South of Midnight Review

Many would argue Xbox is on a roll following Indiana Jones and the Great Circle last year and Avowed less than two months ago. Now, South of Midnight could be another win for Xbox Game Studios that’s markedly different from what Doom: The Dark Ages is promising to deliver in May. Is Compulsion Games’ latest a mid-sized winner or does it fail to wow beyond the stop-motion-inspired visuals?

After the developers said the game would take around 10 hours to complete, many of us breathed a sigh of relief. Even those of us who love huge open-world games to get lost in need smaller and tighter romps from first-class studios from time to time. From the very beginning, South of Midnight was described as an old-fashioned action-adventure game with a striking visual twist and an underexplored Deep South setting. After rolling credits on it, I can confidently say it’s a journey worth embarking on that will stay with me for a while. It’s a bit of a flawed gem though.

Much like the protagonist character, Hazel Flood, in most of the game’s scenarios, the story hits the ground running. A giant storm threatens to destroy her and her mother’s home, and that’s exactly what happens a few minutes later, but not before a strong but shaky daughter-mother relationship is established. Past that point, Hazel is thrown into a world of hidden magic, monsters, and legends meeting real-world events that most folks would love to forget about. If you had to condense it all, South of Midnight is ultimately about wounds that failed to heal and helping those in need even when darkness prevails. Thankfully, Compulsion Games’ writing team injected enough substance into the script to make the adventure feel engaging and the character interactions emotional all the way through.

Clearly, a lot of time and care went into not only building the modern folktale setting inside the game, but also making each character look and sound distinct. Moreover, the chronicle is neither overcrowded nor twisty without a clear goal. It’s the very rare sort of modern narrative-heavy game which doesn’t overstay its welcome, and the notably breezy narrative pace (which doesn’t limit its potential to deliver gut punches) plays a big role in making the full journey feel ‘just right’ length-wise by the time the credits roll. Try to go in knowing as little as possible.

While we’ve seen veteran studios achieve an almost perfect balance between huge worlds (and the many video game-y possibilities that come with them) and stories which behave like Hollywood blockbusters, South of Midnight is old-fashioned in its overarching design: A surprisingly linear adventure with next-to-zero fat which never allows itself to feel meandering and even trims down ability and skill progression as seen in countless ‘character action games’ to a minimum. In fact, I’m fairly sure you needn’t find all the (slightly) hidden energy nodes to max out all of Hazel’s abilities, which include controlling a freaky (but cute) little toy with gameplay sections of his own.

This ties into South of Midnight’s combat encounters, which are the weakest part of the package. At worst, the fights are serviceable and never feel annoying or jarring, but I’d be lying if I said I found much enjoyment in clearing flat, very same-y arenas of the same five-to-six types of generic-looking demons (nightmares?) over and over again. It’s the sort of combat loop that works well enough… but constantly made me wonder whether this game needed combat at all, especially with the story being all about fixing old wounds as a Weaver (a folktale hero of sorts) and whatnot. When you realize how limited the selection of enemies and how insipid the overall design is (no battle takes place outside these clearly delimited areas ever), it’s hard to jump excitedly into yet another melee.

On the other hand, boss battles are strong and set-piece-y enough to leave an impression even if you’ve surely seen all the mechanics involved done better elsewhere. They have a reason to exist in this game and are also utilized to push the narrative forward without cutscenes, with original songs (Olivier Deriviere’s soundtrack is a corker) adding to the story told before, during, and after these big encounters. The cherry on top during South of Midnight’s high points is the voice acting across the board, with Adriyan Rae (Hazel) and Walt Roberts (Catfish) being the clear standouts.

If you aren’t fighting off demons (and fixing metaphysical wounds) or exploring each corner of the levels to immerse yourself in the textured locales, you’ll be platforming with a set of Weaver tools of mysterious origin that also factor into the combat. While those translate into ‘powers’ like pushing or pulling enemies around in battles, Hazel can use them as instruments of repairing all over the winding levels, whether they’re swamps, rocky mountains, or haunted caves. South of Midnight is no Prince of Persia, but the platforming is satisfying and smooth enough, and its escape sequences, while repetitive during the middle section of the game, are among the most thrilling of the entire journey.

That repetition I just mentioned also applies to the story beats and level structure across a handful of chapters that, while filled with great character and gameplay moments, are just less inspired in the way they were built and laid out. Thankfully, South of Midnight finds its way back to the road before it’s too late and delivers a strong third act which packs more than a few surprises without forgetting about its ‘tale of tales’ nature. It’s here where the game design feels more confident and looser, and I kind of wished it got into that flow sooner.

Regardless, the wonderful audiovisual presentation (magical in its own way) carries the hell out of this game during the duller bits. It’s the sort of work that will age well thanks to art direction taking precedence over raw graphical advancements. Many words will be written about the stop-motion-y approach to character animations and other elements (more prominent during cutscenes), but the truth is South of Midnight looks very nice and special top to bottom. Despite mostly hitting its 60 FPS target (with no graphical modes available) on Xbox Series X, I found the performance to be a bit uneven for no good reason though. Some of the more ‘open’ levels can set off sustained drops which are awkward considering there’s never a lot happening on the screen plus Unreal Engine isn’t exactly pushed to its limits.

Your mileage may vary, but I’d say South of Midnight works better the less it tries to be a traditional video game… even if much of its uniqueness paradoxically comes from that approach to game design. Its restraint must be applauded, and the price tag (roughly $40 in most markets) seems perfect considering what it offers. As a new Game Pass day-one release, it’s a no-brainer. Overall, it should be a big win for Xbox in a mostly unfamiliar arena for the publisher, but Compulsion Games’ Southern Gothic doesn’t come without frustrations. At the end of the day, however, it broke (and fixed) my heart several times, and that’s what I’ll probably remember in a few months’ time.