South of Midnight Is The Magical Action-Adventure Xbox Badly Needs
There’s a solid foundation under the jaw-dropping aesthetic.
South Of Midnight has had an air of mystery to it ever since its reveal two years ago. It’s a game set in a fantastical version of the American South that adds a modern twist to the Southern Gothic genre, and, like Compulsion Games’ previous titles, 2018’s We Happy Few and 2013’s Contrast, it looks like nothing else in the medium.
Publisher Xbox Game Studios has shown off the game’s gorgeous, claymation aesthetic a few times, but the question of how it actually plays remained. After spending two hours with the game, I’m pleased to report it handles as well as it looks. While it's not doing anything groundbreaking, South Of Midnight’s reliable mechanics and compelling story make it the kind of can’t-miss single-player adventure the Xbox catalog needs more of.
Our hands-on demo started during the game’s third chapter, set deep in the swamps of a fictional southern state. The heroine, Hazel, is following Catfish, a Kaiju-sized fish with a Cajun accent guiding her in her hunt for her missing mom in the wake of a hurricane that’s left the landscape full of hazards.
South Of Midnight’s platforming looks and feels great.
Navigating the stricken landscape is one of two main focal points, as Hazel uses magical powers to jump between rooftops, scale rocky cliffs, and avoid toxic waters. South Of Midnight is a platformer at heart, and Hazel’s double jump, wall run, and magic paraglider all feel great to control.
Levels are large enough to contain some optional challenges off the beaten path, where methodical players will find plenty of puzzles familiar to the genre. You’ll move large objects to create platforms that let you reach switches and hidden collectibles, and some of these challenges will test your mind enough to tack some extra hours onto the game’s estimated 10 to 12-hour runtime.
Quality-of-life features, like being able to highlight the critical path, keep you from getting too lost when you veer off to explore the game’s gorgeous environments. And that claymation style goes beyond the game’s colorful cast; from looking out at the sun setting on the horizon to more intimate moments inside abandoned homes, everything from houses and trees to your enemies look handcrafted.
South of Midnight certainly looks distinct.
“It takes more time to make stuff because you have to put more thought into the artistry of things,” Art Director Whitney Clayton told Inverse. “Nothing in this world is a one-to-one with a real-life object. It’s what gives it that personality. And when you add everything together, it gives the whole thing a nice soul to it. But it is more labor to do that treatment.”
To translate that claymation style, movement was just as important as looks. Nailing how objects and characters took a lot of “tweaking of dials,” Clayton said.
“We cranked the stop motion treatment on animals up farther, which helped sell that claymation impression on the world. We could tweak it way down during combat so fighting feels good. Hazel’s animations are kind of in the middle. Each bit had to have a custom treatment to give you the style we were going for.”
That brings us to the combat, where fighting corrupted enemies called Haints left less of an impression on me. Hazel has access to an attack, a dodge, a tether for pulling in enemies, and a handful of strong special attacks tied to hotkeys. The enemy variety seemed decent, with lumbering heavies, fast-moving foes with frenetic attacks, and stationary projectile shooters.
The sound design during encounters is strong too. Hits land with a satisfying thunk, enemies wail with an eerie echo when felled, and the music is fantastic. Actually getting through these sections, however, took some getting used to, as South of Midnight proved surprisingly challenging. By the end of my demo, I felt like I just barely grasped enemy patterns and how to switch between fighting styles on the fly (although it’s also worth noting that Hazel will almost certainly unlock more abilities in later chapters to help even the odds).
One part of combat, however, doesn’t really work. When you manage to whittle down an enemy's life bar to zero, Hazel must pull their essence from their bodies with a button press, putting them down for good and restoring a portion of her life in the process. That’s fine, but defeated enemies are always propelled away from Hazel after the final hit, requiring you to walk a few feet to finish the job.
Hazel has access to a collection of potent special attacks.
When you’re low on health and surrounded by enemies (as you often are in South of Midnight’s closed-off combat arenas), this simple but mandatory process can mean your demise. The demo’s combat left me wishing I could finish off defeated enemies without the extra step of trudging over to them, and while this may sound like a nitpick, it’s an annoyance that cost me precious life points and even ended my game.
Despite these gripes, South Of Midnight left me wanting to play more. Its movement was a blast to experiment with, and combat was a nice way to break up the game’s emphasis on exploration. Both elements support a gripping odyssey into a setting few games have ventured into. Learning about the myths and legends of the American South while meeting compelling (and gorgeously detailed) characters was its own reward, one that kept me pushing forward with a smile on my face.
Among the collection of action-packed shooters, bloody brawlers, and gripping RPGs slated for Xbox this year, South Of Midnight is the perfect, narrative-focused adventure game to round out the platform’s 2025 lineup. I can’t wait to play it in full come April.
