Announced back in 2023, South of Midnight is the latest title from the developers over at Compulsion Games. Acquired by Microsoft back in 2018, they had worked as developers for hire on external projects for a time but had only ever released two games of their own – 2013’s shadowy puzzle-platformer Contrast and 2018’s creepy survival horror We Happy Few.
Fast forward to 2025, and Compulsion Games looks set to make a big splash with South of Midnight. Set in the deep south of America, this ambitious looking release has certainly turned a few heads already – including mine. South of Midnight has a unique, stop motion presentation and it’s a striking look, and one that immediately draws the eye. Looks and art-style however, can only take us so far – what is South of Midnight like to play?
Up front, it’s worth mentioning that this is obviously an early and unfinished build, so when you see performance dips or screen-tearing in the video, bear that in mind – video games are minor miracles in the way things come together at the end, so I’m hopeful there are several nuts and bolts that can be tightened before release. The game is targeting 4K/60 On Xbox Series X and 1080/60 on Xbox Series S.
Let’s get into it! This is Hands-on Preview for South of Midnight.
“Bottle the Pain!”
In South of Midnight, you play as Hazel, who is preparing for an incoming hurricane with her mother, Lacey. After an argument, she storms out (no pun intended there, honest!). Alas, the storm hits hard, and sweeps their home into the swelling river – Lacey included. Hazel, desperate for help, sets off a mission to find her missing mother and discovers another side to the world. Our preview kicks in after these events, in Chapter 3 of the game. Hazel has discovered her Weaver abilities, and is following the spirit of a weaver from the past to learn more.
In the preview, we come across ‘The Catfish’, a story-teller who is currently in a bit of a jam. He’s been plucked out of the water, and is held in the literal hands of a giant man-tree. Help him loose, and he’ll help Hazel find her mother, in addition to telling her more about weaving and the new world in which Hazel finds herself.
Solving Mysteries
In order to do that, Hazel has to solve the mystery of this particular area – in this instance, why this giant man-tree is in pain, what caused it, and how to help it heal. It’s always a nice change in video games to focus on putting something back together rather than smashing things apart, so I appreciate the approach. The story events are dolled out either through fully animated cutscenes, story book page turning narration and memories, which Hazel can witness in order to investigate what’s going on and why.
Traversing the world is a pretty standard fare of third-person platforming and climbing. Hazel has all the usual moves – she can double jump, glide and even wall run to make her way around. There’s a grapple ability to unlock later in the game, though that wasn’t a part of this particular preview.
The level design offers plenty of opportunity to explore, in addition to providing extra nuggets of story lore and background information. The environment was a combination of moody Louisiana-style swampland and ramshackle huts and other dwellings, with plenty of nooks and crannies.
Sadly, I feel that traversing the world is by far the weakest element of the game so far. Trying to make jumps with any sort of tight precision felt a bit off to me and I generally found the platforming side of things to be a little…rudimentary. I’ll reiterate, this is still in development, and there’s more than enough time to improve these elements.
“I ain’t no Boo-Hag!”
Combat however, is another story. Hazel is equipped with a spindle and weaving hooks, and has various abilities that can be upgraded by finding an in-game currency of sorts called ‘floof’, which appears to be a sort of soft mystical fluff often found during platforming exploration – if you stray off the golden path.
I unlocked a thoroughly enjoyable ground pound attack, and combining this with normal and charged attacks meant a pretty enjoyable and occasionally challenging combat loop. There are a reasonable number of upgrades available for Hazel to unlock, so it should keep things interesting enough throughout the story.
You’ll face off in locked-off arenas against awesome looking ‘Haints’, mystical manifestations of the pain and corruption in any given area. The Haints deal a decent amount of damage, and come in various gruesome looking forms, from fast aggressive beasties that will come in and strike at Hazel with a powerful swipe, or others that would shoot from afar.
They don’t discriminate, and will come and attack you en masse, so there’s a delightful ballet of cool looking – and feeling – combat to get stuck into. When they’ve been defeated, Hazel can unravel them with a very fancy animation in return for a nice health boost, so worth doing if you’ve taken a beating. Once they’ve been dispatched, the arena will fade away, the area healing in a surge of new plant life now it’s been cleared of the pain. While I’m not overly enamoured with the platforming right now, I really liked the combat, even if it doesn’t do anything particularly new.
“What kinda magic is that?!”
Compulsion Games have gone on record to say that the focus of South of Midnight is on the story, the artstyle and music, and while they expect the gameplay to be ‘engaging’, it’s not the focus. That’s a brave thing to admit when it comes to the interactive medium of videogames, but I understand why they’ve said it. Compulsion have always made interesting games with interesting ideas, and South of Midnight is no different.
The voice-acting and writing is great with plenty of intrigue, darkness and good humour throughout, but my lord the music is a particular highlight. Towards the end of the preview, as I’m climbing the massive Man-Tree to heal his wound, a song starts to play that recaps what happened to him, and it’s brilliant. Safe to say, I’m in love with the overall presentation of the game, even if it’s admittedly doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to keeping me engaged.
The world of South of Midnight is a place I’m keen to revisit. It’s a delightfully woven fabric of fantasy-meets-real world, full of larger-than-life characters, mythical creatures and threatening adversaries. As Hazel’s connection to the mystical side of things deepens, so does her ability to see beyond – and that includes talking to a giant, amiable Catfish with more than a few stories to tell. I can’t wait to see where this story goes, and just how weird things will get.
Preview access provided by Xbox
