Many games are set in America, but few truly feel American. And I don’t mean that most games lack patriotism or red, white, and blue banners. I mean that, while they may use the country’s landmarks, stars, and cities, and even make reference to its politics, they don’t truly engage with American culture. South of Midnight, a new Xbox action-platformer out now, is different.
Developed by Compulsion Games, South of Midnight incorporates American culture, myths, and stories from the South in a way very few games have before. Not all of it is pretty. A lot of it is sad and painful. That’s just the reality of American history. South of Midnight doesn’t shy away from any of that. Instead, it spotlights race, slavery, poverty, generational trauma, and death. Because of its rich, complex, often painful history, the South has developed a unique, beautiful folkloric tapestry of tall tales, heroes, and monsters. And South of Midnight literally lets you weave and unweave this tapestry via a 12-13 hour single-player adventure through its mystical but grounded spin on the American South.
In South of Midnight, you play as a young Black woman named Hazel Flood. She’s a talented athlete who has a mother consumed with helping abused kids. While this causes some drama between the two, she still cares greatly for her mother. So when a hurricane washes their trailer away down the river, Hazel chases after it and finds herself in a strange and magical version of the South, complete with nasty ghost monsters called haints, who linger in our world after someone has suffered greatly.
Thankfully, very early on in the game, you discover that Hazel is special. She’s a Weaver, a person who can see the threads of reality and can weave space and time using magical artifacts like sewing needles. The last Weaver to exist was a former slave woman who helped other slaves escape their masters and find freedom. Throughout the game, Hazel learns more about her powers and her connection to the world via this woman and her journey to help a single family escape slavery.
Of course, this is a video game, so Hazel’s newfound weaving powers allow her to kick ass, double jump, and solve puzzles, too. Sadly, this is where South of Midnight unravels a bit.
The combat in the game always happens in locked-off arena-like spaces where enemies spawn for a while until you defeat them all and can “pop” a cursed bit of the world and free yourself from the encounter. You do this a lot in South of Midnight, and it gets repetitive quickly, partly because every fight feels the same and also because the combat is serviceable but not much more than that. You can dodge, you can charge some attacks, and you have a stun and some upgrades. If you’ve played a video game in the last decade, none of this will be terribly exciting or feel unique at all. It’s not bad, per se, just stale and easily the weakest part of South of Midnight.
Hazel’s Weaver abilities are more fun to use when you’re platforming and solving puzzles, and I wish there was more of that in the game and less of the 100+ arenas you have to fight through to reach the end, which is a big combat arena that left a sour taste in my mouth.
Here’s the thing, though: In the end, I don’t really care that the combat is just so-so and serviceable. That’s because everything else in this game is so good that I can overlook some boring punchy bits.
The world of South of Midnight is gorgeous. The stop-motion-like animations of characters and critters help sell the painted, hand-crafted feel of every level in the game. Each location in South of Midnight is meticulously detailed and covered in little touches—like animals off in the distance or screaming cicadas—that help immerse you in the game’s lively, stylized slice of the deep South. And it’s not all swamps.
South of Midnight’s locales are greatly varied, offering disgusting places like a town flooded with pig shit-filled water and cool forests dotted with abandoned company towns and slave quarters. And throughout your journey, incredible lighting makes every area distinct, from sun-drenched levels that feel hot and muggy to spooky swamps that feel claustrophobic and dark. I spent a lot of time in South of Midnight, stopping and taking screenshots of every level. And I expect I’m not alone.
Another key part of South of Midnight’s charm is its wonderful and very Southern music. Many levels in the game feature songs with lyrics directly related to the mythical or supernatural entity or creature you are dealing with, all of them based on real Southern folklore.
Some songs, like a twangy Dolly Parton-esque diddy about a massive gator named Two-Toed Tom, stuck with me for days after playing the game. These songs run the gamut from country to blues to jazz and feature banjos, acoustic guitars, lyrics about heaven and hell, and folk singers belting out sometimes depressing allegories about the past. It’s unlike any video game soundtrack I’ve heard this year, and it will stay with me long after I move on to other games.
South of Midnight is going to be a game that I predict some people will bounce off of after just a few hours. A big reason will be that the combat isn’t anything to write home about. And the first few levels, while gorgeous and filled with great tunes, aren’t as exciting as what follows after the game gives you more abilities, like a double jump.
But if you can push through some of those issues, what you’ll discover is a wonderful and heartfelt adventure through American history and Southern folklore that is unlike any game I’ve played. Like the South itself, South of Midnight is a messy, complicated, but often beautiful and passionate thing worth experiencing.
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