Vengeful spirits, grief-stricken souls and a massively ravenous gator lie in wait for saving in Compulsion Games’ upcoming mythical adventure game South of Midnight. Originally announced in a teaser trailer in 2023 during the Xbox Games Showcase, and with a full gameplay trailer follow-up earlier this past summer, the scope of what the game has in store for players has been relatively under wraps. However, we do know so far that South of Midnight is a third-person action-adventure inspired by folktales of the Southern Gothic. The story follows a young woman named Hazel (voiced by Adriyan Rae, who also shared motion capture duties with Nona Parker), reeling after a hurricane devastates her hometown as she journeys to find her mother, who went missing during the flood. Somehow, pulled into a magical realist reality where folklore creatures emerge, Hazel embraces her powers as a Weaver—a magical mender of broken spirits—to confront formidable creatures known as Haints as she untangles the past of her family and those around her.
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In November, Compulsion Games released a 30-minute documentary that showcases more gameplay, an in-depth look at the inspirations and tones that encompass the creative hand-painted stop motion style (imagery that evokes similar flavor to Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride or Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), alongside the meticulous research and racial sensitivity care that the Montreal based studio commenced while spearheading a game amongst the backdrop of the American Deep South starring a Black female as their main protagonist. In the documentary, Creative Director David Sears explains that the impetus for the project came from his desire to “make a love letter to the south,” where he grew up. “Midnight is about bringing people together,” Sears said. “It’s about learning empathy for people who aren’t like you. It’s about finding hidden strength.”
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To learn more about the Southern adventure game, Deadline spoke with the development team’s studio head, Guillaume Provost, game director Jasmin Roy, audio director Chris Fox, art director Whitney Clayton, and voice and motion capture performers Rae, Parker and Ahmed Best at Compulsion Games’ Montreal Studio to see what further details they’d be willing to share below.
DEADLINE: Talk about bringing this diverse profile to the Microsoft/Xbox slate. What did the conversations to bring this game to life look like?
GUILLAUME PROVOST: David [Sears] and I have worked together for 30 years. The title had always been decided here at the studio. There was never really much conversation in terms of creative involvement from Microsoft telling us what type of a game we were setting to do. But we do pay attention to all the other games on their slate. I get to see what all the other studios are building and there’s a natural organic space to fill. I felt the South was interesting because I felt it was not something covered extensively inside video games. There’s Kentucky Route Zero, Red Dead Redemption, and other small independent titles, but otherwise there’s no game whose focus was in that reach of the United States, which is why we originally [kept that premise].
DEADLINE: What does the title South of Midnight entail?
PROVOST: [William] Faulkner was a big inspiration. We looked at a lot of the Southern Gothic literature around the title. South of Midnight was that weird piece that just captured the zeitgeist of the locale, the mysticism, and the Southern Gothic elements that we wanted to blend into it. Some elements of the game have to do with the title directly when you play it.
DEADLINE: What are you excited for gamers to experience?
JASMIN ROY: I’m excited for them to play the folklore aspect. Also, having players meet the mythical creatures and see how we built the environment and the world and how we instilled the fantasy within it.
PROVOST: Personally, I like all the facets of Hazel. She’s spunky, she’s feisty and that’s pure joy for me. But I also think our environment and the folklore we’ve created is exciting.
DEADLINE: What did you take away from your trip down South that you felt absolutely had to make it into the game?
PROVOST: There were a lot of things, mostly a mix of curiosity and anxiety about how we would portray the South when we were talking with people from that part of the region. There’s a lot of ways in which the South is typically portrayed in the media, so we wanted to tell the story of Hazel as her own person with her own journey. We also wanted to celebrate the South and its mythology. We don’t shy away from what is endemic to the history of that part of the South. That’s definitely something we had to learn how to navigate. You can’t ignore that history; that’s just as much of a statement as if we did. It would feel like white Canadian imposter syndrome. So, we made sure that we had the right people on the team to navigate those topics properly. We were well supported on the team and also at Microsoft. I feel good that we’ve threaded the line of having our own character journey with her own story that makes her a person you come to care about, alongside her relationship with her family, and her mom especially. So, I feel good about the story that we’re making right now, but there’s a lot of stuff we took from the South. [Something tangible in the game] I think was seeing some of these superstitions, such as seeing painted porches in that color of Haint blue and people putting bottles on trees. That was great for us to see.
DEADLINE: What were some themes you kept in mind while mo-capping?
NONA PARKER: There was a lot of freedom in not having to question myself so much and being able to trust my body movements.
ADRIYAN RAE: I was blessed to have a lot of meetings about tone and background. But in building Hazel, I wanted to make sure she was always Hazel, no matter what was thrown at her. I wanted to keep her specific spunkiness, her confidence that can be considered cocky at times, and all those aspects within her. There’d be certain ways I could lean on a door that would show her confidence that she’s comfortable in a situation, but then I could also ask myself, do I need to take control of the situation and stand completely forward and erect? There were certain things that I wanted to make a choice and decide that even in her walk, I wanted her to be more confident and have good posture since she’s a runner. I also wanted her to read confidence since she’s literally thrown into this world of creatures, magic, and everything else. But no matter what, she attacks it head-on. Whereas some personalities would be scared of that or run away, she doesn’t even hesitate. It’s very much like, “Oh, I’ve got to do this, and that’s just that.” So, I wanted to make sure that her body movements and the way she held herself read with the character description of her personality.
AHMED BEST: It was really important for me that Hazel was a Black woman because there’s specificities in the way, especially Black women from the South, behave in their bodies that are very integral to their character. It’s very hard to teach someone how to do that. It was important that Hazel was played by really good actors and that we didn’t look at performance capture as body doubles. We looked at performance, how they moved and walked, and the thought process and intention behind it. It was really important to me that when the little Black girls who are going to play this game, go, “Oh my auntie’s dance like that,” or “My grandma moves like that,” or “If my mom moves her head that way, it means she’s mad.” Those things make [the game] authentic.
DEADLINE: Talk about the importance of being a part of this Black game as a Black cast and your initial reactions to booking the job and reading the script.
RAE: All I got was dummy sides that said: fake lines, Black female, undisclosed game, undisclosed title, Xbox [laughs]. But after I got cast and read the script, I was like, “Wait a minute, this is really dope.” I remember having a Zoom meeting about the creatures and how those creatures align with Gullah Geechee culture from these stories and superstitions, which are told to us and that we pass down to each other, so that we can then bring that into the character. We can bring a little bit of that sense of “don’t do this” and a little bit of paranoia or fear, but I think what’s cool is that Hazel knows all of those things, but she steps forth and tries to fight and conquer [these emotions] anyway.
PARKER: I felt excitement. I didn’t have time to question it. I jumped on a plane and said, “Let’s go”. The writing was incredible and thoughtful without cutting corners with really serious material. The game opens with the aftermath from the devastation of a hurricane. So, the trauma and experience of what Hazel is going through is so truthful and insightful regionally of what it’s like down in that area.
BEST: It was a challenge because I think we all thought the same thing: what do these people from Montreal know about the Southeast? But what was wonderful about that is that they didn’t know. They were open to learning. There were some conversations in the beginning about us knowing Compulsion was going to make a good game. We had no doubts about that. The game isn’t just about killing Haints and healing monsters. The lore part of the game is what the Black folks who played the game are going to be looking at. They’re going to be like, is that authentic? Is that real? And that’s who you want this game to be real for. Because if it’s not, they’re going to say something, and so when we had those conversations, I have to give Compulsion credit. They were super open to everything, and the fact that we were hiring Black women as actors and not putting Black skin over white actors was really important to me.
DEADLINE: Regarding art and sound, what was vital for you to capture for the game based on your visit down south?
CHRIS FOX: I wanted soundscapes to be fully authentic and ground the game within the different biomes so that if someone from there played the game, they’d be like, “Wow, it sounds like we’re home or outside.” That was something I wanted to truthfully represent, and that would mean that maybe in the music, I could take it somewhere new but also remain influenced by all the songs of the Deep South and make original songs that can stand on their own and be hummed or played.
WHITNEY CLAYTON: At a higher level with the settings we wanted to make, it’s important that we took things that people can themselves connect to but then give them a heightened celebratory twist to them. In the game, we do that with our [animation] style, folk tales and magic. The personal part for me was nailing down those details that people will hopefully relate to. [I’m hoping] they’ll be like, my grandma had that orange couch. It was about capturing a familiar texture and comforting elements of a place you’ve been to before while staying true to what makes a place iconic, which is different from the stereotypical depictions of the South. Also, on our trip, we saw so much diversity in terms of landscapes and food, and the people are super warm, so just getting that beauty of everything was important. We had to constantly ask ourselves how we infuse that in a way that feels personal and relatable and twist it so that there’s still a beautiful escapism of the folktale and the magic in the real world. That mix was so important to me.
South of Midnight will be released in 2025 on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC and Steam.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]