I completed South of Midnight on the hardest (Grand Weaver) difficulty.

South of Midnight is a third party character action adventure. I suppose the closest point of comparison would be Devil May Cry. You have pop-up combat arenas, for example, and XP gain that goes into a skill tree.

Unlike Devil May Cry, however, I found South of Midnight to be extremely mediocre. Let’s start with the good tho: where it does set itself apart out is the unique cultural flavor of its Deep South narrative and angular stop motion-esque art style. But even that is sort of let down by its excessive focus on swampy Louisiana-esque backwoods environments. The uniqueness and variety of the art actually gets a chance to cut loose in the back third of the game, but it’s a shame the game doesn’t start off strong from the get go in this aspect.

As for the downsides: Actual gameplay is extremely repetitive … consisting of: traversing largely linear paths that have occasional offshoots with bonus xp to find. Repetitive combat encounters in enclosed arenas to “cleanse” areas … with a camera that sits too close to the player and allows enemies to get a lot of cheap shots off on you. And a parkour race at the end of each level that does very little to justify its own existence and seems like filler.

As a 12 hour experience, it’s playable as a palate cleanser in between more serious and focused games. It doesn’t stress you out too much skill or narrative wise. If you just want to look and hear something *different*, this game does fit the bill and it has several tragic pocket narratives that do make you think (but might also bum you out).

As a “filler” game on Game Pass … South of Midnight is perfectly serviceable. If you have to pay real money for it, however, I don’t think I could recommend this game for more than 10 bucks. Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever add this game to my Steam library until it comes along for the ride in a game bundle with other games I actually want.

Side note: This game has become a bit of a hot topic recently due to Compulsion Games (the developing studio) being on the chopping block for Xbox. Given that the game reportedly took 7 years and 100 million to develop, my hot take is that being on the chopping block is entirely justified. This is an OK game that will appeal strongly to those that click with the art style and story, but in all other respects it does nothing to justify such a bloated budget.