South of Midnight is a remarkable celebration of the myths, sounds, culture, and language of the American Deep South, using the framework of a 3D action-platformer to spin a yarn about contending with pain and the strength necessary to rise above it. Developed by Compulsion Games--the team behind Contrast and We Happy Few--South of Midnight builds on the Canadian studio's strengths: intriguing narrative concepts, perturbing atmosphere, and memorable characters. Much like Contrast and We Happy Few, South of Midnight's gameplay pales in comparison to its narrative elements, but Compulsion Games' latest effort is its strongest game by far, delving into a setting and lore rarely seen in major video games to tell an incredible story.
In South of Midnight, you play as Hazel, a teenage track star who lives in Prospero, a town in the American Deep South. After a hurricane sweeps her home away with her mother inside, Hazel vows to track down and save her. However, she soon discovers that the storm has not only transformed the rural town and surrounding swampland into a dangerous jungle gym but also knocked loose a lot of lingering dark magic, making this journey all the more perilous. Hazel quickly learns that she is a weaver, a person born with the innate ability to see the underlying strands that tie the world together and can also knot into terrifying monstrosities in places where powerful negative emotions like grief, rage, and fear gather. Armed with surprisingly sharp textile-spinning tools, Hazel's search for her mom sees her stumble across numerous legendary spirits inspired by real-world myths, which she can help by uncovering the trauma that created them and doing her best to capture those feelings in magical bottles so that they can be taken away. To whom or where? That's just another mystery to solve.
It's a strong story that dips into Southern Gothic themes and cultivates a sense of dread that you cannot fully dismiss, for each of its tales exists in that unnerving middle ground of clearly being fantastical whilst pulling from real-world terrors like bigotry and child abuse. And when confronted with absurd displays of evil cruelty or agonizing tragedy in these stories, you can't easily discern where exactly reality ends and the myth begins--the pain in these gothic tales cling to you, much as they do to Hazel, and keep South of Midnight emotionally compelling all the way through.
In that sense, South of Midnight reminds me of games like Psychonauts 2 or Alice: Madness Returns. I imagine most people aren't jumping into these types of games solely for their gameplay; they're there for the story, the characters, the world, the lore, the vibes, and that's the primary motivation behind playing South of Midnight--the narrative is the main selling point, not the gameplay. In that regard, South of Midnight is a dazzling experience with unforgettable characters and memorable monsters pulling you into its fictionalized version of the American Deep South, one full of secrets that are as unnerving to see as they are compelling to uncover. It's rare for me to play a game these days where I come away remembering the name of most every character, and South of Midnight manages that with a cast comprised of many characters that only have a few minutes of screen time--each is just so expressive and brought to life with such vivid detail, impressive voice acting, and uncomfortably believable levels of pain, that their individual impact on the story sticks with you long after they've gone.
Hazel, of course, is the most memorable. She has spunk and is quick to lay on the snark or charm without sounding overly quippy, maneuvering through her new reality with a smidge of arrogance that's tempered by a deference for the past and her elders. She's likable right out of the gate and easy to empathize with, even when she's clearly making a mistake or jumping to incorrect conclusions. Her arc is narratively satisfying as well--Hazel's initially singular focus to save her mother (a goalpost that keeps getting pushed back every few chapters) evolves as Hazel comes to learn of weavers who came before her. The latter half of the story deals with Hazel's greater responsibilities as Prospero's latest magical mender of broken spirits, and seeing the teenager come into her own as a young adult with new purpose are the strongest moments in the story.
I adore how South of Midnight uses fashion to tell a story, especially when it comes to Hazel. Hazel changes her clothes during specific moments, each change symbolizing a dramatic shift in her characterization and growth as both a person and a weaver. To avoid spoilers, I won't talk about specifics in this review (even though I want to so badly), but the level of research and style that Compulsion has imbued into each outfit is superb. Seeing Hazel shed the haughty and authoritative attire that symbolized what her arrogance and stubbornness was turning her into, to then emerge wearing a beautiful outfit that celebrates both her heritage and personal style and announces to the world who she wants to be was such a badass moment. Fashion is such a crucial aspect of the American Deep South (as well as so many other cultures), and it's awesome to see Compulsion Games lean into Black clothing, makeup, and hairstyles as subtle visual metaphors for Hazel's heroic journey and her growing understanding of what type of woman she wants to be.
South of Midnight's visuals are strong all around. Utilizing graphics that emulate hand-crafted, stop-motion animation, South of Midnight's characters look remarkably detailed and while in motion, the gameplay and cutscenes feel cinematic. I didn't notice any graphical hitches or bugs in my time with the game (I played on Xbox Series X), and unlike my time with the preview build earlier this year, the animation didn't make me motion sick. And if you're still worried, South of Midnight includes visual options and accessibility tools to adjust its presentation, some of which are aimed at alleviating anyone who might still be impacted by the animation style.
South of Midnight's first chapter is a strong start, but as the game introduces aspects of its combat in the following chapters, the flow of the adventure gets disrupted. There is a sense of urgency to Hazel's quest to find and save her mom, but the story largely tackles the weight of this journey with a degree of lackadaisical calm, using the buzz of wildlife and soft underscore of chorus vocals to amplify moments of both discovery and terror. You're incentivized to take your time and soak in the scenery during the former and encouraged to carefully make your way forward and keep an eye out for monsters during the latter. South of Midnight's levels are largely linear--you can venture off the path to grab optional pick-ups that can boost Hazel's health or unlock additional combat perks--but even so, it feels like this game's world wants you to take your time moving forward.
As a result, it's a bit jarring when combat kicks off. Contained to clearly marked areas, fights begin with a handful of enemies known as Haints spawning in and then additional waves join the battle as you clear the first few foes out. Haints hit extremely hard and usually quite fast, creating a vast disparity in tone between fighting and exploring--save for playing on the easiest difficulty, it can feel like the game goes from easy to hard mode on a dime. Hazel has an assortment of abilities, but many don't feel useful in a fight (namely the telekinetic shove and tether pull, unless you collect enough pick-ups to unlock improvements to both of them), forcing you to primarily rely on her standard melee attacks to make any sort of headway. Hazel's attacks don't do nearly as much damage as her opponents' strikes, and her lack of a reliable defensive option (save for dodging) can make it often feel like you're on the backfoot against South of Midnight's array of enemy types--especially since most Haints don't have a clear indicator for their standard attack (graciously, they shine bright yellow when they're about to become temporarily invincible and unleash a devastating combo or area-of-effect attack). The lock-on mechanic also isn't very good when contending with large groups. Quite a few frustratingly ill-timed dodges or attacks have led to game-overs for me.
Exploration and combat better line up in the latter half of the game, when Hazel's circumstance and surroundings take on a more dangerous and disconcerting tone, matching the dire vibe of combat and easing the transition between the two. Around this time, the final parts of Hazel's skill trees become available as well, which, if you unlock the perks, grant improvements to her abilities that increase their viability in combat and give her a significantly stronger dodge, evening out the playing field. This does a lot to alleviate much of the irritation that combat can create in the game's first few hours, tempering my annoyance that had been building throughout Hazel's early adventure--instead of having to play South of Midnight in small chunks, I blasted through the remaining six or so hours in a single sitting, enjoying every second of it.
Platforming is consistently good throughout South of Midnight, even if the game doesn't do anything that hasn't been seen in other 3D platformers. Hazel possesses skills like a double-jump, dash, glide, and wall-run, and all but one of her combat abilities have uses outside of battle--the telekinetic push can clear debris, for example, while the tether's pull functions as a grappling hook. Early on, platforming sections are fairly simple, providing little challenge, and even during moments where the challenge amps up a bit, South of Midnight is quite forgiving. I rarely failed a jump or mistimed a grapple. Around the same time that South of Midnight better aligns its combat and exploration, the difficulty and intensity of the platforming challenges ramp up, too, with mistimed jumps and lack of careful planning often leading to death. When this occurred, it was a little jarring given how easy South of Midnight's platforming had been up to that point, but it felt great to clear these sections utilizing every tool and trick I'd learned leading up to those moments.
To clarify, I don't think South of Midnight's gameplay is bad, but it didn't wow me. The gameplay reminds me of something from the era of the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox, so despite working and being mechanically sound (and having modern day quality-of-life improvements, like autosaving), combat isn't remarkably exciting, the platforming can feel rote (especially in the first half of the story), and the few puzzles that the game has aren't all that mentally stimulating. In addition, though the manner in which Hazel contends with the larger-than-life mythical spirits that cross her path differs--some are exclusively cinematic platforming, others are traditional boss battles, and a few are a little bit of both--the nature in which Hazel reaches those spirits feels repetitive after a few chapters. Hazel arrives at a new area, learns of a new spirit and snippets of their legend, clears enemies that surround the memories of how that spirit came to be, witnesses said memories, races to the source of the spirit's trauma in a platforming gauntlet, and then faces off against the spirit in question. This loop rarely changes, and even if South of Midnight helps alleviate that sense of repetition by introducing new enemy types, platforming challenges, and weaver skills, as well as drastically shifting the setting every chapter, it doesn't erase that repetition completely. This echoing gameplay loop also makes it feel like the story is saying that all trauma and pain can be understood and healed via the same strategy, which feels disingenuous to the unique problems facing each spirit (and people in real life, to be honest). It mars what is otherwise excellent storytelling and worldbuilding.
Much of my love for South of Midnight's worldbuilding and lore is derived from my quasi-familiarity with it. Even if I'm a California native, my dad and his family are from Louisiana and so I grew up with grandparents, aunts, and uncles who spoke with similar mannerisms to the characters in South of Midnight and told stories about larger-than-life myths like the ones that show up in the game. I grew up with a more lupine take on South of Midnight's owl-like rougarou, but you can be sure my eyes widened with amazement when the name was mentioned. I have never seen a video game mention a rougarou before, let alone incorporate it into its story in a significant way.
Even without any connection or familiarity with the region, however, South of Midnight's setting is still an intriguing and delightful slice of gothic worldbuilding to experience. Not many games are set in this region of the world--there are a few, of course, like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Norco, but they're the exception, not the norm. Compulsion Games' vision of the American Deep South feels authentic. I can't speak to accuracy (for all I know, every single location in South of Midnight is a 1:1 replica of real places I just don't recognize), but in terms of faithfulness, South of Midnight's Prospero feels, looks, and sounds like a genuine place in the American Deep South. It's clear that the Canadian studio has put a tremendous amount of work into researching and understanding the colors and sights of the landscape, as well as the people and animals that call the region home, and how all of that would sound.
The sound design and music, more than anything, are a marvel. Lyrical music and sound have such a presence in the folklore of the American Deep South, much of which originated as oral stories, and South of Midnight honors that tradition by amplifying every part of its story with lyrical music. Soft choral singing quietly accompanies every use of Hazel's platforming abilities, from double-jumping to gliding, and every spirit that Hazel contends with has its own unique song. Each spirit's song slowly builds throughout the chapters that introduce them--the game starts with a few instruments breaking through the sounds of Prospero, and as Hazel uncovers more and more of a spirit's story, vocals will be added and then more instruments, before the full song overwhelms the natural cadence of Hazel's surroundings as she comes face-to-face with the spirit in question. Regardless of how the confrontation with the spirit plays out, the music is the star of the show every time--each lyric-driven song is extremely catchy, matching the cadence of something you'd hear and sing along to while around a campfire. I will be serenading my partner with the song that plays during Huggin' Molly's boss fight for weeks, and I won't apologize for my love for it.
And that's what South of Midnight is: an unapologetic love letter to the American Deep South; specifically, the gothic vibes that permeate the mythology and superstitions of the region as well as the history and culture of the people who live there. It doesn't exactly wow with its combat and platforming, but these parts of the game are mechanically sound, and South of Midnight's memorable characters, incredible visuals, and catchy soundtrack are so strong that it doesn't really matter that the gameplay is just decent. South of Midnight is the type of story that will sit with you, and a good reminder that we need more games about the American Deep South. Compulsion Games hasn't made a direct sequel to any of its games yet, but it needs to make an exception here--I am not done with this world.
