Last week, I had the chance to play through a preview build of the upcoming South of Midnight. I’ll admit that while I thought the premise and trailers looked fantastic, Compulsion Games’ prior work left me sceptical that their gameplay mechanics could prop up to their narrative ambitions. After two runs through the game’s third chapter – presumably the first gameplay-heavy chapter with new skills and tutorials – I think they’ve finally found a good balance between gameplay and storytelling.



As with We Happy Few, South of Midnight has a distinctive aesthetic style and character-driven storytelling that’s not exactly subtle about using visual designs and accompanying music to hammer home its themes. While I’m usually not a fan of storytelling that lacks subtlety, South of Midnight benefits from the Deep South Americana folklore it draws from. It’s a region that rarely gets much representation in video games – the underappreciated Alone in the Dark (2024) being the only recent example – and it provides fertile ground for mythical creatures and real-world struggles in equal measure.

With only a few lore entries for context, the preview build felt like picking up a book halfway through, yet it still endeared me to the protagonist, Hazel, and it left me fascinated with the half-real, half-fantastical “Gothic South” world. Daughter of a troubled social worker, Hazel is travelling downriver into strange lands in pursuit of her mother and the remains of their house after a catastrophic flood. She’s recently acquired a magical distaff – a spinning tool used for storing untangled threads – and mastered traversal skills like double-jumps and glides by following the spectral memories of her “Weaver” ancestor.



Gameplaywise, South of Midnight is a third-person action-adventure that, if this preview build is representative, feels somewhat classic in design. It‘s structured as a narrated story, with discrete chapters that move you between locations, featuring mostly linear environments that might loop back on themselves but never feel too open. You shift from platforming-focussed segments, with side paths hiding collectible “floofs” used to unlock or upgrade skills, into clearly delineated arenas with combat that reminded me of Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Hazel can’t much damage, so you need to stay mobile and prioritise targets, combine the effects of your recharging Weaver abilities, “unravel” defeated foes before they rematerialize, and ultimately purge the area of “haints” – spirits bound to places of past trauma.

Hazel’s movement felt a little loose during platforming and it took a few battles to appreciate the combat flow, but the basic gameplay loop provides a solid foundation stringing together narrative beats. Befitting its folklore inspirations, South of Midnight’s strength lies in tying the supernatural to real-world struggles, with poor and isolated rural communities dealing with everything from basic human jealousy to legislated exploitation. Again, if this chapter is representative, Hazel’s journey downstream likely involves meeting new characters and literally unravelling the knots of past trauma to bring some semblance of peace to both victims and perpetrators. I just hope they’ve used advisors and display some nuance, as video games that deal with trauma and mental health always run the risk of coming off as well-intentioned but misguided.



The last element to touch on is South of Midnight’s presentation and production values. It’s another Unreal Engine 5 game but it seems to be in good shape already, targeting 60FPS on current-gen consoles and no sign of harsh framerate drops or stuttering during gameplay. Most significantly, while the lighting model feels like modern UE5 fare, it has a distinctive, hand-crafted, storybook art style and stop-motion cinematics – though this effect seemed absent during gameplay. The striking and atmospheric visuals are backed by a mix of ambient music from Olivier Derivière (Remember Me, Greedfall, A Plague Tale: Innocence/Requiem), and what I assume are vocal tracks written and performed specifically for the game to enhance key moments.

Overall, I’m a lot more positive about South of Midnight with a better understanding of the gameplay loop that stitches together the character-driven narrative. I’m already sold on the uncommon setting and folklore, the weird but likeable cast, and the excellent visuals, and great soundtrack. However, it remains to be seen if Compulsion Games can keep the pacing brisk enough, or offer enough unique gameplay set-pieces, to ensure their story doesn’t run out of steam before the end.

*Preview code provided by Xbox