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Deep South mythology and folklore

South of Midnight is a Microsoft published game that was released last year April 8, 2025 on Xbox Series and Windows. Fast forward to almost one year later and the game saw release on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 consoles. I was initially intrigued about the game’s setting and, especially, its story. South of Midnight is about Deep South mythology and folklores. If you didn’t know Deep South is referred to south of USA.

I played South of Midnight through on PS5 Pro.

Plot

Hazel’s house is swept away by a storm and flood, and her mother was inside the house as it happened. So, Hazel goes after trying to find her. First, she goes to see her estranged grandmother, Bunny, who is rich and lives in a mansion nearby. Soon after arriving to the mansion, she finds a secret in a chest: a Weaving Hooks that grands her abilities to weave things magically and are used to battle enemies. Along the way to seek her mother, Hazel meets up with old and new faces, everything entangled magically with Deep South folklore and mythology.

Overall I did find the story to be intriguing and well-paced. There were new character and areas introduced nicely in every chapter, keeping my interest all the way to the end.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

South of Midnight is a third-person action-adventure game with lots of platforming as well. Players play with Hazel, going on rather straightforward adventure. There are extra hidden areas everywhere. Hazel has to fight enemies and thereby untangle the Stigma out of the way to continue her journey. Along with the melee attacks, Hazel has magical powers and all her moves and powers can be upgraded by collecting wisps. There are also lots of platforming as Hazel can run along the walls, make double jumps and glide in the air.

I think the gameplay was good, simple, and it had everything necessary. I did find the gameplay to be little bit repetitive at some point. The battling happens only certain areas, where player must kill all the enemies to be able to progress. But what kept the battling sequences alive was new enemy types that were introduced every now and then. It wasn’t just hitting the enemies as much as possible, but it needed some tactical thinking as well. Some enemies could revive other enemies, some enemies could shoot and some were just big and strong. The game had some boss battles and they were well-designed and fun to beat.

South of Midnight has five different difficulty settings to choose from which are called Scryer (Story), Healer (Easy), Weaver (Balanced), Grand Weaver (Advanced), and Custom Mode.

Controlling Hazel felt good, but here were some issues with the controls, or rather, the gameplay. Hazel sometimes got stuck on edges or couple times some prompts didn’t work so I had to restart the game.

Audio-wise the game had a nice soundtrack and good voice acting. Southern and jazz-like songs which I enjoyed.

Visually South of Midnight looks—in my opinion—very nice. It had stylised graphics, stop-motion-like features and nicely done environments and characters. But with that said, the graphics had some issues throughout the game. Mostly the issues were just superficial and didn’t affect the gameplay. The main issue with being the graphics and textures didn’t load fast enough and kept popping up. It surely was annoying to see and did threw me out of the immersion.

Verdict

South of Midnight is a good game. It didn’t overstate its welcome—even though it started to feel a little bit repetitive. I played it through in about 8 hours. It has a beautiful art style, good music and voice acting, no too complicated gameplay and intriguing story of Deep South’s mythology. I do recommend South of Midnight to everyone.

South of Midnight is available on PS5 (reviewed on PS5 Pro), Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and Windows.

SCORE:

4/5

“Along the way to seek her mother, Hazel meets up with old and new faces, everything entangled magically with Deep South folklore and mythology.”

RELEASE DATE: March 31, 2026
GENRE: Action
DEVELOPER: Compulsion Games
PUBLISHER: Microsoft Corporation
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed on PS5 Pro)
Xbox Series X|S
Nintendo Switch 2
Windows

 

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