After more than six years in the shadows, Compulsion Games is back with its first Xbox-published title since being acquired by Microsoft - and after a few hours getting stuck into its bayou-flavoured world, South of Midnight is quickly becoming a compulsion we're dying to further indulge.
Our 'hands on' preview for the title took us through the game's third chapter, whilst introducing some rough story beats, combat mechanics and traversal techniques - and things quickly locked into place. Admittedly though, before all of that, the first thing that sunk its teeth into us was just how pretty this game is. Technically it might not be the most advanced Xbox title out there, but boy has Compulsion worked its magic in the art department. South of Midnight looks and feels like a storybook that's sprung into life - in the best way possible!
Going back to the bones of SoM, this is a third-person action-adventure game that actually contains quite a lot more platforming than we were expecting heading into it. It's nothing incredibly technical or precise in this department, but you quickly learn how to double-jump, glide and wall-run through the game's environments - and we're loving how fluid South of Midnight feels as a result. There's also a boatload of cool little side paths and nooks & crannies to explore for character upgrades, which all provide more space to pull off some sweet moves.
The structure of the game and its level design is also quite inducive to such platforming and exploration, at least here in the game's third chapter. South of Midnight is one of those linear games with lots of branching paths and ways to access different areas, and we think it works really, really well from what we've played. SoM's world is so enticing that we're glad it's not corridor-level linear so we can appropriately explore, but it's also refreshing to play what feels like a nice and tight action-adventure game that successfully hones in on its best elements.
Story is always quite a hard thing to quantify while playing these sorts of preview slices of upcoming games, but it's safe to say that South of Midnight has us hooked so far. This one feels like a very personal journey for our protagonist Hazel, and the game is oozing personality already, after just one chapter of playtime. Hazel's voice-acting work (along with the rest of the cast we've met so far) is absolutely superb, and it all really pulls you in to what's going on in this world of fantastical folklore and Deep South intrigue. Oh, and there's a big talking fish that we're absolutely best mates with already. Hi, catfish dude!
When it comes to combat, South of Midnight 'locks off' its fighting arenas as entirely separate entities to platforming and general exploration. Every so often, you're thrown into a blighted area of sorts that's needs purging, and combat feels snappy and fluid here, if a little derivative. You can tell that tackling enemies isn't the main focus in South of Midnight and that's totally fine - but we're glad the game gets the job done pretty well and these areas don't feel like stumbling blocks to the rest of the experience. There are lots of difficulty options here too, letting you fine tune the game's combat to your taste.
Before we wrap things up here, South of Midnight's music is more-than matching up to its voice acting - this is another super strong point from our experience so far. There are some subtle little background numbers as you explore the bayou that fit the world really well, and then, well, Chapter 3 ends with a musical banger about a guy called Benjy. This whole segment put a huge smile on our faces, and it ended this much-too-short preview segment in the best way possible.
Even in this short preview build, South of Midnight has hugely impressed us already. We knew Compulsion was capable of cooking up something good, but we did not expect to be this enamoured with their latest title after just one chapter of playtime. Sure, combat isn't necessarily the game's strong suit — and we have experienced a few technical hurdles in this preview — but everything else has blown our expectations out of the swampy water. It goes without saying that this is only a chunk of the experience and we'll have to wait and see how the rest of it plays out, but we're desperate to go hands on with the full game. The wait for April 8th is gonna be a long old slog.