Compulsion Games’ brand new action platformer for Xbox brings together tight platforming, brilliant art direction and a compelling cast for a memorable romp through a fantasy American Deep South.
SOUTH OF MIDNIGHT kicks off with a bang. A giant hurricane has swept into the southern town of Prospero, threatening to drench its residents. As the storm rages on, protagonist Hazel Flood rushes through her house, desperately packing up her belongings and fretting as she waits for her mother to return home so they can evacuate.
Events quickly escalate. Hazel’s mother is lost in the storm when a giant wave rips up their home and drags it downstream. In a rush rescue attempt, Hazel awakens to new mysterious powers, the ability to see and manipulate strands in the world. She has become a weaver. A person gifted with the ability to shape and bend the fabric of reality around her, allowing her to heal traumatic wounds inflicted on the land and people around her.
As Hazel comes into her powers, the world around her also begins to shift and change. Bottle trees spring up across the countryside, a giant catfish (with the greatest southern gentleman voice you’ll ever did hear) calls to Hazel from the river and massive peaches the size of houses dot the landscape. Hazel’s world has shifted foreverand she’ll need to quickly come to grips with her new place as the hero of this Southern Gothic tale.
South of Midnight trusts its story and world to take centre-stage, and it pays off. Quite early into her adventure, Hazel finally meets Catfish, the narrator of the tale we’re playing. He has been grabbed up by a gigantic tree that has warped and twisted into the shape of a giant man. To rescue Catfish, Hazel will need to scale the giant tree - and along the way, learn the story of two brothers, Benjy & Rhubarb.
You see, the big warped tree is not just a massive plant, it’s the spiritual remains of poor young Benjy, who was trapped by brother Rhubarb in the hollow of a cypress tree which was boarded and nailed up. Benjy’s spirit has lived on in the land, warping and twisting it with the trauma and pain of his loss and sadness. Poor Rhubarb too has become a shadow of a man, twisted and raving when Hazel stumbles across him.
As Hazel scales Benjy, the game’s soundtrack shifts to a dark country ballad complete with fiddle, acoustic guitar and a haunting choir. It’s all very early 2000s Saddle Creek stuff, but it works. The centerpiece of the song - a lone, gravely male vocal sings out the tale of Benjy and his brother.
"He was my brother / Benjy was his name / He saw things different / He was my shame / And I said goodbye / I said farewell / I took my hammer / My ticket to hell"
Ohh boy does it hit - it’s some goosebumps inducing stuff. Hazel’s climb up poor Benjy's branches in a quest to free him of his pain will be a moment I won’t soon forget. It’s also the core thesis of South of Midnight’s story.
This is a world about pain, trauma and loss. Hazel’s quest has her following the footsteps of an intrepid former weaver who freed slaves across her own underground network of escape tunnels.
She meets mystical creatures - all who have been hurt or damaged by the world around them and offers them the ability to move on from what hurt them most.
It’s here that South of Midnight begins to remind me of Xbox Game Studios’ other platforming masterpiece, Psychonauts 2.
Like Double Fine’s adventure, SoM dives into the complex inner world of its protagonists with creative enthusiasm. But where Psychonauts found humor, South of Midnight instead leans into the capital G Gothic of its southern setting. These are tales about people impacted by the slave trade, by abusive parents or the loss of a loved one. Crocodiles guzzle up people, flood water reclaims city streets and even Hazel’s own relationship with her mother and her estranged rich, white Grandmother comes into focus.
This focus on the interiority of its characters also manifests itself in the game’s superb level design. Benjy’s twisted tree limbs turn into a daring platforming sequence, the exploration of an abandoned town that’s been turned into a museum by its one sole resident tells the tale of how an entire town’s children were mysteriously abducted.
Exploration however is pretty limited; most levels are linear paths littered with platforming challenges, a couple of forks in the road to allow for collectible hunting (in this case, spindles of interdimensional yarn called ‘floofs’ that can be used to upgrade Hazel’s skilltree of weaver powers for combat) and the inevitable (and occasionally dreadful) combat areas.
Combat takes place in circular arenas and involves fighting multiple waves of enemies that can quickly overwhelm you with their speed. The average battle sequence is not super memorable, but it is fun, snappy and tight to control, with combat rewarding skillful perfect dodging and parrying mechanics.
A slow drip feed of new abilities and more annoying enemies every few chapters helps keep combat from going stale and the very showy boss fight battles make the most of this system. It’s fine. It’s not the highlight of the game and sometimes the camera gets stuck in infuriating spots (honestly, shit), but it doesn’t sour the experience.
What will stay with me most is how South Of Midnight explores its themes of trauma and forgiveness. Those who have been hurt most are offered respite. This damage can’t be reversed, but Hazel can help people move on. Benjy is allowed the peace to be free of the pain his brother inflicted upon him.
What Hazel doesn’t offer is forgiveness for those who commit their crimes. This is not a game that forgives perpetrators of violence or those who commit intergenerational trauma. There is no happy ending for Rhubarb. He’ll remain twisted, wasting away in sadness and shame, forever remembering the day he picked up that hammer and signed his ticket to hell.
A copy of SOUTH OF MIDNIGHT on PC was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.
