South of Midnight Preview: 5 Things We Learned After Playing a Demo of the Game

South of Midnight has become an unlikely standout in a year full of major new game releases. Developed by Compulsion Games, the studio behind 2016’s We Happy Few, South of Midnight quickly garnered quite a bit of attention for its distinct visual style, unique Deep South fantasy setting, and Xbox-exclusive status at a time when such things are as rare as ancient talking catfish. 

We recently got the chance to go hands-on with a brief, 90-minute demo of South of Midnight set early in the game. The demo confirmed that the action-adventure title has real potential but it also raised a few concerns about what is actually supporting all that style. Here are five things we learned during our short trip to South of Midnight. 

South of Midnight’s Story Is an Early Highlight 

South of Midnight follows a young woman named Hazel who suddenly finds herself in a fantastical world where many Deep South folklore fairytales have come to life. As she searches for her lost mother, she discovers that she possesses the power of a Weaver, a magical-wielder who can use incredible abilities to help mend a broken world. 

Much of South of Midnight’s marketing so far has centered on its story and setting, and a relatively quick romp through the game’s third chapter reveals why. South of Midnight’s Deep South fairytale premise is as unique as it is compelling. It’s rare to find a piece of media that emphasizes that specific aesthetic, much less bases many of its characters, lore, and world concepts on actual pieces of regional folklore. 

More than a history lesson, South of Midnight fully embraces the style of that region. In one of the demo’s best moments, the soundtrack swelled with the sounds of a softly plucked guitar and a ballad about the fairy tale that Hazel had slowly unraveled through the demo. Set against the visual fallout of that fable (which we won’t spoil here), that sequence was a glorious celebration of the sounds, stories, and sights that clearly drew developer Compulsion Games to this world in the first place. It really puts the “folk” in folktale. 

While a few awkward pieces of dialogue and awkwardly implemented plot points (at least in the context of the demo) raise questions about how South of Midnight will handle some of the more complex material associated with its protagonist and this region, the heart of the experience seems to be in the right place. This team has taken on a tall task that requires a lot of thematic juggling, but the world they’re building has so much potential. 

South of Midnight’s Stop-Motion Visuals Are Striking But Inconsistent

At a glance, South of Midnight’s stop-motion-like animation style seems to be one of its defining features. That style has been heavily featured in much of the game’s promotional material so far, which may lead you to think that the full experience is built around that animation technique. 

The truth is a bit more complicated. That jittery stop-motion style is largely limited to the game’s cutscenes. There are traces of it in the actual gameplay, though its use in more active scenarios sometimes gives the false impression that the game is glitching or suffering through framerate drops. Then again, this is an early version of the game, so we may be seeing a bit of both. 

In any case, those more distinctive stop-motion visual elements felt somewhat downplayed in this preview. Perhaps they were toned down from what we saw in the trailers for practical purposes, but they didn’t stand out quite as much as we expected. They’re novel enough when paired with the greater novelty of the setting, though it will be interesting to see if the full game finds more ways to utilize them. Without more of that hook, South of Midnight’s base visuals don’t always support the creativity of its best design concepts. 

South of Midnight’s Gameplay Offers a Largely Linear Blend of Acrobatics, Combat, and Collecting

It turns out the one South of Midnight gameplay preview we’ve seen so far offered a fairly comprehensive view of the final experience (or at least as much as we played of the game in this preview). South of Midnight puts you on a fairly linear path filled with plot beats, designated combat zones, and the occasional collectible. 

The very early section of the game we played revolved around Hazel learning various traversal abilities from spirits (memories of a kind, perhaps) she meets along that path. Said abilities largely consisted of the usual suspects (double jump, wall-running, and gliding enthusiasts will not be left wanting), though it’s easy to imagine these abilities joining forces to form more engaging sequences later on when you’re past this soft tutorial phase. 

Whether you see South of Midnight’s core gameplay as charming or limited is going to depend entirely on your mood and preferences. In theory, it’s a nice deviation from the sometimes bloated world of modern triple-A gaming. If you want to think about South of Midnight as a 2D, SNES-style platforming game with more advanced 3D movement mechanics, then you’ll find it easy to appreciate what it’s trying to do. There is a cozy charm to the experience that is inviting yet exciting, thanks to the draw of the game’s narrative and world. 

Otherwise, there’s a real risk that South of Midnight’s core gameplay will leave you wanting. Even as we began to gel with the game’s core concepts, we were left wishing it would offer something slightly more substantial off the beaten path than the occasional upgrade material or discoverable lore enhancer. The full game could certainly prove to be more substantial, though this slice of that experience felt slightly underwhelming.

South of Midnight Combat Is the Weakest Part of the Game So Far

South of Midnight’s combat occurs in designated arena-like areas you’re seemingly forced to wander through. In those arenas, you’ll encounter a variety of foes that can often be beaten through the simple and familiar strategy of locking onto them, dodging their telegraphed strikes, and pummeling them with your basic attacks and upgradeable special abilities. 

South of Midnight’s combat is the weakest part of the game so far. The fact that it occurs in designated combat zones that are often easy to spot from a distance (at least based on what we’ve seen), eliminates any element of surprise those encounters may offer. Worse, it often makes combat feel fundamentally superfluous. 

In theory, the game’s combat could be improved by more diverse enemies and the skills you will eventually unlock/upgrade, but we’re not convinced that will be the case. The fights against the handful of enemies we encountered in the demo were made even easier by the handful of abilities we unlocked. Spamming a simple jumping attack was enough to get through most fights without any trouble. Unless later enemies demand more elaborate strategies, it’s difficult to see how more advanced abilities will do anything more than offer the occasional way to spice things up against foes who are baffled and miffed by a jumping teenager still reeling from an encounter with a mystical catfish. 

It seems clear that South of Midnight’s developers are far more interested in the game’s platforming, style, and story than its combat. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we’re left wondering if the things we could have gotten in place of a combat system would have ultimately felt more substantial than these battles that feel practically apologetic. 

South of Midnight Feels Like a Lost Ubisoft Game From the 2000s

Reflecting back on this South of Midnight demo, it sort of feels like a Ubisoft title from the mid-2000s. That’s partially because of the Prince of Persia-like movement system and Beyond Good and Evil-esque narrative-driven environment, but it speaks to the title’s commitment to delivering a certain kind of action-adventure experience wrapped in an intriguing stylistic package. It feels like the kind of game we used to get a lot more of when there was a slightly healthier middle class for what we might now call double-A experiences. 

But you’re not imagining a touch of concern in that statement. South of Midnight has quaint charms worthy of the people that inhabit its fantastical world. It’s just not clear if those charms are going to be enough to compensate for the game’s relative simplicity and fundamentally limited nature (assuming it doesn’t grow to offer something a bit deeper, of course). The best parts of South of Midnight would be the best parts of an incredible Don Bluth movie with a similar premise, but it’s less clear how South of Midnight will distinguish itself as a game in the long run. 

South of Midnight is out on April 8 for Xbox Series X/S and PC.

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