Best Skills In South of Midnight To Get First

Soon after you start South of Midnight, Upgrades become available once you have acquired the Objects of Station (the Weaver’s Hooks) and your first set of Spells. There are a lot of South of Midnight skills that players can acquire in exchange for Floofs, a collectible blue currency that is used to purchase Upgrades.

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There are a total of 21 skills in South of Midnight, most of which become available as you purchase prerequisite upgrades earlier in each of the four Upgrade trees. Though some aren’t worth picking up early, or aren’t available until deep in the game, the best South of Midnight skills to get early can be acquired by the mid-point of the game – provided you have the Floofs, that is.

Aerial Rend

Slam Attack That Interrupts Enemies

While in the air, press X to slam the ground, damaging nearby enemies.

Aerial Rend is one of the first skills South of Midnight players can get, and it’s a very important one in terms of optimizing the flow of combat. Aerial Rend lets Hazel jump up and slam down to deal a chunk of damage in the immediate blast area, but more importantly, this attack can interrupt enemies.

Use this ability to prevent Haints from being able to hit you with their most powerful moves, but keep in mind, it only works on normal attacks, not unblockable yellow attacks or certain South of Midnight bosses’ moves.

Aerial Rend can be found in the General Upgrade tree, but you must unlock Rending Step first.

Amplified Rend

Rend Becomes Wider & Deals More Damage

Amplified Attack can be charged further, inflicting increased damage over a larger area of effect.

You will unlock the ability to charge up your normal Hook attack after picking up the Objects of Station, but without Amplified Rend, its damage and charge time aren’t worth using in the heat of combat. This upgrade almost doubles the area and damage of this long-range charge attack, and barely increases the amount of time it takes to charge fully.

This upgrade is required to get the ‘Going the Distance’ achievement, which requires Hazel to unravel Haints after defeating them with the Amplified Rend skill.

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Amplified Rend can be found in the General Upgrade tree, but you must unlock Rending Step and Amplified Rend first.

Crouton Detonation & Crouton Surge

Upgrade Crouton For Significantly Easier Combat

When Crouton’s control ends, it sets off a Strand Blast.

While Crouton is Controlling an enemy, it deals increased damage.

Crouton is arguably the strongest combat buddy a Weaver could ask for. In Chapter 4, you will find Crouton and learn the ability to summon him on command. In exploration areas, you can control Crouton to access hidden areas and get through small gaps, but in combat, Crouton can take over an enemy temporarily and turn them against other Haints.

With these two Crouton upgrades, South of Midnight players will create a Strand Blast when Crouton’s possession ends, and while Crouton is controlling a Haint, it will deal more damage. This turns Crouton from a useful CC combat buddy into a killing machine that might be better at killing Haints than Hazel.

Crouton Detonation and Crouton Surge can be found at the beginning of the Crouton Upgrade tree, at the bottom-right of the Upgrade screen. You must have acquired Crouton during Chapter 4, and you have to unlock Crouton Detontation before you can get Crouton Surge.

Cleansing Rend

Close-Range AoE That Deals High Damage

​​​​​​​Hold Y to unleash Strand, damaging enemies in a wide area.

Cleansing Rend is a very powerful move, especially in some of the mid-to-late game combat arenas with multiple Haints. This ability lets Hazel blast nearby enemies with Strands in a close range, but the damage is quite a lot.

Depending on your difficulty, this can outright kill low-tier Haints.

Cleansing Rend has a long recharge time, though, so save it for when you get surrounded in combat and need a way out. It’s also tied to the ‘Took Em Down A Peg’ achievement, which requires you to defeat five Haints at the same time with Cleansing Rend.

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Cleansing Rend can be found in the General Upgrade tree, but you must purchase all previous General Upgrades in the top half of the tree first, including both Amplified Rend and Weaver’s Blitz.

Bob and Weave

Doubles Hazel’s Dodge Capacity

D​​​​​​odge twice in quick succession

The best skill in South of Midnight is Bob and Weave. By default, Hazel can only dodge once about every two seconds, which makes it difficult to avoid fast Haints in quick succession. Bob and Weave lets you dodge twice in a row, making it much easier to avoid unavoidable special attacks and trigger Dodge-related skills (like the Perfect Dodge Strand blast).

Bob and Weave can be found in the bottom half of the General Upgrade tree, but you must first get Cleansing Rend, and all previous General Upgrades, before you can unlock this skill.

Released

April 8, 2025

Developer(s)

Compulsion Games

Publisher(s)

Xbox Game Studios

ESRB

rp