South of the Circle
Fair · Narrative · 2022
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
NO RUSH.
Fair at $12.99. Buy it if you want it.
- Length
- 3.6h
- Value
- $3.61/hr
- Reviews
- 85% positive
Buy now or wait
The Autumn Sale is on until Oct 8. It is at full price today.
Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales on record.
- Autumn Sale cooldown
- None on record
- Typical seasonal cut
- 60% ($5.19)
- Deepest seasonal cut
- 70% ($3.89)
- Last discount ended
- 14 days ago
Watch it for a saleSources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, GeForce GTX 660, Radeon R7 370 or equivalent with 2 GB of video RAM, 3 GB of storage. Windows only.
South of the Circle is a deep narrative experience of the emerging relationship between Peter and Clara, Cambridge academics involved in a political conflict. The story focuses on promises made in between career and true love, where our choices burdened by our past seem to be illusory.
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
The value story
It has never been cheaper than $3.89. That was June 2026. Its cuts run 50 percent off as a rule. There have been 38 in the 4 years tracked, about 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended about 2 weeks ago.
On value it sits in the top 16 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 74 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 80 percent. Among the games that feel like it, The Excavation of Hob's Barrow ($14.99, scores 67) beats it on value, while it beats Until Dawn™ ($29.99, scores 40).
The press gave it 75; the people who bought it give it 85 percent. A 10-point gap in the buyer's favour.
Steam's global achievement data puts 36 percent of players at this game's ending achievement. The median game this site can measure sits at 15. This site sampled 516 of its Steam-purchase reviews; none were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written August 2022 to August 2026.
At 3.6 hours it is a handheld-sized game, and Valve rates it Deck Verified.
The drop-off
76% start to 36% finishSteam counts a larger share of its players at the ending achievement than it does for most games this site can measure. Steam global achievements
Players
2 players online when we last checked, on Sep 28, 14:50 UTC.
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
I absolutely love discovering gems like this. I've never heard about the game, and don't even remember how I got it. But it was a great short story on Steam Deck.
How much South of the Circle works for you will depend entirely on what you're looking for in a game. All of the criticisms levelled against it in the negative reviews are fair -- the game is only interactive in the lightest of senses. The ending did fall a little flat for me, though the more I've mulled it over since, the more satisfied I feel with it. But the quality of the storytelling is so high, in the writing...
Played through twice and no matter what decisions you make, none of them hold weight or turn out to be genuine. The story is simply linear despite your choices. Your choices do not matter. You are better off watching a play-through so that you can at least speed up all the slow walking.
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
South of the Circle scores 53/100 on the BANG Score (fair value) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1811040/south-of-the-circleReviews 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 Sep 26, price as of Oct 1.
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