After playing 2 hours of South of Midnight, I'm convinced that it has the sort of off-kilter energy that can define Xbox's 2025

What are video games if not windows into different worlds? Sometimes it's worth taking a moment to peer through and appreciate the view. Even as Hazel stands impatient, kicking her feet at the outskirts of an abandoned Cajun community, I fight the impulse to steer her any further through this handcrafted, hallucinatory adventure. Patches of reed flutter imperfectly in the wind, rabbits jerkily skip steps into hidden burrows – as if some invisible, intangible force is lazily thumbing through a flipbook to give life to the world around you. A sullen melody breezes on with the wind.

South of Midnight makes a strong first impression. Then again, titles from developer Compulsion Games always have. There was Contrast in 2013 and We Happy Few a few years later, experiences defined by their visually evocative worlds and deliberately modest scale. "We've always been ambitious with all the projects that we create, within the means that we've had," says Compulsion founder Guillaume Provost. Although the studio head is aware that expectation has shifted underneath the studio in years gone by.

"We've always been ambitious with all the projects that we create, within the means that we've had"

Seven years on from its acquisition into the Xbox Game Studios group, Compulsion is larger than it has ever been before – having nearly tripled in size since work concluded on We Happy Few – and hungrier than ever to show to the world what it is truly capable of with this upcoming Xbox Series X game. "Within Xbox there was a certain amount of expectation, with regards to the level of quality that titles need to bring to the table. We all wanted to execute at a level that we felt good about when sitting in the room across from our peers and industry giants who have a lot of experience making games."

Welcome to the Deep South

The further Hazel burrows into Prospero the stranger things seem to become. Her hometown ravaged by a hurricane, the life that she used to know swept away in a single moment etched in time. And so into the rabbit hole of the American Deep South she dives, where local folklore seems to have a way of slipping beyond the seams of superstition and into the fabric of her reality. South of Midnight follows Hazel through "one very strange day," laughs Jasmin Roy, game director.

This is an action-adventure which takes place over 10-12 hours of playtime, "your adventure starting in the morning and ending at midnight," says art director Whitney Clayton. This frame affords Compulsion the opportunity to whisk Hazel along from one lush, decaying environment to the next as she heads off in search of her mother. "Different landscapes correlate with different times of the day. Each has its own really specific mood, which then reflects the type of story being told in that moment," she says. "It's a curated experience, which is a complete reaction to us having a game that was procedural before."

South of Midnight feels worlds apart from We Happy Few. That's not only a result of Compulsion shifting away from a roguelike structure in favor of a more linear presentation, but because of the general vibe that's being cultivated. Where the studio once channelled the dystopia of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil', it's now grappling with the high-strangeness of Ethan and Joel Coen's 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' albeit through a distinctly southern gothic lens – stark realism colliding with a series of increasingly off-kilter events. "I don't know about you, but if a catfish started talking to me I would probably freak out a little," says narrative director Zaire Lanier. "But Hazel needs to find her mother; so while she will acknowledge that this is all a little weird, her reactions are also subdued."

That balancing act is at the heart of South of Midnight, a journey which is able to whiplash between smiles and sadness with relative ease. What you'll explore here is 14 chapters of a folktale – the titular South of Midnight – which tells of a world wrought with collective trauma, manifesting as knots in the grand tapestry, and of mournful monster kings who roam the land waiting to be tamed. You'll follow this path equipped with Hooks and Spindles, the tools a Weaver can wield to channel powers bestowed upon her by the land, and a Distaff, which lets Hazel tap into echoes of the past.

"South of Midnight is a curated experience, which is a complete reaction to us having a game that was procedural before"

South of Midnight is exceptionally smooth in motion. The game runs at a stable 60fps on Xbox Series X as Hazel gracefully double-jumps between platforms and glides over hazards, oversized brambles and toxic waters. The stop-motion animation effect applied to all of the foliage and fauna in the world is actually a clever visual trick, where Compulsion uses a concoction of "tech, art, and visual effects to emulate this consistent, handcrafted stop-motion feeling in the world," says Clayton.

Compulsion tells me that the studio stopped short of applying this stop-motion effect to the entire gameplay experience because the style is not only "polarizing" but can induce nausea in some players prone to motion sickness. Clayton says: "We wanted to make something that felt nice to play whilst still maintaining a distinctive style." Roy adds that "the stop-motion effect is on by default, because we consider it to be the ideal way to experience the game, but there are accessibility options to turn it off if you want or need to."

The roots of this pain run deep

There's a pattern to the way South of Midnight plays. The hopes of a reunion between mother and daughter propulse the narrative forward, but each chapter sees Hazel attempt to bring some peace to the land. "Players move from these moments of contemplative exploration, traversing the world and discovering little points of interaction to build up the lore of the space naturally, and then they get trapped in these areas with evil spirits that haunt the place," says Roy.

Haints, angry creatures born of pain and stigma, make quick work of your health if you aren't able to successfully control the baying crowd. Combat is fluid, Hazel able to execute a five-strike combo and a charged-attack from range. You do, however, have limited options in the defense department. "The system is centred around dodging," Roy continues. "This was a conscious decision, even from our early prototypes; we wanted Hazel to be an agile character." Enemies are quick to press any advantage, so timing a precision dodge to unleash a shockwave Strand Blast is key, as is swinging the camera around to track surrounding spirits.

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When that isn't enough, there are powerful spells at your disposal. Weave immobilises enemies, causing them to take increased damage for a short time; Strand Push repels enemies and disrupts attacks; and Strand Pull yanks smaller Haints towards you, or allows you to quickly close the gap with larger ones. "Spells are really powerful and using them is important," says Roy. "We didn't want you to spend too much time without them, but we also wanted to give players a resource to manage."

That's where Unravel comes into play. There's a brief window of opportunity to 'Unravel' a defeated enemy – reeling in the spirit's energy with spellbinding hostility, echoing a system seen in the 2007 PS3 exclusive Folklore. This action not only replenishes a fraction of your health (one of the only ways to do so) but kickstarts spell cooldowns, giving encounters this frantic push and pull. Roy tells me that this system was not present in earlier prototypes, although the team quickly fell in love with the dynamic it lends to combat. "We thought it was really enjoyable, so we just followed the fun at that point," he says. "There's a few upgrades that you can get later down the road that let you interact with Unravel as well."

"It's important to understand that South of Midnight is not an RPG, it's an action game"

Compulsion wants to be clear on this point: "South of Midnight is not an RPG, it's an action game." The upgrade path is minimal, with a nine-slot tree for combat abilities and twelve-slots for spell upgrades – unlocked by collecting 'Floofs'. That's the in-game currency; so named because Hazel has no other word for what she's seeing or experiencing, and earned primarily through leaving the critical path to go exploring the wilds of the world, a reward for completing light traversal puzzles.

"You're not necessarily going to see a linear climb on your damage output," Roy continues, "because the upgrades are really about adding new functionality to your spells and abilities." Strand Pull, for example, can be upgraded to unleash a timed Tethered Strand attack once an enemy is pulled within range, while Aerial Rend adds a ground slam attack to Hazel's arsenal.

There is some risk that South of Midnight's combat could become a little repetitive over time. It's fun, but I get the sense that it may lack the depth and dynamism necessary to avoid falling into routines. Still, Hazel will gain access to a fourth and final spell by the time you reach Chapter 6 – Crouton, an old rag doll that Hazel is able to control and reach new areas within the environment. Roy adds: "In combat, the puppet becomes the puppeteer, turning one of the Haints on your side."

How to overcome your demons

Once certain battles conclude, you'll encounter an Echo Knot. Unravelling these concentrated centres of trauma reveal a painful memory tied to the area, along with a pattern piece. This is how South of Midnight handles its narrative arc, through small vignettes that gradually help Hazel understand her purpose in each of the places she travels. Collect enough pieces of a pattern, trapping the painful memories within special blue bottles, and you'll be able to face the Monster Kings – "folkloric, mythical creatures that are the centerpiece to that particular biome," says Clayton.

"Some of them are going to be more confrontational – boss fights," adds Roy, speaking to two encounters with two mythical creatures glimpsed in South of Midnight trailers; Two-Toed Tom (a gigantic alligator) and Huggin' Molly (an equally gigantic spider), each based on real southern American folklore. "Others will focus on traversal." Lanier adds: "What connects them is that they each have their own haunted backstory. The gameplay loop is discovering why a creature is the way that it is, and then using that information to acquire a pattern and untangle them at the end of certain chapters."

"When you learn something about these creatures you get to listen to a part of their song, and through it you'll start to understand their trauma"

What stuck with me since my time with South of Midnight is how connected all of these elements feel, with the experience of tapping into echoes of the past and collected pieces of these magical patterns so naturally woven together with both the visual design of the environment and the soundscape which envelops it. This is undoubtedly one of the most impressive aspects of the game.

"When you learn something about these creatures you get to listen to a part of their song, and through it you'll start to understand their trauma," says audio director Chris Fox. "And once you reach the final encounter, whatever that should look like, you get the full picture – to hear the full song about their life and story." And let me tell you, it's a delightful flourish.

The future is what you make it

South of Midnight is, in essence, the exact sort of experience Microsoft Gaming needs right now. After a generation cycle that's been largely defined by its fits and starts, the Xbox Series X is about to receive an adventure that is quite unlike any other – a big idea that's being delivered with bold, fearless execution. While my concerns of repetitious activity do remain, particularly with respect to the power of that core narrative loop and the scale of combat encounters over time, there is every chance that Compulsion will rise to meet the moment here with its first Xbox exclusive since the acquisition.

After five years of development, South of Midnight is content locked – the studio focused entirely on polishing the game ahead of its release on April 8, 2025. It's enough to put studio founder in Guillaume Provost in a reflective mood. "One of the reasons I was drawn to South of Midnight as a concept is that the setting isn't one that you typically see in video games."

"That has always been a priority for the studio. Whether it's from a mechanical, story, or a setting standpoint, we want to create video games that have a distinct voice, and that people can see it, and recognise it for what it is immediately. This team is hungry for making things that spell out our love for the craft," says Provost. "I feel confident about where we are with South of Midnight, and I can't wait to get it out into the world."