South of Midnight – Review

Alice in the Deep South

Every now and then, reality lets a little Magic surface. Like mountain spring water after a long journey through a labyrinth of stone. Like a fish piercing the mirror of a lake with its silver back.

Other times, Magic manifests completely unusually through the most ordinary events and transforms the mundane into something worth telling. Magic loves the old corners of the world, filled to the brim with emotion, drama, conflict, life, death, love, violence, darkness, and light.

There, in these knots, Magic vigorously opposes the Ordinary. If you ever find yourself nearby, know, dear reader, that you'll be south of midnight – and believe me when I tell you that you'll have a story to tell!

I went to the crossroad
Fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad
Fell down on my knees

I'm fascinated by the mystical South, stretching across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, part of Texas, and a tip of Florida. With blues, jazz, and soul food, the Deep South is the cradle of an extraordinary culture, where pagan elements, as old as humanity itself, have intertwined with unleashed, unchained Christianity. Wounded by a terrible history, marked by barbarity, racism, slavery, poverty, and hatred, this same South has managed to heal its wounds through an appeal to magic and the elegance it brings.

So, when I discovered South of Midnight, the latest title developed by Compulsion Games and destined for Xbox and Windows platforms, I didn't hesitate for long. From the very first presentation, I felt that this game spoke my language. It had everything I wanted from a solid action-adventure: a captivating story, interesting characters, a unique artistic direction, and gameplay willing to combine platforming with an innovative combat system.

Rare are the games in 2025 that make me as curious. Beyond the fact that South of Midnight is a new IP (which, by the way, I had the opportunity to play on my favourite console), Compulsion's creation conveyed to me, with every minute of presentation, that it wanted to put its heart into it. Into what? Into everything. From the animated graphics using stop-motion technique to the music. From the main character to the world in which it takes place. From the voice acting to the splendid, almost psychedelic colours. South of Midnight awakened something in me that had been dormant since Alice: Madness Returns.

When I finally started playing it, I didn't want to put down my Xbox Series S controller. For a few days, my schedule was: game-work-sleep-game-work-sleep-game. Then it ended, because this Alice in the Deep South isn't very long – and I'm glad! It's exactly as long as it needs to be, not even a little bit more. Like the perfect serving of peach cobbler. Let me explain.

Asked the Lord above, “Have mercy”
Save poor Momma, if you please
Mmm, standin’ at the crossroad
I tried to flag a ride
Standin’ at the crossroad
I tried to flag a ride

But South of Midnight is, above all, a tribute to African-American folklore from the authentic American South. It manages to be a game where the sum of its parts exceeds the whole, and which doesn't venture into the swamp of narrative without a solid moral compass. Here, there are no messages thrown out without respect for their origins, but rather impeccably sung stories. Quite simple and predictable – but that's how folklore is. The trick lies in the game's ability to weave multiple narrative threads until it reveals a complex tableau, supported on the easel of American Gothic.

The main character is Hazel, a young woman ready to start her student life, passionate about sports and born into a mixed family, with a Black mother and a white father. It's not uncommon in the game's universe, but it is certainly a decisive factor in shaping the heroine's personality. Hazel lost her father and lives modestly with Lacey, the momma she loves, but with whom she often clashes.

Life is tough in the small town of Prospero, especially when you work as a social worker – which is exactly what Lacey does to support her family. I can see why sparks fly between the two, although, from the very beginning, it feels like Hazel and Lacey have a relationship based on sincere mother-daughter love. Their arguments are outbursts, skirmishes, not battles in a larger war.

Under the threat of a powerful hurricane, their bond is tested again, and the moment Hazel sees her house swallowed by water, with Lacey trapped inside, the action in South of Midnight suddenly kicks off. Almost like a flash. With each leap Hazel makes trying to catch up, everyday reality transforms into something dark, inexplicable and, certainly – you guessed it – magical.

Didn’t nobody seem to know me?
Everybody pass me by
Mmm, the sun goin’ down, boy
Dark gon’ catch me here

If the two Alice games held a mirror to the darkest parts of the psyche, South of Midnight is about the soul and how wounds can heal. Hazel embarks on an often terrifying journey, trying to save her mother. However, sometimes it's difficult for her to distinguish friends from foes, because, in the Deep South, monsters are often “more human than human.”

In the mythology of South of Midnight, the material universe is a huge tapestry – The Grand Tapestry – and natural disasters, human-made horrors or unfortunate accidents scratch this fabric. Where the threads break, Stigma appears – literally a wound that spreads like cancer. Driven by her situation to travel deeper into long-forgotten places, Hazel discovers she is chosen to repair these ruptures and becomes a Weaver.

Endowed with a magic spinning wheel, two weaving hooks and an arsenal of special abilities, the heroine of Compulsion's creation discovers that life in the Deep South is somewhat more complicated. Bunny, her paternal grandmother, hides a huge secret; Lacey is overwhelmed by the rigidity of the system and seeks to circumvent it by less orthodox means; and she – Hazel – must repair the disaster caused by Hurricane Lulu, not only in the environment, but also in the souls of Prospero's inhabitants – present, past and future.

Girl, dark gon’ catch me here
You can run, you can run
Tell my friend Willie Catfish Brown

Throughout her journey, Hazel learns to fight against the Haints, spirits that stain the tapestry with Stigma. The enemies aren't very varied, but they attack powerfully from close or long range and can cause problems if not eliminated quickly. How? Well, with the help of the powers available to a Weaver.

In the game's mechanics, abilities are represented in a simple tree, which unlocks new hook attacks or improves existing ones. In parallel, Hazel can upgrade the "spells" she has at her disposal, for lack of a better term. There aren't many, but South of Midnight uses them exactly as it should. For example, you can "weave" a stun around a Haint, then hit it with some bonus damage chunks.

Probably the element that attracted me most to South of Midnight is the artistic direction, visually and kinetically inspired by stop-motion techniques. The characters move as if they were animated frame by frame using plasticine, and this contributes to the overall aesthetic of a dark fairy tale. In combination with gameplay that excels in precise platforming, the game becomes blues in motion, living jazz, interrupted only by arena moments.

Hazel only fights in areas clearly designated by Stigma, where she weaves enemies one by one, then unpicks the traumatic knot, puts it in Mona's bottle, and restores nature. This attracts the attention of superior malevolent forces and immediately begins a frantic race over obstacles, to the safety offered by a Bottle Tree, the tree that absorbs "bottled" sins and lies.

This mechanic might seem repetitive if the game were a Metroidvania, but South of Midnight is 100% linear. There are no areas Hazel can return to, and any collectible item, or the magical cotton used for upgrades, must be collected on the first pass. Some require a little creativity, as the puzzles are simple and rely on the heroine's parkour abilities, supplemented by her Weaver powers – Hazel can float short distances, knows how to double jump, and latches onto vertical walls with her hook. It's a good thing there's no inertia, otherwise I would have abandoned it quickly, because I'm rubbish at any platform game where the character has mass and follows the laws of physics.

Okay, what I want to say is that South of Midnight feels like a classic AAA action-adventure, where the story and gameplay are easy to follow and master, and the action immediately grabs you and doesn't let go – precisely because it's so simple, reduced to its basic elements. I was longing for a game like this; I needed something that would keep me engaged but also relax me at the same time. The lack of side quests and the absence of an open-world map are pluses in South of Midnight and always keep the main objective in focus. Step by step, you start to understand the universe, to look at Bunny, Lacey, Catfish, or Huggin’ Molly with new eyes… oops! Did I just say Catfish and Huggin’ Molly?

Born on the Bayou

The creatures in South of Midnight don't exist without music, and the music wouldn't sound as good without them. Each chapter of the game confronts Hazel with a deep trauma, part of the past of the areas she traverses. A gigantic alligator in the swamps, a boy transformed into a giant peach, the terrible Huggin’ Molly in the mountains… these kinds of creatures specific to Southern mythology, boss fights for us gamers. All of them hide secrets, and none are what they seem at first glance.

Through absolutely incredible, BUT ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE musical episodes, South of Midnight tells you exactly what you're witnessing. Music that speaks to your heart, music straight from its momma. It literally sings an American folk song about the next boss and adds new verses as you explore. It gives you another crumb of knowledge. It puts its finger on the wound. Hazel, poor thing, has to mend the fabric and repair the traumas, but for that, she needs help: Catfish and Crouton enter the stage.

Catfish is a colossal catfish. Almost as big as Burtă-Lucioasă, the catfish a friend from my home village has been trying to catch for 10 years, but which always escapes with half a fishing rod. True story. In any case, Catfish is my favourite character and a helper without whom Hazel would be completely lost, at least until she becomes a true Weaver. Cool & smooth, Catfish tells stories and does so with incredible voice acting. But what am I saying? The voice acting in South of Midnight is splendid, authentic, from the first to the last word spoken.

Without the stories and clues provided by Catfish, Hazel would struggle to understand the Great Tapestry, and everything would seem poorly put together. Just like Crouton is patched up, a rag doll who can get where Hazel can't fit, and with whose help you explore dens inhabited by bunnies and foxes, somewhat disturbed from their tea and biscuit breakfast. Yup, I adored the little excursions into the secret world of animals with Crouton, sensitive only to the thorns scattered everywhere after the hurricane.

Soul Food

The story's ending is the most intense sequence in the entire campaign, and I urge you to get there, because it's worth it! South of Midnight is a pleasant surprise and a title Xbox needed right now. Tasteful, careful with the delicate subjects it touches, and made by people who poured their hearts into their creation. Yes, at times it DANGEROUSLY risks seeming repetitive, but the changes of scenery between chapters, the dialogues with Catfish, the dynamic soundtrack, and the creative platforming are worth the time invested. It's not just a game. It's soul food.

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Played on: Xbox Series X
Release date: 03 April 2025
Developer: Compulsion Games
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios