Last year, a close friend told me to play Compulsion and Xbox’s South of Midnight, insisting that I’d love it. The action-adventure platformer hybrid set in the American Deep South has been on my list since, but I never got around to it because I kept hoping for a physical release. I did spend time listening to the soundtrack, but when rumors started swirling around about Xbox Game Studios porting more games to other systems, I hoped to see South of Midnight make its way over to Nintendo Switch 2 so I could play it and write about it. This brings us to today.
South of Midnight’s opening introduces you to Hazel having a discussion with her mother, trying to prepare for a hurricane. This short opening sequence in their house told me almost everything I needed to know. There was an attention to detail here that I hadn’t really seen in games after the original Life is Strange or Yakuza 0. The dialogue delivery, accents, animation work, and the set dressing in the house made me want to be in that world. I realize how that sounds, given Hazel was prepping for a hurricane at that moment, but this was a world that felt real. I don’t know how else to describe it, but the first few hours of South of Midnight felt like eating a home-cooked meal. It oozes love and care, and I could tell even having never been to the American Deep South before.
Soon after the opening, it became obvious that this isn’t just a grounded-in-reality story, but one that blends in folklore, myths, culture, emotion, and family. This is where Hazel’s powers as a Weaver come into the picture. She travels across locations trying to see what specific people went through, help others, and sometimes just accept that bad things happen. South of Midnight also reminds Hazel (and you) that everything is intertwined and nothing happens in a vacuum here. Each of these stories could be its own short tale told through vignettes with incredible voice acting and usually a perfectly-placed song.
After watching the original trailer for South of Midnight last year, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the core gameplay loop, but it is mostly a solid experience, even if you set aside the incredible narrative and writing. As Hazel, you explore, platform, take on enemies, large bosses, and hunt for secrets while slowly unlocking more skills to make each encounter easier.
South of Midnight’s gameplay strengths lie in the world design for platforming, collectibles, and boss battles. The basic combat encounters got quite boring very quickly. I get why they are there to prepare you for using your skills in the actual large encounters, but they quickly wear thin. The combat itself isn’t bad, but it feels very tacked on compared to everything else South of Midnight has going for itself.
Platforming initially felt rather standard, but a regular clip of new mechanics and movement abilities made for a more-interesting experience in how many of the game’s collectibles, which let you unlock more abilities, are usually off the beaten path, requiring some sort of platforming or puzzle solving. Speaking of puzzle solving, South of Midnight has a few good ones involving positioning, timed movements, and platforming. These elements all work well and still feel at odds with the combat arenas.
The trailer I watched didn’t do South of Midnight justice. It is stunning almost all the way through, with only minor technical issues when it comes to its visuals. I adore the character designs, lighting, and particle effects throughout. I’m a bit surprised that it has no photo mode right from the get-go. I stopped to take screenshots too often during the time I put into it on Switch 2 and my PS5 consoles. Like I said before, the home-cooked meal feeling also applies to the environment. They all ooze warmth and care.
On the audio side, things are similar to the visuals. The music is beyond incredible. It isn’t too surprising, given that Olivier Deriviere, who has done some of the best soundtracks in years, did South of Midnight’s music, but I’ll be thinking of the character themes, instrumental ambient tunes, and vocal tracks for a long time. I love the blend of orchestration and the likes of Blues and Country here. The only downside is that some story moments and cut-scenes on Switch 2 had audio cutting or hitching randomly. Voice acting, on the other hand is impeccable throughout with some of the best performances I’ve heard in a long time.
My issues with the combat feeling tacked on can be sorted thanks to the ability to skip encounters, but that’s just a bandaid solution. I’d have loved for the encounters to be more interesting since my issue wasn’t the challenge (or lack there-of) but the addition of encounters in parts just feeling like padding. I also wasn’t a fan of the many squeeze through tight area sections that reminded me of masking loading last generation. I will say that South of Midnight does a great job of signposting without having to rely on garish yellow paint like in other games. Even that aspect is handled with tact and an in-universe explanation.
South of Midnight is now available on Nintendo Switch 2 and PS5, following its debut last year on Xbox and Steam. The new release on both consoles is the Weaver’s Edition, featuring some digital extras in addition to the base game. I’m not sure if this will be patched into my review build on Switch 2, but on PS5, I was able to access the documentary and music video, which are both very good. In a lot of ways, I think this is a great way to re-release a recent game for new consoles. I love having bonus content and behind-the-scenes footage like this.
As you can tell, I really love most things about South of Midnight. In fact, it would likely have been in my top 10 games of 2025 had I played it last year. The major downside right now is that the Switch 2 version is just not in a good state when played handheld. Not only is performance erratic, but I’ve also had issues with motion blur not being turned off when I used the toggle, regular hitching and audio cuts in cut-scenes, and latency. I made sure to redownload the game and install it onto the internal storage to see if that made a difference, and it did not.
When played docked, the performance is not perfect with dips below 30 frames per second that are very noticeable in some areas, but I got used to it, and it wasn’t as poor as the feel when playing on the go. I just couldn’t deal with the handheld experience and was getting motion sickness after a few minutes of playing. This is all with the stop-motion effect disabled during gameplay. I also want to note that you cannot use the Switch 2’s video capture when playing South of Midnight. Screenshots work, but video capture is blocked, potentially for technical reasons.
If the performance can be improved when docked to deliver a stable 30 frames per second, it would be a lot easier to recommend South of Midnight on Switch 2. Right now, the frame rate doesn’t bother me as much when played docked, but it is very much not a stable experience. I can’t get over how erratic it feels handheld. This is another Persona 3 Reload launch-tier port, though handheld has more visual issues in addition to performance issues. I do appreciate the accessibility options for handheld mode when it comes to readability. I never once had trouble with font sizes or text in general.
I also had access to the PS5 version of South of Midnight. I played it for a few hours on my base PS5, and not only did it consistently hit 60 frames per second throughout at a much higher resolution, but it also delivered faster load times across the board and had no texture issues when zooming in during cut-scenes. There are some of these in the environment that also affect the PC and Xbox versions, going by videos I saw, but the Switch 2 port actually takes a second or two to load some textures on surfaces near you, which is immersion-breaking.
One last point of comparison is load times. As of the latest patch on March 31, the PS5 version takes 8 seconds to go from the dashboard to the title screen and 4 seconds to load an early game save. On Switch 2 (with version 1.4.0, which launched literally under 12 hours before embargo), it takes 20 to 21 seconds to get from dashboard to title screen. Loading an early game save in the same position took 16 seconds. This is with the game installed on the internal Switch 2 storage. Speaking of the patch, it also made it so the HDR is too bright regardless of the settings I use when playing handheld in a few mid-game locations. I hope this is fixed soon, alongside cloud saves being enabled.
One feature I haven’t covered so far is the rumble. South of Midnight does a fantastic job of rumble with HD rumble 2 on Switch 2 and DualSense haptics on PS5. I’d go so far as to say I’d play it on these two platforms just for that (unless the PC version has DualSense support, of course).
South of Midnight is an incredible experience despite a few annoyances I have with the combat. I haven’t experienced a game this grounded, magical, and intimate in years. This is easily Compulsion’s best with its striking aesthetic, incredibly well-written characters, and superlative music. If you skipped it last year, I absolutely recommend experiencing Hazel’s journey, but it is a shame that the Switch 2 version is hard to recommend without caveats right now about the performance and some other technical issues.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Xbox Game Studios
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