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It's been a few weeks now since Xbox announced that it was eliminating 3,200 job roles and parting with a number of first-party studios, and one of those studios has just won Game of the Year at the annual Games for Change Awards.
The award for "Game/Experience of the Year" went to Compulsion Games' South of Midnight, which was released back in April of 2025 but still met the criteria for this event. Games for Change says that the Game of the Year award is their "grand prize" and celebrates "an exemplary game" that sums up demonstrates a number of key qualities:
Our grand prize! Game of the Year is awarded to an exemplary game that demonstrates impact, innovation, and gameplay, exemplifying what it means to be a 'game for change.'
The team at Compulsion Games addressed their recent parting from Xbox during the show, stating that "the word change right now feels really timely for us because Compulsion Games is going back to being independent", describing it as both an "exciting" and "scary" prospect.
While this might be the last Game of the Year award that South of Midnight takes home, it's certainly not the first - the game has actually won multiple awards over the past year, including GOTY at the Canadian Game Awards 2026.
The game doesn't seem to have moved the needle much from a sales perspective, but we've always been big fans of South of Midnight here at Pure Xbox, and we wish Compulsion Games all the best in the future.