South of Midnight is a Brilliant Setting, but the Game Needs More Work

Recently we got to get an early hands-on with the third chapter of Compulsion’s South of Midnight, read on for our full thoughts on this Southern-set gem…

Spider-Man.

That’s what we felt we were playing a derivative of for the first 20-or-so minutes of South of Midnight -- a game we’ve been champing at the bit to get into ever since that tantalising and haunting debut trailer a few years back, starring Shakin’ Bones. The setting and its unique mythology and its equally important music… all of it spoke to us and Compulsion, as a freshly-acquired (then) Microsoft studio looked like it had a point to prove after the mixed affair that was We Happy Few.

So, being granted access to a chapter of the game was met, from us, with unbridled enthusiasm, of the Billy Mumphrey variety and we set out to collect… bottles.

Yep, bottles.

The thing with South of Midnight is that “unique mythology” is one of the more contemporary collections of cultural traditions, superstitions and situational lore we have in the modern world, but because of its isolation and age against the more studied and well-known mythologies throughout antiquity, it’s kind of still an unknown, or is maybe just glossed over. A “bottle tree”, for example, is something most of us would look at as either a crazy cook just busying themselves like so many can collectors out there, or kids being creative in the vandalism, art or vandalism-as-art stakes. What we learn through South of Midnight, however, is that a bottle tree is actually designed to ward off evil spirits (in most cases) and that each bottle on said tree once housed bad or even traumatic memories in need of being purged, the purged bottle subsequently becoming a totem to fight back those evil spirits because it’s now a pure vessel.

In videogame terms, this sets our fish-out-of-water protagonist (pun intended), Hazel, fetch-quest-type tasks that also involve, again pun intended, combat bottlenecks that need to be cleared before those traumas can be addressed. As we progress a narrative thread unravels (more puns) and the Gothic nature of this playspace and its embedded history, dark and light, reveals itself as a rich tapestry of the weird and wonderful and, at times, quite evil. Hazel herself represents that light and is a commonsense-writ heroine capable of changing the landscape from catastrophe-addled muck to one of regrowth and hope. But, let’s back up a bit and leave the bottles to the trees for now and talk about that Spider-Man assertion above.

South of Midnight

Genre: Action-Adventure

Developer: Compulsion Games

Publisher: Microsoft

Release Date: April 8, 2025

Classification: M15+

Author: Stephen Farrelly

Date: March 04, 2025

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Weaver

After roughly 15 minutes with the game it became clear Compulsion is leaning into what might otherwise be considered “traditional game design” for South of Midnight. If you’ve played any number of action-adventure platforming-type games of the past little while, this is going to feel pretty familiar, quickly.

"In fact we don’t think we’re going out on a tupelo branch to suggest Compulsion has largely played South of Midnight safe from a game design perspective..."

Double jump? Check. Dash? Check. Wall-running? Check. Verticality and precision jump-centric level design? Check. Combat arenas? Check. Collectibles? Check. Ability and skill tree? Check. Sandbox areas gated by ability or impediment eradication? Check. Talking giant catfish… well, maybe not so check. But in game design disguise… CHECK. In fact we don’t think we’re going out on a tupelo branch to suggest Compulsion has largely played South of Midnight safe from a game design perspective. But we also get why and it’s in the game’s setting that that makes the most sense. In particular if this IP is now a franchise-in-waiting, which we reckon it very well could be, transmedia opps and all in tow. After all, it doesn’t shy from mimicking the genius of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse from a presentation perspective, and Hazel is a weaver. But that the game borrows so visually and collectively from an amazing source shouldn’t be poo-pooed, because despite that, this is still very much its own thing.

Woven storyline and all.

Stacks On

Initially our hands-on, from a point in Chapter 3, kicked off with combat. It was also a heady place to start and made us kind of work for the privilege to even play, but stacking ahead we can tell you that once you wrap your head around it, it’s fun and even empowering. What holds it back is that we suddenly just feel like a janitor cleaning up loud-mouth dust bowls from the corner of some unkempt high school locker room. It’s faceless and in many ways, nameless. Not a bad thing, but to draw on the Spidey thing above, we’ve apprehended or exploded these enemy types before, and in Chapter 3, they are rinse-repeat.

"Compulsion has mixed up the order and number of combat and encounters, with an ever-escalating scale and combination of enemy difficulty..."

It also didn’t help, contextually, that we kind of still didn’t know what the what was, what (heh) with having only had access to Chapter 3, the previous two being to obviously tutorialise and set things up. But at the end of the day it wasn’t a huge negative.

Of course, as is par for the course with these types of games, Compulsion has mixed up the order and number of combat and encounters, with an ever-escalating scale and combination of enemy difficulty based on type. But even within the relatively short chapter we had access to we spent some in-game currency on upgrades which helped with combat aspects such as crowd-control, creating space and being able to stay on top of things like health. Again, if you’ve played any of these types of games over the past number of years this isn’t revelatory and should be pretty much like riding a bike. But for all of the game’s design ‘sameys’ its setting genuinely made it stand out and stay with us for a while even after the “Thanks for Playing” note told us our time was done.

Mixed Media Storytelling

Our very own “champing at the bit” for this “Southern-set gem” started with that Shakin’ Bones trailer linked earlier in this feature, which featured the same animation style as the cited Spidey flick (which incidentally doesn’t have a style name, oddly). And when you fire up the game you’ll notice that that’s not the only bit of visual flair Compulsion has gone with here. There’s a genuine stop-motion element, as well as an illustrative one on top of the game itself and that Spider-Verse-like presentation. So there’s a mixed bag going on here, and we love it for that, even if for some it might come across as a bit inconsistent.

"We’d argue it’s important to leave it as the studio intended; stylised and purposefully mishmash because… why not?"

But we see it as in keeping with the deep south mythology the team has drawn from, which is itself often a bit of a mixed affair of conflicting concepts, tales and superstitions. You can also manage some of the presentation from the menu if it doesn’t all sit well with you, but we’d argue it’s important to leave it as the studio intended; stylised and purposefully mishmash because… why not?

And in addition, as we’ve mentioned a few times, South of Midnight’s immediate soundtrack is haunting and beautiful, all at once. Naturally inspired by the bluegrass roots of the region(s) and the myriad tales spun through the basic-but-forever-creative chords and pickings from its equally numerous pluckers, the game’s audio outlay is as memorable as its artstyle and physical setting. A soundtrack for the ages inspiring or accompanying everything above, and from those who’ve added their hearts and souls over many decades to what might be the most poignant identity component of said region(s) to date. We genuinely hope the studio does as much with its soundtrack as possible, as it is definitely a key draw.

Chapter 4?

So, with everything above said, South of Midnight is still hot on our radar, but to be honest, it’s also not perfect, as we’ll get to in a moment. But we can’t stress enough that it is nothing if not unique and deserves your attention for its setting, presentation and characterisation alone. Oh, and that soundtrack which is so, so good and not even fully revealed yet.

"Timed jumps can also feel imprecise because of how Hazel moves through the world..."

Where it needs the most work, though, is in its camera and platforming. Timed jumps can also feel imprecise because of how Hazel moves through the world and physically lands in and on parts of the environment. This isn’t helped by her feeling ‘skatey’ and almost too light. We got stuck in the environment more than a few times as well, which didn’t help proceedings. Additionally, we found the choice from Compulsion to feature limited interiors despite the stunning architecture of the world screaming out for every shack and structure to be explored, an odd one. That camera, again, also doesn’t like those select interiors. Just saying.

Other elements that stood out as odd are parts of the world you ‘weave’ into existence to help reach new areas but these felt superfluous overall and even tacked on, to a degree. We’re hoping there’s a more challenging element to these based on timing of flicking them to life, but for now it just lacks some substance, but we’re also acutely aware we played just one chapter of the game and that it was itself within that build still awaiting work in progress elements, so take all woes above with a grain of salt, but we’d be remiss not to highlight that they do throw us some cause for concern, or pause, at least.

We’ll know soon enough, of course, with South of Midnight set to launch in just over a month, and hopefully there’s been significant inroads made since our earlier access.

Despite our concerns, as we've expressed a fair bit throughout, we're still super-keen on this one and hope it resonates and champions the unique and ever-intriguing mythology if the deep south.

About the author

Written By Stephen Farrelly

Stephen Farrelly is a veteran journalist and editor with more than two decades experience in the worlds of gaming, entertainment, lifestyle and sport under his belt. He is a proud pug dad, loves art in all forms but particularly street and tattoo culture, and is the director of Swear Jar...

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South of Midnight is a Brilliant Setting, but the Game Needs More Work