South of the Circle – Review

Some games should be savoured the way one would a vintage wine. The craftsmanship is too high quality to rush. So we take our time and enjoy them to the fullest while we can.

Take heed, BAFTA: South of the Circle is dangerously close to winning in a couple key categories. Give it a try and see if you agree after you’ve played for a few hours. We’re curious whether any other games released this year have better sound design, voice acting, or lifelike conversation. Congratulations, To put it simply, State of Play, you are playing at an exceptional level in several respects.

After having its roots in the Apple Arcade, South of the Circle is wearing its snow boots and making the transition to other platforms.

It’s simple to define South of the Circle at a high level: it’s a walking simulator in which the player does a lot of hiking. But you’re also interacting with the world around you by talking to people, choosing their responses, and then seeing what happens as a result. It focuses on storytelling rather than other gameplay elements.

It follows Peter, a shy and introverted climatologist who is a lecturer at a Cambridge university. His immediate superior has been on him to get “papered,” or published in a way that draws attention to the university. However, Peter is a perfectionist and a worrier, so that is highly unlikely.

The rumbling of the era’s affairs. Cold War paranoia dominates the 1960s setting of South of the Circle. The ‘Cambridge Four,’ a suspected spy ring working in concert with the Soviet government, has been the subject of much speculation. There’s a lot of talk on the radio about how Russia might violate the Antarctic Treaty, an agreement to avoid hostility and rivalry in Antarctica. There are hints that the college is a “boy’s club,” and that it would be extremely difficult for a woman to succeed there.

Until he meets Clara, a colleague professor, on a train car, Peter wanders around aimlessly. They start out as casual friends who agree to attend each other’s lectures, but things quickly heat up between them. Soon, the two work together on his research, which is about the paths clouds take and the radiation levels within clouds. For Peter, the trend is upward.

South of the Circle is intriguing because we have only described the game’s flashbacks so far, rather than the main gameplay. For the simple reason that Peter is in the present, hiking across Antarctica, and all of these events happened long ago. He and an Australian pilot have crash-landed, and Peter is their last hope of rescue. So, he’s making his way from camp to camp, hoping someone will come to his aid while he daydreams about the events that brought him there.

The game South of the Circle is stunning, yet in an understated way. It’s quite simplistic, with watercolour blocks, and it appears like a paint-by-numbers. However, South of the Circle only sings in the animated version. Because of the reduced complexity, the motion capture was able to produce incredibly lifelike character animations. Everything Peter and the rest of the cast accomplishes is infused with humanity.

However, it is in the writing and voice acting that credit is due. All of the characters, but especially Clara and Peter, are just wonderful. Two of the best performances we’ve seen capture an intensely suppressed Britishness, and they’re given by Olivia Vinall (The Woman in White) and Gwilym Lee (Bohemian Rhapsody). The rest of the cast is outstanding as well, but it is these two, with their simple yet effective facial expressions, that really drive home the drama and make the audience feel something.

After reading all this praise, you may be surprised to see only a 4-star rating at the end of the review. In order for BAFTA to take notice, a perfect score of 5 seems appropriate.

It’s not for the reason you’re thinking. Some critics knock walking simulators like South of the Circle because there isn’t much to do, but that’s not why we are hesitant to give it high grades. We observed significant problems with the dialogue and the general structure of the film.

In South of the Circle, when you choose a decision, you’re not picking specific lines of dialogue or even brief summaries of what was said. Instead, you’ll be “doing a bit of a Fable” by selecting from a set of simplified icons supposed to symbolise the many options. A blue square, a droplet, a sun, and a red dot make up the images. The time saved and the smoothness of the conversation achieved by narrowing the choices in this way cannot be denied as benefits of this method of simplification. There isn’t that uncomfortable pause typical of Telltale games when the other character watches you read the available options.

However, South of the Circle gets too philosophical. Understanding what each icon represents takes some time, and we’re still not certain we’ve got it figured out. Compared to the blue droplet, we consider the blue square to be the more reasonable and practical option. It’s also possible that we’re mistaken. Unfortunately, the decisions we made in conversation frequently left us feeling duped. Seeing a red dot and a ripple in the water isn’t very helpful when the character needs to know yes or no immediately. There’s the option to select “no” when “yes” is what you really want. Maybe there was never a yes.

The storyline, however, proved to be particularly grating. We were so engrossed in the story that if you plotted our interest on a graph, it would appear like a mountain. In its early stages, South of the Circle seems to be searching for something to focus on, as it flits from one issue to another without settling on a single theme. The ending, though, was the biggest letdown for us. The ending is very linear, erasing the minor deviations we made during the game. This is surprising for a game with so few branching paths. We won’t say much more than that for now, but it devalued everything that came before.

But that middle section… oh my goodness. Star quality can be expected from South of the Circle once its apex has been reached. It pulls on the threads it wants to, which include political ones, ones that are still relevant today, and many more that are saturated with feeling and emotion. Even while many people look back on the postwar era with nostalgia, it was a scary time to live through, especially if you weren’t a white, straight, middle-class guy living in Cambridge or London.

Despite our complaints about South of the Circle’s lacklustre character development and shaky narrative, we nevertheless recommend it wholeheartedly—especially if the term “walking simulator” doesn’t make you immediately want to play Warzone again. It’s an evocative period piece that features outstanding acting and writing. Its chilly grasp will remain on you for the most of its brief running period.

Remember to always advise against visiting Antarctica. At least not without a stocked bar, a good map, and a shotgun.