Recursive Ruin

Recursive Ruin

Fair · Action · 2022

Steam Deck Playable

The verdict

BUY IT.

Fair at $2.99, the lowest Steam price we have tracked since May 2022. Buy it now if you want it.

Length
4.9h 11.4h to 100%
Value
$0.61/hr
Reviews
79% of 327 positive
Reviews or length hold it below the tiers even at a deep discount.

Full price

Skip$14.99

Today

−80%Fair
Watch this gameOne alert at a price you pick.

Buy now or wait

Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales.

Next sale
Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4

Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.

What drives the score

How to read this

Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work

Raising the score
Value$0.61/hr
Price per hour of game. It moves the score inside the ceiling reviews set That is today's sale price. Normally $3.06/hr
Engagement25% finish
How far players actually get (achievements), a top-end bonus
Holding it back
Reviews79% positive
Gates the score. Weak reviews cap it, and nothing reaches BANGER without strong ones Scored as 78% after the small-sample adjustment
For context
MonetizationNot known
No monetization record for this game, so nothing is assumed either way
Refunds0 of 283 reviews
Steam-purchase reviews sampled whose writer refunded the game. Nothing is docked
AI contentNone disclosed
From the developer's own Steam disclosure. No disclosure is not proof of none, so it does not move the score

About the game

A story rich narrative puzzle game in which an artist comes to terms with their grief. Explore an infinitely recursive world of strange fractal beauty and solve mind-bending puzzles. Confront the ineffable and chat with your cat in a search for meaning and hope.
Description from the Steam store page.
Minimum specs

Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 or AMD Radeon R7 370, 3 GB of storage. Windows only.

The value story

June 2026 is where it bottomed out, at $2.99. Across all 48 discounts in the 4 years tracked, the median cut is 60 percent, about 6 weeks apart.

On value it sits in the top 9 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 84 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 75 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Moss VR ($9.99, scores 66) beats it on value, while it beats Kiki ($0.99, scores 0).

More about Recursive Ruin

Steam's global achievement data puts 25 percent of players at this game's ending achievement. The median game this site can measure sits at 15. This site sampled 283 of its Steam-purchase reviews; none were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written May 2022 to August 2026.

Finishing takes 4.9 hours; clearing it takes 11, which is 2.3 times the campaign.

The drop-off

83% start to 25% finish
050100rarestfirst achievement

Steam counts a larger share of its players at the ending achievement than it does for most games this site can measure. Steam global achievements

What players say

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メᵃʳᶜᵃᵈᵉ™ 💗Recommendedafter 1.9h4 found this helpfulRead on Steam
2 more reviews, 1 not recommended
quite a remarkable experience. i really liked this a lot. incredible vibes. cool puzzles and level designs. goood stuff!
FigurRecommendedafter 6.9hApr 2026Read on Steam
While the game does warn about sensitivity issues for some players, I managed to stomach other games just fine, some with even more motion sickness etc than the average person can handle. This however was just too much for my current sensitivity towards visual patterns. Then there's odd reflections and some z-fighting, so the game is not finished! But the devs are sadly done with their updates for over 3 years now...
AdeNot recommendedafter 1.0hFeb 2026Read on Steam

Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.

No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).

Cite this score

BANG Score badge
Recursive Ruin scores 55/100 on the BANG Score (fair value) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1561890/recursive-ruin
Embed the live badge

Reviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Oct 2, price as of Oct 18. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.

Tags

Steam user tags as SteamSpy recorded them

Details

DeveloperBit Rot
PublisherIceberg Interactive
GenreAction
Released2022
Players10Kowners, SteamSpy estimate
Achievements17