Steam here.
What's new in this episode?
- Discover what happened to the monks of the macabre St. Cecilia’s Abbey after interpreting the cursed song while you face the diverse manifestations of The Presence, now more powerful than ever!
- Experience a whole new narrative structure: Explore St Cecilia’s Abbey from different starting points depending on which character you choose. Unlock new areas to help other investigators if you happen to fall prey to The Presence.
- Experience more than 8 hours of exploration-based play in the biggest episode to date.
- Say hello to another new character: Meet Ernest Finnegan, a renowned archaeologist past his glory days and a dear friend of Husher. After finding out how dangerous the Abbey is, and haunted by his own guilt for leaving Husher alone, he is now looking to help his close acquaintance to survive his current predicament.
- Returning characters will join the adventure depending on who you played with and who survived in previous chapters!
As we get closer to our final episode, we just wanted to reiterate how thankful we are to have so many players that share our same passion. Here are some of the comments from the community that we wanted to highlight this time!
"If I was dying and I had to choose between food and this entire game... 💯% I would choose this game"
Banana
"My steam library is extensive, yet this is the number 1 horror game that I own out of many"
MarkiSparki
This game takes the classic horror adventure game and adds satisfying new elements and ramps up the tension by a factor of 10"
ThisIsTheWhey
"Now this is a throwback to the golden age of horror games and, as a huge fan of the genre, me likey!"
Whiskii
"Song of Horror manages to keep you on the edge of your seat in the best way I've had in any horror so far!"
Tickles the Gamer
Looking forward to sharing more information about the new episodes of Song of Horror!
And remember, beware of The Presence...
New update following Episode 3 launch!
Thank you for playing through Episode 3 this week! We had a blast watching your reactions and reading your thoughts and opinions about this part of the story.
For those of you who haven't played it yet, or that want to experience it again, we have prepared a patch to improve the experience of A Twisted Trail, as well as a couple of general fixes. This is everything we are including in the 1.11 patch:
GENERAL
- Fixed a graphical bug that caused sharp FPS drops on camera change.
- Fixed a bug with the selection of additional personal items and collectible items on character select that could cause your choices to not be reflected in-game.
THE ABYSS
- Fixed a problem making The Abyss harder than intended.
- Fixed a bug which was causing the icons marking the dodge window for arm-grabs to not display at all.
- Fixed the character uttering a lot of phrases on overcoming The Abyss.
- Overcoming the first Abyss should now grant an achievement.
- Fixed a bug which could cause the wrong camera to be chosen after overcoming The Abyss.
EPISODE 3
- Fixed a problem with The Door causing it to graphically glitch on spawn.
- Fixed a bug with The Silence causing the thing to not get closer when it should.
- In the Archive, After exiting the white screen door, your character should now hold their light source correctly.
- The painting child should now properly despawn in the Newspaper Archive.
- Fixed a bug which wouldn’t reset the difficulty of releasing yourself in the Great Library upon losing a character.
- Fixed an unintended use of Maxwell’s Lucky Coin which would cause your character to freeze.
- The broken camera in the Great Library shouldn’t break more than once anymore.
- Fixed being able to fix the camera before it actually breaking.
- Fixed several loading issues in The Great Library.
- Husher’s Haikus should now have matching text and image.
- Introduced a lot of new sound effects and fixed many more.
- Fixed a bug which could cause your selectable characters to be incorrect. Restarting Episode 3 (or any earlier episode) should now fix this issue for players still experiencing it. Also, Husher won't be Daniel anymore :)
- Fixed several audio bugs.
- Added some missing wall collisions in the Interlude.
- Changing between slides in the projector puzzle is now done manually so everyone can choose their preferred rhythm.
- Fixed a shelf interaction in the Archive that would freeze your character upon completion.
As usual, we also wanted to highlight one of your most heartwarming comments about Song of Horror: thank you so much!
Just wanted you to know: Song of Horror is *by far* the best horror adventure game in my fairly extensive Steam library so far - I've been searching for this unicorn for too many years. So many things done right, so much love and care was clearly put into this.
"Celeste Bright"
And do not forget: The Presence is always watching you...
Song of Horror Episode 3: A Twisted Trail is now available!
It's finally here! The third episode of Song of Horror, A Twisted Trail, is now available. You can expect new characters coming in to play, a new location to explore, and of course, many new threats and manifestations from The Presence. As you already know, The Presence can surprise you depending on how you play, so that means you will experience scary situations that other players might not even notice... We cannot wait to know your reactions to this new episode of Song of Horror!
We have also prepared a trailer to celebrate this occasion with all of you, including some of our favorite reactions!
[previewyoutube="FClEeVZ1rC4;full"]
A big thanks to Nico, MrGeriatric, Layna_Lazar, Shlorox and MckyTV, who let us include some of their funniest scares playing Song of Horror. We cannot wait to see how you react to the scariest moments of this episode!
Song of Horror Episode 3: A Twisted Trail
Following the trail of evidence, the third episode sees play moves to the State University of Arts and Humanities - both Husher’s place of work, and mysteriously the last place he was seen alive. You will find yourself joining forces with some of Husher’s closest acquaintances, bringing in new threads of plot as The Presence ups its attacks and the truth looms large.
In Song of Horror - Episode 3, you will:
- Continue the adventure in a haunted university, cursed by the Song of Horror.
- Change characters throughout the episode on some particular points to explore and progress through different areas of the university.
- Encounter new characters who join the story: Omar Nassiri, Husher’s coworker, and Grace Richards, Husher’s pupil, as well as an appearance from a surprising character.
- Take on even more unique events, threats, and challenges by The Presence.
Remember that there are several options to play Song of Horror, but the one we recommend is the Founder Limited Edition at the special price of $19.99/€19.99/£17.14, which is only available until the end of 2019! With this edition, you can get all Song of Horror's Episodes. Alternatively, you can pick each episode of Song of Horror individually on Steam for $7.99/€7.99/£6.99, or as part of the Season Pass that will unlock a further two episodes on top of the existing three in the months ahead for $21.99/€21.99/£18.99.
All five episodes each pay homage to a specific survival horror genre classic. The debut episode - which sees your encounter against The Presence for the first time - tips its hat to Infogrames’ classic series Alone in the Dark, while episode two is especially pleasing if you are a fan of the phenomenal Silent Hill. The brand news third episode, however, owes most to survival horror classic Obscure.
Enjoy this episode of Song of Horror and do not forget to leave your honest feedback on Steam! Your opinions help us tweak and improve each episode as we move forward in the story. It also helps when you have something nice to say, it pushes us to keep working hard!
Beware of The Presence...