South of Midnight Hands-on: A Gorgeous, Pull-No-Punches Fairytale

At first blush, South of Midnight could be described as a classic action-adventure: a heroine thrust from ordinary life into a remarkable journey; magical weapons and abilities; ability skill trees. But spend just a few minutes with it, and that feeling simply floats away. We’ve never seen a gaming world quite like this. In playing through its full third chapter, it’s a revelation that strikes again and again – this setting, this story, these ideas, even the music are something brand new, all underpinned by challenging combat and blissful exploration along the way.

The preview begins as our hero, Hazel, has already set off to find her mother, who’s been swept away by a flood. Before we step into her sneakers, she’s discovered she’s a Weaver, able to wield an ancient form of magic that allows her to fight and explore by pulling on the once-invisible threads holding reality together. But around her, that reality seems to be warping. We step into a Deep South-inspired countryside that Hazel doesn’t recognize – and that is, in places, actively hostile to her.

Catch up on the story of South of Midnight.

Trailers have showed us a lot of the world and story of South of Midnight, but getting your hands on it reveals the tight, action-focused game simmering underneath. As you travel the world, you’ll see shimmering spheres of energy, refracting light like an oil-slicked puddle. Entering one will see you facing off against Haints, creatures from real Southern folklore. These creatures come in various forms – some rush you, pulling off melee flurries, others flee for ranged attacks, while some simply pump out grotesque insects to harry you. It quickly becomes an element of strategy to work out which Haint needs to be taken down first in any given situation.

South of Midnight doesn’t pull its punches here. Combat is tricky, often pitting you against multiple Haints at once, each able to lop off chunks of your health-bar in a single hit. It transforms into a lean, fast action game in these moments – you’ll flit around shimmering arenas switching up your attacks to cope. Melee combos are the obvious fixtures, able to take down enemies quickest, but leaving you open to follow-ups. You’ll also have magic at your disposal; enemies can be pushed and pulled (you can even fling smaller enemies as an ersatz weapon), or tied down with magical strands.

Upgrades allow you to specialize further – I quickly opted for a passive ability that made tied enemies take more damage, allowing me to neutralize and take down major threats quickly. Aggression is key here – even a perfect dodge becomes an attack, setting off a blast of weaving magic where you once stood. It’s a great first impression – there’s more ticking away under the surface of combat than you might expect.

And none of this is to speak to how it moves. Each character has been built to mimic the looks of hand-crafted stop-motion maquettes – in cutscenes, they take on a gorgeous, almost uncanny movement style that echoes the animation classics it draws from. When you take control, however, it’s beautifully smooth, each of your actions reacting to your button presses immediately, never losing the immediacy of an action game. The added art is in how smoothly Compulsion transitions between the two.

Then there’s the world around those characters. Islands jut out of mangrove swamps, abandoned shacks and tumbledown walkways failing to withstand nature’s chokehold around them. Huge tangles of thorns block your path, and giant peaches bob, gently rotting in the water. Reach higher ground, and you’ll find that, despite the traversable spaces being compact knots of smart level design, the world you can see extends far beyond what you can actually touch, offering a sense of huge scale to your travels. It’s a thrillingly unfamiliar location for a game, all pulled together by incredible lighting, a low sun casting soupy beams through the knotted treeline and low-hanging mist enveloping you.

Getting around this world is a matter of using your Weaving powers (all your combat magic can be used in exploration, too) – conjuring remnants of the past back into existence to help you platform around, gliding across the flooded landscape, and using your powers to push and pull the world around you to uncover paths to hidden details. There’s a specific path to follow (which you can be guided along with a click of the right stick), but nooks and crannies hold upgrade materials for your abilities, not to mention narrative-widening notes. Understanding your powers, and the clues given by the world around you, will see you spending just as much time off the beaten path as on it.

Once you’ve decided to follow the golden path, however, you meet Catfish, the game’s combined narrator/companion character, who’s currently trapped in the clutches of a humanoid tree – the mission he gives you works on something like dream logic. To secure his release, you need to collect a magic bottle from a bottle tree (you can see one on the game’s logo), and use it to absorb the latent psychic pain that’s twisting the tree, and the area around it.

While this may sound a bit whimsical, the trauma you’re trying to heal is quickly revealed to be spectacularly dark – without spoiling anything, you’ll slowly learn the story of how this part of the world has transformed a regular man into a horizon-blocking tree through a (tragically shortened) lifetime of torment.

It’s another facet of South of Midnight that feels refreshingly new – just like the combat, this story doesn’t hold back. Hazel isn’t afraid to swear (let’s face it, you would too if you were in her situation), and the stories she uncovers are far from the fairytales we’re used to. Compulsion Games has always called this a Southern Gothic tale, and that’s incredibly evident – the tales it tells can be truly bleak, and there’s no flinching from the horror that’s suffused this world. Hazel’s role as a Weaver is to mend what’s broken – and this world is very broken.

But South of Midnight has more surprises in store. Just as you feel you have a handle on the flow of combat and exploration, the preview enters its final stages by turning the tables on you – something unkillable begins to chase you, and combat quickly turns to escape. In a thrilling sequence, the gentle platforming you’ve been doing suddenly becomes a survival method, asking you to string together jumps, glides, and wall runs to get back to safety. South of Midnight is willing to shift things on a dime, changing the form of the game you’re playing under your feet.

The preview’s standout final sequence does this all over again. We already knew that every major area in the game will feature a Mythical Creature – gigantic obstacles drawn from real folklore, standing in Hazel’s way. But here, we realize that not all of the Mythical Creatures will end with the expected boss battle. You’re ultimately a healer, not a destroyer, and in this case, that giant tree you’re aiming to cure isn’t a threat – it’s just hurt. The climax of this level sees you scaling your way up, offering an incredible view of everywhere you’ve just journeyed, not to kill your target, but heal its wound.

As you take on this platforming challenge, the game’s music reflects your ascent. Throughout the level, you’ll have heard snatches of a song float like mist across the soundtrack, but as you climb, that song comes to life, telling the tale you’ve pieced together, offering more information for every bough you reach. It’s a marriage of gameplay, story, and music in a single moment – there’s nothing quite like it.

And that goes for this game as a whole – a single level reveals how Compulsion Games has created something truly unique. If there’s so much that feels new, this early in the game, that only makes its mysteries further down the line all the more compelling.

South of Midnight will be available on April 8, 2025, on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox App for Windows PC, Steam and cloud, and arrives on day one with Game Pass. If you want to immerse yourself into the macabre and fantastical world of South of Midnight early, get the Premium Edition to play up to 5 days early, and get access to digital extras.

South of Midnight Premium Edition

Xbox Game Studios

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$49.99

Immerse yourself into the macabre and fantastical world of South of Midnight with the Premium Edition, which includes the full game, up to 5 days early access, and digital access (in English) to:
• South of Midnight Artbook
• Original Soundtrack composed by Olivier Deriviere
• The Boo-Hag Comic book by Rob Guillory
• Music Video: Songs & Tales of South of Midnight
• Documentary: Weaving Hazel’s Journey, Director’s Cut

UNRAVEL THE PAST
From the creators of Contrast and We Happy Few, South of Midnight is a spellbinding third person action-adventure game set in the American Deep South.

As Hazel, you will explore the mythos and encounter creatures of Southern folklore in a macabre and fantastical world. When disaster strikes her hometown, Hazel is called to become a Weaver: a magical mender of broken bonds and spirits. Imbued with these new abilities, Hazel will confront and subdue dangerous creatures, untangle the webs of her own family’s shared past and – if she’s lucky – find her way to a place that feels like home.

A DARK MODERN FOLKTALE
When a hurricane rips through Prospero, Hazel is pulled into a Southern Gothic world of memory made real and must embark on a journey to rescue her mother and safeguard her hometown. In this folktale for modern times, Hazel will need to reconcile the weight of family, history, and legacy against her own identity.

CONFRONT MYTHICAL CREATURES
Wield an ancient power to restore creatures and uncover the traumas that consume them. Cast weaving magic to fight destructive Haints, explore the diverse regions of the South, and reweave the tears in the Grand Tapestry.

HAUNTING BEAUTY OF THE GOTHIC SOUTH
Discover the lush, decayed county of Prospero and its locals. Experience a crafted visual style, touching storytelling, and immersive music inspired by the complex and rich history of the South.