South of Midnight caught my attention the second its first trailer debuted, captivating me with its stop-motion-inspired art style and a story and lore built on the culture and myths from the American South. Up to this point, developer Compulsion Games hasn't said much about what the actual gameplay of South of Midnight is, so I was eager to check the game out when the studio offered a chance to see it in action. The demo was on the shorter side and, unfortunately, was hands-off, so I still don't know how it feels to actually play South of Midnight. But from what I saw, the game most reminded me of my time with Kena: Bridge of Spirits--South of Midnight looks like an action-adventure game from the PS2 era: a far cry from Compulsion Games' Contrast and We Happy Few.

In South of Midnight, you play as Hazel, a woman whose home of Prospero is hit by a hurricane. Learning she's a Weaver, a magician-like person who can unravel the corruption affecting a place and suture the fraying ties of the community, Hazel sets off in search of her mother who was washed away during the storm. Hazel can use her magical weaving abilities to tear apart enemies, acrobatically flip through platforms, and solve puzzles. Each major arc of the story sees Hazel uncovering the legend surrounding a creature--sometimes an animal, other times a person--that has achieved larger-than-life, otherworldly status as their past traumas twist them into mythical monsters. Upon deducing how these creatures became what they are, Hazel is tasked with defeating them.

The setup looks a whole lot like Bridge of Spirits, with Hazel's efforts to explore the trauma and backstories of the creatures that threaten her home resulting in the area being cleansed, much as Kena fought off the Rot and the lingering spirits of the traumatized individuals left behind. And like Bridge of Spirits, South of Midnight takes nods from a culture not often explored in video games--just in this case, it's the American South instead of Bridge of Spirit's Bali (a small province in Indonesia).