South of Midnight

South of Midnight is an action adventure game drawing heavily on the history and folklore of the deep south of the United States. The game was developed by the Compulsion Games studio, whose portfolio includes We Happy Few and Contrast projects.

Plot

The main character of South of Midnight is a woman named Hazel. A category 5 hurricane took away her mother and home, but the protagonist gained supernatural powers. As a so-called Weaver she can mend broken magical bonds and calm angry spirits.

Using these abilities, the heroine must discover the secrets of her family and face many dangerous creatures, thus, step by step, repairing the world around her. Hazel is not doomed to travelling alone, because she can count on the company of a large, talkative Catfish.

Gameplay

In South of Midnight we watch the action from a third-person perspective (TPP). The story told in the game is divided into chapters during which we visit various locations in the southern United States. The story is linear, but many of the places Hazel goes to have a fairly open structure, giving us some freedom in terms of exploration.

We are hindered from repairing the world by various enemies who are the embodiment of negative energy. The standard opponents are called Haints and they come in variants different in terms of appearance, strength and resistance to damage. From time to time we also have to compete with powerful bosses derived directly from the folk beliefs of the American South. They include Two-Toed Tom, a blind albino alligator whose size makes him a kind of moving island. The giant reptile is not the only mythical creature in the game that was not human before its transformation.

Hazel uses her magical "weaving" skills on the battlefield. The heroine can attack enemies at close range or from a distance, and must be constantly in motion to make quick dodges and launch swift counterattacks. It is worth noting that the protagonist does not hurt or even kill enemies. As they are an emanation of human traumas and negative emotions, by attacking them, she gradually eliminates the pain that led to their creation, and by loosening the ties that connect them to her world, she repairs what was previously broken.

Hazel's supernatural abilities, the range of which we expand as we progress, are also useful during exploration. Thanks to them, the girl can glide, use a kind of energy rope with a hook, and move some elements of the environment to get to hard-to-reach places.

Graphics and music

A characteristic feature of South of Midnight is a stylized graphic design, with animations resembling stop-motion films. The action takes place to the accompaniment of a soundtrack created by Olivier Deriviere, a composer who created music for the games A Plague Tale: Requiem and Get Even. Each creature that Hazel faces has been given a dedicated track telling its story, and we discover further fragments of it as we progress.