Like a lot of folks, Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight had me intrigued since its reveal, with its folklore-tinged world and painterly look. I’ve been playing it this weekend (the game became available last week for people who purchased its “Premium” edition, and comes out officially on April 8) and so far its world lives up to what I’d hoped from its trailers, alongside some unique difficulty options that let me enjoy that world even more.
I’ve been sort of rooting for South of Midnight developer Compulsion Games: I was fond of 2013’s Contrast, and I had such high hopes for 2018’s We Happy Few. That psychedelic survival game changed a lot during early access, sanding many of its survival edges off until I ultimately found it disappointing. It felt like such a good idea, set in such a unique world, but I found it hard to enjoy much of what I actually did in that world. I worried that South of Midnight might stumble into that same problem, looking lovely but not holding up when I actually played it.
I’m only a few chapters into the game so far, which follows a woman named Hazel who’s on a rescue mission in a version of the deep South that seamlessly weaves fantasy and reality. The experience of moving through the game’s world feels magical: I’m wandering through grimly derelict shacks, only to suddenly realize that the swamp that stretches around them is full of impossible giant peaches. Every corner feels stuffed with details, from interiors cluttered with human possessions to outdoor areas where foxes and herons and muskrats dart across my path. One moment I’m talking to Hazel’s neighbors; the next I’m talking to a giant multicolor catfish. The game’s excellent soundtrack undergoes a similar transformation, with instrumental tracks subtly morphing into lyrics about story events. Cutscenes are done with a stop-motion style that’s trippy and beautiful. The way the game shifts from the mundane to the magical makes me feel like I can never predict what’s around the next corner, but it’s also never disorienting.
Alongside this, a lot of the gameplay works. There are collectibles to find, charmingly-titled “floofs” that you use to level up Hazel’s combat abilities, but they’re never that onerous to look for. Hazel has a magical ability called “weaving” that lets her interact with the world of folklore to affect the real world and help people heal the pain of their past, and those abilities also feature in how you traverse the game. Gossamer threads let you swing and glide; you can manifest objects and pull and push them to reach new areas. There’s some platforming that can be slightly floaty, and some puzzle-solving that’s never challenging, but there’s also just regular walking and climbing, and you switch between all these kinds of movements pretty easily.
There’s combat too, which so far has been confined to telegraphed arenas against creepy enemies that… well, just feel like enemies. I'm finding it less interesting than everything else South of Midnight has going: You have some attacks and some magical powers you can use, and while I sometimes found myself a little turned around when too many enemies were on screen, especially if I had target lock on, the fights feel more like they exist to break up your wandering than events in their own right. I don’t hate it, but I’m not finding it nearly as cool as moving through a field of wildflowers or exploring an old church. I appreciate the way combat changes the pace, but it’s definitely not the best part of the game.
In addition to the standard sorts of difficulties you can select, which include both a “story” and “easy” option on the lower end, you can also select the option to be able to skip boss fights, regular fights, and chase sequences. This doesn’t do away with them; you still enter into combat like normal, but at any time during the fight you can press a button and just be done with it.
I love this option. Booting up the game early on Sunday, pumped full of my morning coffee, I was happy to bash through some enemies; later in the evening, with the upcoming week looming in my mind, it was great to be able to lose myself in South of Midnight’s arresting world instead. Sometimes choosing a “story” mode in a game over a combat-focused one makes a game feel a little unengaging, or like I don’t always have enough to do; here, I feel like I can pick my experience in the moment. Since turning the option on out of curiosity, I’ve played through almost all the combat encounters, but in a couple instances when I’d enter a fight and think “ugh, not now” because I didn’t want to stop exploring, I’d press the button and boom– the enemies slumped to the ground, and I could get back to the story.
I haven’t hit a boss fight yet to try out the option there, though I get the sense I’m close to one. At the risk of having yet another unpopular take, I don’t tend to enjoy boss fights personally; I find it interesting to solve the puzzle of how to beat a boss, but once I know what to do, I sometimes lose the energy for actually doing it. (No shade if you like them!) But I'm finding myself looking forward to my first one in South of Midnight, eager to see the design of the boss I've been pursuing up close but also bolstered by the fact that if I fall into the frustration or tedium boss fights sometimes bring out in me, I can just move on instead of feeling stuck.
South of Midnight also has a custom difficulty option that allows you to tinker with enemy damage, aggression, your own invincibility, and other factors. All of this flexibility makes the game more accessible, and I appreciate how much you can change things up as you play. So far, I'm enjoying South of Midnight a lot, and I'm into the ways it gives me options that let me focus on whatever I'm most enjoying in the moment.
