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Watch trailer on Steam ↗The Perilous North
SUBMERSION STUDIO LIMITED · Published by Anna & Morgan (SUBMERSION)
Content notice: Icebound contains mature themes and realistic, (though not gratuitous) depictions of violence and death with animals and humans.
Last updated 8 Oct 2026
The Perilous North is an arctic survival strategy game in early development. Uncover the fate of a lost expedition. Lead your crew through brutal cold, creeping madness, and cosmic horror. Manage relationships, make hard choices, and survive a time loop where death is only the beginning.
Adventure, Indie, RPG, Strategy · More free games
Explore the unforgiving Arctic as you lead a crew through madness and time loops. Manage relationships and make crucial decisions in SUBMERSION STUDIO's unique survival adventure.
About this game
⚠️ Early Playtest Notice
The playtest is for a very early prototype. Access is granted in small waves as we actively develop the game.
Expect bugs, missing features, and placeholder content.
"Our last sighting was four years ago... Now, it's your turn to brave the unknown."
The Perilous North is a survival-strategy RPG in early development made by Anna and Morgan, a husband and wife team with a dream to see this project's potential fully realized.
Set during the golden age of polar exploration, dieselpunk machinery meets creeping Lovecraftian dread. You captain the crew of a doomed Arctic expedition trapped in an unforgiving time loop. Your choices echo through cycles of life, death, and frostbitten rebirth.
In a journey to uncover the fate of a previous expedition, you must lead an eight-person crew across a dynamic world of frozen wilderness and drifting pack ice. Each crew member has a unique personality, skills, and evolving relationships that can shape the fate of the mission—and your own.
Key Features
• Dual-Layer Gameplay
Switch between the Navigation Layer—a turn-based, board game-style overworld managing fuel, weather, and morale—and the Survival Layer, a real-time tactical view where you explore the icy terrain of the Northern Arctic, build shelters, hunt wildlife, and manage physical and mental health in minute detail.
• Relentless Environmental Survival
Manage hunger, cold, and distress through a detailed simulation of Arctic conditions. Wind direction, sun exposure, darkness, and equipment all affect your crew’s wellbeing—and sanity.
• Death Isn’t the End
Your expedition is caught in a time loop. Even death offers a strange form of progression. Unlock blueprints, preserve your ship’s upgrades, and uncover fragments of past lives in future runs.
• Crew Drama & Dynamic Relationships
Your crew remember... something. Their stories evolve through meal-time conversations, disobedience events, and promotions. Relationships form and fracture based on your leadership style. Push them too far, and they might push back.
• Hunting, Building & Crafting
Lay traps for animals, fish in ice-cold waters, mine iron, or drill for oil. Build research stations, medical tents, and fire pits to keep your crew alive—or fail to do so and watch them descend into madness.
• Character Driven Narrative
Progress a rich overarching narrative with character subplots and moral decisions that reflect your leadership. Will you be the affable protector, the calculated tactician, or the iron-fisted imperialist?
• Cosmic Horror Beneath the Ice
What lies deep beneath the Arctic? Strange anomalies, ancient ruins, and unnatural phenomena. Investigate at your own risk—some truths are best left buried.
• Dog Sleds, Dinghies & Dynamic Travel
Traverse ice, snow, and sea using sled dogs, small boats, or by foot. Strategic travel is key to conserving energy and surviving the cold.
• Immersive Visuals & Audio
Features hand-painted portraits, atmospheric audio design, voice-acted diary entries, and haunting ambient soundtracks.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i5-7400 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 / AMD Radeon RX 580
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: 20 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX compatible
Recommended
- OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i7-9700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: 20 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX compatible
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
AnnouncementsOfficial
Meet the Ship's Physician
We’re very excited to introduce another of the expedition’s seven core crew members:Elias Asheworth - Ship's PhysicianElias is a middle-aged, university-trained doctor whose formal education was, by chance, supplemented with practical apprenticeship, giving him experience in both learned medicine and its more practical realities. Raised in a comfortably upper-middle-class household, he behaves very much like a gentleman, though at times he can come across as a little insufferable: opinionated, exacting, and possessed of the quiet arrogance of a man who is often the cleverest person in the room and knows it.A naturalist by inclination as much as a physician by profession, Elias has a deep fascination with the living world, particularly in its lesser-known forms. He has a genuine devotion to knowledge and discovery, even if his bedside manner can occasionally leave something to be desired.We’ve also been experimenting with small snippets of character writing, diary entries written in each character’s own voice. It’s one of the ways we try to turn these characters into real people and allow them to take on lives of their own.Diary entry: June 2nd 1874, LondonSince the news of Captain Fitzmaurice’s expedition first appeared in the newspapers there has been a noticeable stir in society, the matter being discussed with a good deal of animation in drawing rooms, coffee houses, and other such places where men are inclined to speculate freely upon ventures that are not their own. The papers mention the business with some regularity, and I am told wagers have already been laid regarding the outcome, though on what evidence such predictions rest is not entirely clear. Several of my acquaintances, having learned of my involvement, have pressed me for particulars of the voyage, imagining perhaps that I am privy to some deeper plan; yet I must disappoint them, for the undertaking is treated as one of considerable national importance, and Captain Fitzmaurice revealed only those ma...Read full article on Community Announcements (submersion.game.studio)AnnouncementsOfficial
Huge progress on our Arctic survival game
Hello again everyone! Morgan & Anna here.For those new here, we're a husband and wife team working on The Perilous North, a narrative survival game set in the golden age of Arctic exploration with slight Lovecraftian twist.(If you haven't yet, Wishlist The Perilous North to support us!)Since the last update a lot has been added to the game, so let's just jump straight into it!World buildingAnna has been doing some incredible world and narrative building.We made a conscious decision for our own sanity to choose our battles wisely, and not to stray too far from reality.When you first boot up the game, we don’t want you to feel like you’re in a totally unfamiliar world. A spoon is a spoon, the British empire is still the British empire, and if you go out naked into a -60 degree blizzard, you will get frostbite. The logic of the normal world applies. That said, there’s still a ton of world building to do in order to pull this off the narrative and characters in a believable way.We also put together a video showing our love and appreciation for the period. The algorithm hated it - haha *cry laughing* but we're still proud of it.Navigation layer mapsThe navigation layer also uses the same system. Exploring is its own form of progression. As you explore and find locations, more and more of the map will become filled in.Landmarks and flagsThis is a juicy one. The landmark sketchbook just got a huge overhaul this month. While it was a lot of fun in its previous form, we felt it was a little too “treasure hunt” and not quite “arctic explorer”. We’ve since updated it to involve more thematic mechanics. Navigating with a dodgy map, using limited information to find your way. It’s still very simple, but we want you to have the experience of 19th century Arctic navigation, and the philosophy behind the design is still the same - to feel like “if I don’t use my brain here, I will die” - without the frustration that doubtless came from it.“Transactions”You see something you like, y...Read full article on Community Announcements (submersion.game.studio)AnnouncementsOfficial
Welcome to The Perilous North
Hi everyone! We’re Morgan & Anna, a husband and wife team working on The Perilous North, a narrative survival game set in the golden age of Arctic exploration with slight Lovecraftian twist.(If you haven't yet, Wishlist The Perilous North to support us!)A few years ago, we visited Fram - a museum in Oslo, Norway, dedicated to polar exploration and walked out with the idea for the game we’d always wanted to make. Since then, we’ve been quietly building systems, writing storylines, and figuring out how to make you feel like the captain of your own expedition.This is our first ever Steam blog post, so we thought we’d share where things stand today:Building the WorldWe’ve been focusing heavily on establishing the early environments, particularly Disko Bay and Broken Tooth Bay, two of the first big locations you’ll explore.Everything is still intentionally rough while we lock down level layout and gameplay flow, but it’s starting to feel like a real place.Meet the Crew (Early WIP)We’re transitioning away from our placeholder robots into actual character models. Here’s a peek at Alasdair, the expedition’s hunter, an enigmatic character both ruthlessly cruel and surprisingly loyal:Your officers also each bring unique expertise that shapes your discoveries. For example, the Hunter can read sled tracks, while the Cook can interpret abandoned food supplies.Narrative + ExplorationThe Perilous North blends a structured main narrative with a more reactive crew narrative.Right now, we’re building the early story tools:Dialogue & cutscenesTravel between landmarksEarly clues left behind for you to uncoverA big part of exploration is using your sketchbook to navigate — no quest markers, just landmarks, terrain, and your own sense of direction.What’s NextOur next big milestone is getting the crew management and gameplay driven narrative up and running, where you shape who you and your crew become, and make the expedition your own. This will tie directly into survival, personality tra...Read full article on Community Announcements (submersion.game.studio)
