Proteus
Skip · Narrative · 2013
The verdict
SKIP IT.
The value isn't there at $9.99.
- Length
- 1.1h
- Value
- $9.08/hr
- Reviews
- 76% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 3 GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 3000, 102 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
Proteus is a game about exploration and immersion in a dream-like island world where the soundtrack to your play is created by your surroundings. Played in first-person, the primary means of interaction is simply your presence in the world and how you observe it.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $2.00, set in January 2014. Its cuts run 60 percent off as a rule. There have been 27 in the 14 years tracked, about 14 weeks apart. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 13 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 14 weeks.
It is pricier than 69 percent of its genre. The games it most resembles do better on the same math. ABZU ($19.99, scores 58) and Journey ($14.99, scores 68) both outscore it.
Of the 253 Steam-purchase reviews this site sampled, none come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written March 2020 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 78 percent of the 1,058 reviews written there were positive, against 76 percent overall, and those are 75 percent of everything written about it.
Players
2 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
This isn't a typical game, but I do really like it. It feels like going on a nature walk except every trail is different. Good game for people who like exploring. This game also helps me relax and go to sleep if I had a long day.
I can't believe such a simple game could achieve so much. It felt like a breath of fresh air for my mind. A masterpiece both visually and audibly.
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: achievement curve (Steam global achievements).
Cite this score
Embed the live badge, copy the line, or download the card.
Proteus scores 32/100 on the BANG Score (a skip). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/219680/proteusThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 6, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.