The creators of We Happy Few return with one of the best looking games of the year, featuring some stunning stop motion animation.
Microsoft has bought a lot of developers over the last decade or so but perhaps the most inexplicable purchase is little known Canadian studio Compulsion Games. Up until now their only games have been the relatively ambitious, but intrinsically flawed, Contrast and We Happy Few, and it’s never been clear why Microsoft became interested in them.
Perhaps they, like everyone else, was swayed by the intriguing but highly misleading teaser trailer for We Happy Few, but Compulsion is definitely the odd one out in the Xbox Games Studios line-up, since they’ve never had a critical or commerical hit. And yet somehow it’s Tango Gameworks that got shut down.
South Of Midnight is the best thing they’ve ever done, but not by much, and the end result feels outdated and generic, despite the attractive art design. In fact, we’re beginning to think Compulsion would be better off making animated movies rather than video games.
You probably know South Of Midnight best as the game with the stop motion style animation, that’s been featured in the last few Xbox showcases. However, in a We Happy Few style bait and switch, it’s only the cut scenes that are animated that way.
The characters look the same during gameplay, but they’re animated essentially normally, with only a faint attempt at mimicking the stop motion style in things like idle animations and the larger boss characters.
Perhaps Compulsion found that style of animation was too distracting during gameplay, or it was technically too demanding, but either way that immediately scrubs out one of the key selling points before the game has even begun.
The art style is still attractive, no matter how it’s animated, with characters having been made as physical models before being scanned in for use in the game, but the other main draw is the story and setting. You play as Hazel whose house, in the Deep South of the US, is destroyed during a storm, taking her mother with it, in a twist on the Wizard of Oz.
Hazel subsequently learns that she comes from a long line of Weavers, who have a variety of magical abilities, that range from being able to see ghosts and other supernatural creatures to having the means to fight monsters. Hazel is a likeable protagonist, but the core of the story is very predictable, even if the majority of playtime is spent helping various troubled spirits and discovering the root cause of supernatural incursions – which is inevitably some sort of horrific personal trauma.
They may be flawed but the story and visuals are the best thing about the game, with everything else being considerably less ambitious. South Of Midnight is primarily a 3D platformer, faintly reminiscent of something like Prince Of Persia. It’s slow-paced, and constantly interrupted by combat, story snippets, and perfunctory puzzles but there’s lots of jumping onto tree branches and wall-running to get from A to B.
Early on, you get the ability to glide on a magical parachute – which helps to compensate for an inherent lack of precision in the controls – and you can also employ your Weaver powers to do things like turning ghostly platforms into physical objects for a few seconds. It’s nothing you’d accuse of being original, but the platforming is competent enough.
The combat is not though. It feels very separate from the rest of the game, usually only occurring in small sectioned off areas, and basically involves nothing but bog standard melee combat – in what feels like an unwanted relic from the PlayStation 2 era. You fight indistinct looking supernatural creatures called Haints, none of which ever do anything surprising and whose visual design is disappointingly bland compared to the rest of the game.
There are additional abilities that can be used and unlocked – with the power to freeze enemies for a few moments, shoot magic blasts, ground pound, and the like – but Hazel’s skill tree is disappointingly short. Everything to do with the combat is very unimaginative and the extremely basic enemy artificial intelligence means it quickly becomes a slog – especially as the difficultly level is set surprisingly high by default, which is strange as the platforming is generally far too easy.
The boss battles look great, with far more memorable character designs than the regular Haints, but they’re no more fun to fight, especially as their encounters always go on for far too long.
We’re sure it’d be possible to turn South Of Midnight into an entertaining animated movie, but even then you’d be watching it for the visuals and not the story.
Beyond how it looks, this is a deeply uninteresting game, that feels several generations behind in terms of game design. It’s incapable of properly leveraging its story and setting and even at around 10 hours feels far too long. You don’t have to pay anything extra to try it out on Game Pass but the game struggles to justify any investment in time, let alone money.
South Of Midnight review summary
In Short: An extremely workmanlike throwback to early generations of platform adventure, that completely wastes its interesting setting and gorgeous visual design.
Pros: The art design is fantastic and the stop motion cut scenes are far more engaging than the gameplay. Unusual setting had potential.
Cons: Very old-fashioned and unimaginative in terms of game design, with especially dull combat. The story is predictable and the stop motion effect inconsistent. Uneven difficulty and pacing.
Score: 5/10
Formats: Xbox Series X/S* and PC
Price: £39.99
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Developer: Compulsion Games
Release Date: 8th April 2025
Age Rating: 18
*available on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass from day one
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