South of Midnight takes Xbox players to the deep South this April

Revealed during today’s Xbox Developer Direct, South of Midnight will release on Xbox, Game Pass, and PC on April 8.

The latest title from Compulsion Games, the dev team behind the wonderfully unsettling We Happy Few, explores the mythology of the American Deep South, a setting that is far too often overlooked in fiction. The game blends the tone of American Gothic storytelling with southern folklore.

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When a hurricane sweeps through her community, Hazel sets out to use her magical powers to heal and repair the world around her. She battles evil spirits and creatures from stories, like the house-sized alligator Two-Toed Tom, along with the help of giant, talking catfish.  Players will encounter Haints, a type of spirit and a word derived from the Gullah Geechee people that live along the Atlantic seaboard.

Magic takes on a somewhat different form. Rather than being a tool for combat — even though it certainly is used for that, too — magic is used to repair and restore. Hazel is a Weaver who uses her powers to heal broken bonds. Her ultimate goal is to patch up The Great Tapestry and find home once again.

Compulsion Games went above and beyond on multiple aspects of the game, including the entrancing stop-motion-esque art style and the audio engineering. Players will hear the buzz of insects and the almost palpable, humid quiet of a hot southern day, alongside folk music both somber and joyful. All the while, the story is told in the with a lilting southern accent.

South of Midnight was first officially revealed in June 2023 after an initial leak in 2021.