Walking simulator games are pretty common even if you’re not a fan. We began to see more with the most recent console generation with games like the Gone Home and Dear Esther remasters. In addition, games such as Kona, Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Astronauts, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture have progressed the genre forward. So let’s add another to the mix and introduce South of the Circle. This is an upcoming release by developer State of Play Games and publisher 11-bit studios.
South of the Circle is an interesting game as it’s a mobile port. The original version has done well and now it comes to consoles and PC via Steam and GOG. The game will be coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. It originally launched on Apple Arcade in October 2020. For console, it launches on the 3rd of August.
What South Of The Circle Is All About
According to the Steam listing, we see the following.
South of the Circle is an emotional narrative experience with a deep multi-layered cinematic story. The main plot asks questions about the consequences of life choices, of pursuing either career or true love, maneuvering between now and the past. You play Peter, a Cambridge academic who crashlands in Cold War Antarctica. As he searches for help, his past unwinds before him, revealing how the pressures of power and his own aspirations have led him into this crisis he must somehow escape. A love story between him and fellow academic Clara develops, and Peter learns the weight of all the things he has promised. Like memories from childhood, some promises stay with us forever.
MASTERFULLY EXECUTED CINEMATIC FEEL
Created by BAFTA winners State of Play, the game’s beautiful aesthetic and nuanced writing underlines its sweeping cinematic scope, further enhanced by actors drawn from “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Gwilym Lee), “The Woman in White” (Olivia Vinall), “The Crown” (Richard Goulding), “Game of Thrones” (Anton Lesser), “Chernobyl” (Adrian Rawlins) and “Downton Abbey” (Michael Fox).
The game features include the following.
- Compelling and immersive narrative with a unique sense of time and place.
- Nuanced emotional choices.
- Fully motion-captured performances to achieve emotional realism.
- Rich, authentic setting of the historical Cold War era.
- Environmental storytelling woven through the narrative.
- Distinguished and consistent art style.
- Crafted by State of Play Games, developers of BAFTA-winning Lumino City, BAFTA-nominated KAMI 2, and Apple Design Award Winner INKS, for audiences that seek emotional and heart-wrenching moments with a game.
So will this be a game you’ll be playing next month or is it a genre not for you? However you feel, we’d love to hear from you. So why not get in touch and share those views.
