Near Death

A fantastic short-ish game (around 3 hours for a first playthrough) where there are no monsters, no jump scares, no shooting, just you against the unforgiving environment of Antarctica. With cold constantly bearing down on you and resources running low, you need to think and act fast to finish a set of objectives and leave the place. The game is quite well balanced. My first playthrough was on hard; here cold affects relatively fast, resources are scarce and you cannot afford many mistakes. A single wrong turn out in the cold can cost you your life. When crafting items you need to consider tradeoffs and not expend scarce resources on relatively useless items. On Condition 1 (the hardest skill setting) you rely on your experience from the first playthrough to act as fast as possible and craft only what you absolutely must (such as better clothing and wiring kits for a few specific spots like the garage). Items that you might have overlooked on easier skill settings (such as rope and light poles) suddenly become essential. On easy (which I took a quick look at to get one last achievement related to light poles) resources are so abundant that you rarely need to consider tradeoffs, and cold affects you only very slowly, rendering your portable heater almost useless.
Anyway, the game is pretty cheap and has replay value, so get it if you enjoy a fair challenge. Just be adviced that you get little rest in Near Death, so if you're one of those who like to take their time to explore at their own pace, this game definitely isn't for you.

Delightful and tense 3 hour experience against the cold with mechanics added at the right time to keep pacing tight. Every decision I made along the way had trade-offs to make the moments of peace hit so much harder.

100% recommend as an engaging walking simulator that I'll be revisiting for sure.
Extra thank you for the soundtrack!

Quite an experience of a game. Really gave me a bit of the feeling of the cold wilderness. Recommend it.

Short narrative-driven game about surviving the Antarctic winter. No monsters, no aliens, just you vs the encroaching cold. It's relatively short (3.5-4 hours on Normal for my playthrough), but I think any longer and it would start to overstay its welcome.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2843978547

The OG South of the Circle. I honestly wasn't expecting the game to be so immersive but it was very neat and well thought out.

I like the concept: ice cold temperature, strong wild wind, and darkness. And only you. Worth to play, even in normal you have difficulties, need to think of your next steps.

As someone else pointed out, for a game with no enemies or interactable characters, it never gets boring. The tension of trying to survive in a harsh climate feels real, keeping you engaged throughout.

The open-world map gives you the freedom to explore anywhere at any time, adding to the sense of realism, though the quests themselves are mostly linear and follow a decent story. The atmosphere is a standout—the scenery and weather effects are beautifully done, fully immersing you in the cold wilderness.

If you enjoyed Firewatch, this is basically the frozen version of that. Definitely recommend!

8.5/10 – A gripping survival journey with stunning atmosphere.

This is a neat very well done game about surviving the artic cold...highly recommend !!!!!

Great experience! short and sweet

Loved it! 8/10.

As someone else pointed out, for a game with no enemies and no interactable characters, you never get bored and you really feel the stress of trying to survive in the harsh climate. You have an open world map and the freedom to walk anywhere at any time, giving it a good sense of realism, but with mostly linear quests that play out through a decent story. The scenery and the weather and very nicely done too. Definitely recommend, particularly if you liked Firewatch (this is basically the cold version of that!)

I don't know why this is steam deck verified, but it probably shouldn't be. There are some graphical glitches that make it impossible to see certain options (like when you encounter the first teletype), and also, the controls are not labelled correctly. They still show letters (like "press R to refill") when playing on the steam deck with a PS5 controller (I didn't try it without a controller), so I would argue it shouldn't be listed as fully compatible.

As it is, the controls are pretty confusing. I'll try it again later to see if they fixed the graphical glitches, but for the moment, I find it unplayable. I won't refund it, but I can't recommend it in its current state.

Solid game for a quick playthrough. Just make sure that you place down some rope posts before it gets too bad outside.

geeked up in antarctica

Its in Antarctica how can I not love it :D

Weak story and gameplay without climax.
Didn't feel rewarding at all after finished the game. Especially with the boring ending.

Awesome little quest with survival elements. The soundtrack is so cool!

Surprisingly nifty little game. Movement is a bit awkward, but it looks halfway decent, the story is compelling, and the survival mechanics are actually rather thrilling, which I think can be chalked up to the excellent environmental design. My recommendation is to avoid the higher difficulties unless you play a second time to get those achievements; on the hardest difficulty, the random resources are scarce enough that you can just get shafted out of being able to craft essential items, and the timer for freezing in the cold is so short that it not only becomes frustrating, but inadvertently removes all tension by turning the game from a survival horror into a reload-until-successful-athon, which isn't very scary at all. On normal, I didn't die at all (though I certainly could have at some moments), but I was on edge the whole time. On condition 1, I was just mildly annoyed half the time. Still, pretty good, bite-sized game. Highly recommend!