This article is based on a preview build of South of Midnight. This is not a full review, so please note that certain aspects may still change before release.
Compulsion Games is probably not a name that's familiar to many Xbox fans—the studio that developed We Happy Few before being quickly snapped up by Microsoft during its 2018 acquisition spree. Seven years later, we are finally getting to see what this small studio has been working on behind the scenes, which, as it turns out, is a unique little action-adventure experience titled South of Midnight.
With its launch only a few months away, Neowin was invited to try out a sliver of this third-person adventure on the Xbox Series X that explores the mysterious mythologies of the Deep South. I've written up my thoughts on the game below without spoiling any big story details. During my time with the game, I was introduced to a world oozing with style (and mosquitos), fantastic visuals, fast and agile platforming elements, flashy combat, and a taste of a storyline that had me wanting more.
The part of the game I received access to was from an early section of the campaign, where our protagonist Hazel is exploring a swamp-infested town in search of her missing mother. Playing on an Xbox Series X, the gorgeous environments simply pop out of the landscape. Compulsion has somehow managed to make a swamp that's filled with age-old trees and rickety old abandoned buildings appealing to look at and feel inviting for exploration. At times, the level reminded me of the visual style of the Ori series.
With the sun low in the sky, the preview slice quickly led me into a battle arena, the first one of many I'd find myself in during my brief time with the game. Most of these were simple but fun processes involving dodging and 'Weaving'. While evasion is a primary component of battles, Weaving is actually the name of the magic system of South of Midnight, where Hazel harnesses an ancient ability as a mender of spirits to traverse the game's environments and take down the darkness forming in the lands.
The inky-looking enemies that pop up inside the closed-off arenas can be attacked with Hazel's Weaving tools as melee weapons, but it's the positional abilities that make it stand out. This involves pulling and pushing enemies as well as binding them for short periods, making full use of the arena's size to not get surrounded, and using these abilities to pile enemies together. Incoming attacks have clear audio and visual cues, and if your evasion skills are up to scratch, a perfect dodge made at the last moment deals a bubble of damage to everything around you.
The combat seemed simple but hectic, and there can be multiple waves of enemy appearances in a single arena. During my time with the level, I met enemies with melee attacks, enemies that fire charged-up range shots, and a spawner that kept spitting out damaging flies. While beating these up, it was clear that health is not something that can be easily replenished, with only a single-use healing item available inside the arena for activation. Finishing off enemies also grants a small health buff and a cooldown reduction on abilities, but otherwise, the combat can get fairly intense, combining simple elements in effective ways.
For those that may be put off by too much combat in their cozy platformer experience, this is also where the game provides a lot of difficulty options. Player damage, incoming damage, spawn rate of enemies, how much they surround you, regeneration rates, and more can be adjusted individually or simply selected en masse from a multitude of presets. You can even become completely invulnerable to damage or skip combat and chase sections entirely if it's not your thing. Of course, combat difficulty can be turned up to 11 if needed too.
Platforming made up most of my playthrough, at least in the chapter that I had access to. At the point of the game I was at, Hazel is able to double jump, wall run, glide, and climb on ledges, with possibly more abilities being unlocked later. Pressing down on the right stick shows a helpful route to the next objective, but as you might suspect, I mostly used this to make sure I strayed off that path to find goodies in the form of upgrade materials. This is how you can unlock new combat abilities.
The platforming didn't pose that much of a challenge, and puzzle elements were kept to a minimum in the segment I played. Slipping off into the toxic water, for example, simply resets Hazel to a point slightly behind in the platforming chain, letting me keep the flow going without being frustrated. Action platformers have to impress me a lot with their animations and control reactivity for me to stick with them, and South of Midnight gets a big thumbs up from me in these areas. Hazel is extremely agile and responds very well to quick inputs. Mid-air adjustments for Hazel, smooth transitions between different types of moves, and clear levels make for a clean platforming experience.
Beyond the fun traversal and platforming, the mini-storyline of this level drew me into South of Midnight the most. Oddly enough, it's a giant catfish hanging from a tree that leads me to my first objective. This unfolds into a sad but sweet storyline of two brothers living vastly different lives and how their relationship eventually came to a violent end. The music is exceptional throughout, with the classical guitar and clear vocals elevating the atmosphere every time they rise up from the background during important moments.
I'm hoping each level of the game will have this kind of self-contained story to follow as our protagonist's own goals are also being chased. I finished my time with the game surprised by the sheer difference in quality and direction Compulsion has managed to deliver here compared to its last project. I'm hoping for even more larger-than-life characters, weird magical elements, storylines with spirits, and plenty of satisfying platforming to complete when the full game releases. While this isn't in the camp of being a massive budget, 'quadruple-A' game from the Xbox front, it's certainly managed to make me a fan of its unique vision in the short time I had with it. This is shaping up to be the kind of game you can sit down, relax, and simply enjoy.
If there was anything I wasn’t too impressed by, it would be the inconsistent use of the stop-motion effect on animations—sometimes it’s applied, most times it’s not. It's mainly the character animations and facial effects that use this puppet-like style, while the world and other effects run at normal frame rates. Instead, going with a more heavy-handed approach for this animation style would have suited the animations better in my eyes. Interestingly, there's an option to disable it entirely during gameplay sequences.
South of Midnight ran at 60FPS on my Xbox Series X. The studio has confirmed that it will achieve the same frame rate on the Xbox Series S too, with the former running at 4K and the latter at 1080p. The game is coming out on April 8, 2025, across PC (Steam and Microsoft Store) and Xbox Series X|S. It will also be available via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscriptions.
Gallery: South of Midnight Preview
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