Review: South of the Circle is a masterpiece of storytelling and presentation

South of the Circle is a charming and emotionally deep narrative mystery game, set at the height of the Cold War.

South of the Circle

Developed for iOS devices by State of Play Games and available on Apple Arcade, South Of The Circle is set in Antarctica. It piqued my interest when I discovered it had just been nominated for Mobile Game Of The Year in this year’s Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences DICE awards.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into South Of The Circle. The art style and crashed de Havilland Beaver aeroplane in the key art suggested maybe a subzero survival game in the same vein as The Long Dark. Chances were also good it might have been a Lovecraftian horror like Conarium, or perhaps a monster encounter game drawing inspiration from John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Instead, it was a charming and emotionally deep narrative mystery game, set at the height of the Cold War, exploring the nature of memory, overcoming challenges you feel ill-equipped for, and similar thought-provoking themes.

You play Dr Peter Hamilton, an English university professor researching cloud movements and weather patterns, whose research eventually sends him to Antarctica to research radiation travel.

Conversation decisions

The plane he is in crashes in a storm and the Australian pilot, Floyd, is badly injured, forcing Dr Hamilton to become a reluctant hero and venture into the frozen waste of Antarctica in search of help.

It soon becomes apparent that something is very wrong, because the nearby base he reaches is totally abandoned, as is the next one he makes his way too. Unravelling the mystery is part of the game, the impetus that drives Peter forward, but this is intertwined with scenes from his past to create an intriguing and engaging narrative.

The game does a masterful job of seguing between the present (Antarctica) and the past (Cambridge, Scotland and London), as Antarctic rock outcrops morph into rows of terraced housing, a snowmobile journey becomes a drive home from the movies with Peter’s girlfriend, and a mining site becomes a carnival fairground.

The base

Much of the game is told in flashback, with Peter trying to move his research forward, meeting and then starting a relationship with a fellow doctorate holder and researcher, Clara, and telling his recollection of their time together prior to his departure to Antarctica.

All this is against a backdrop of the Cold War in the mid-1960s, with tensions between the West and the Soviet Union on the rise. Concerns about Soviet spies at British universities, and changing attitudes to women’s role in society all featuring prominently.

The voice acting is absolutely superb, and the cast completely nail their roles, from Peter’s mild-mannered and slightly awkward style to his upbeat university chums, and to his very Old Boy Network-affiliated department head. There’s a government official straight out of a John Le Carre novel and Clara herself. The acting is spot-on and an integral part of what makes the game work so well.

Peter and Clara

South Of The Circle is a masterpiece of storytelling and presentation, right up until the end when the tracks start to come off the snowmobile.

By that stage in the proceedings, Peter has become something of an unreliable narrator so it starts being hard to work out what might be real and what might be Peter’s imagination.

It ultimately climaxes in a confusing ending that is obviously designed to make the player draw their own interpretations, but instead just left me unsatisfied. I’d become invested in the story and the characters and didn’t feel the ending respected that.

Everything about the game is superb, however, and none of its three hours or thereabouts of playtime feels unnecessary or wasted.

South Of The Circle is a fantastic example of how mobile games can be so much more than the microtransaction-filled digital distractions they’re often derided as being, offering a memorable and moving narrative experience that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Seafront