First released as an episodic survival horror on PC, Song of Horror comes to consoles as a single package of concentrated chills broken up into five chapters.

In the grand tradition of the genre, it begins with an employee of a publishing house visiting an author’s creepy house to inquire about a long-delayed manuscript. Anyone else in their right mind would take one look at the foreboding outside, half a glance inside the darkened hallway and promptly flee. But lead character Daniel wanders in and … immediately disappears.

This is where Song of Horror begins to innovate, giving you a choice of people to investigate his vanishing, including his ex-wife and a randomer off the street. There’s method to this madness because each has different strengths, with one being physically stronger and another being mentally tougher, for instance. These characteristics have a bearing on how you approach snooping around the sprawling home, which is full of ominous noises, poorly lit rooms … and a roving supernatural terror known as the Presence.

Taking cues from quintessential gaming horror, such as the fixed camera angles and glacial pacing of Resident Evil, Song of Horror forces you to warily explore the house as you seek clues to Daniel’s whereabouts. You’ll encounter the typical survival horror puzzles involving locks/keys and broken generators but eventually you’ll be pounced on by the Presence.

This Lovecraftian cloud of evil can try to barge its way into a room or chase you down a corridor and your escape lies in a series of QTEs that equates to barricading a door or calming your racing heartbeat. That’s fair enough but what’s not fair is the occasional moment where you can die instantly without warning. As unreasonable as this is, it just means you restart the exploration in the body of another character, who bizarrely acquires all the knowledge and inventory of the poor unfortunate who went before.

At least the newcomer takes a fresh look at the locations, offering different insights on objects and happenings via an interior monologue.

Later chapters visit equally sinister settings including an antique shop and an ruined abbey, offering even more characters as playable options. Meanwhile, the Presence cranks up its tricks with more imaginative ways to terrorise and kill you.

Song of Horror is an assured debut by new Spanish studio Protocol, clumsy in places but still capable of some fearsome frights.