Sometimes you just don’t like a game. That’s fine. Maybe it’s because you don’t vibe with the genre, or because you can’t get the hang of its mechanics. Maybe it’s because the story doesn’t interest you, or because the game is just bad. Maybe you’re bad.I would know! That’s why I don’t likeElden Ring! But thinking a game is bad is not the worst thing you can think about a video game, andSouth of Midnighttaps into what is.
Playing South of Midnight, I had an okay time. The story had me, even if it sometimes wandered off the sole narrative thread the game sets up in order to bring in extra characters who are cut loose as quickly as they clamber aboard. The mechanics were enjoyable to engage with, even if they didn’t really evolve once they were introduced and quickly became repetitive. The whole thing looked nice, even if the stop motion gimmick never went far enough to make it feel unique or purposeful. It was capital O capital K. But it’s the sort of game that would have been great 15 years ago, and that always stings.
Video Games Have Always Innovated
Though it can feel like gaming has stagnated as we see the biggest budget games chase photorealism with increasingly minor leaps each year, gaming has always continued to evolve. It has gotten better at telling more rounded stories with more complex characters, it has the technology to offer far broader and more varied mechanics, it has the scope to offer depth to its edges that would have seemed impossible just a few short years ago.
Of course, you’re able to point to outliers. Hideo Kojima’s early work onMetal Gear Solidshowed thatgames can tell more cinematic stories inspired by the history of film, not just inspired by the need to reach the next objective with lots of gunshots and explosions.Super Mariotook one small step and one giant leap as it went seamlessly from 2D to 3D, altering the course of the entire platform genre.Pokemon Gold & Silvermanaged tofit Pokemon Red & Blue inside of it, despite both launching for the same machine.
I think this is part of the reason it feels as though games have stagnated. Leaps used to be major events, they were bold and brash and memorable. These days, the cutting edge tech that seesThe Last of Us Part 2have the most realistic rope physics ever, orRed Dead Redemption 2’smuch-memed horse balls, doesn’t seem that exciting. But rather than once in a generation leaps, what we’re seeing now is a rising tide that raises all boats. And, fittingly for a game where a house is washed away by a flood, South of Midnight finds itself underwater.
South Of Midnight Is A 2015 Game In 2025
Again, it’s not that South of Midnight is bad. It’s that you’ve played it all before, and many years ago. And while sure, that means a better time will be had with it than with a game you just, for whatever reason, don’t like, it’s a thought that feels bad underneath it all.
Firstly, it feels bad because you’re always aware of South of Midnight’s potential. With an impressive aesthetic, interesting characters, and a more unique tone than most of gaming offers these days with its grey shooters or high fantasy, South of Midnight could have been great. Instead, it’s good-to-okay. That’s more disappointing than a game that looks okay and plays okay leaving you thinking it’s okay.
But it also highlights a rift between desire and practicality. We’ve long known thatthe games industry is too expensive, full of games that taketoo long and cost too much to make, trying breathlessly to keep up with the pinnacle, only to see that shift ever further away from them. South of Midnight does not feel like that. It feels like Compulsion saying “let’s do Contrast again, but better”, and if that is the humble aim, it has been achieved. But Contrast came out in 2013, an era it feels like South of Midnight is pulling its ideas from.
Obviously, there were better games than Contrast in 2013, and thus there are better ways for a game to launch in 2025 and be enjoyable but dated than South of Midnight. But playing it reminded me of the subtle ways gaming has moved on - we don’t know exactly how long South of Midnight has been in development, but the studio’s last game was 2018 (We Happy Few) around the time it was acquired byXbox. Concept art leaked in 2021, and it’s now 2025. This might feel like a game from a decade and a bit ago, but it doesn’t seem to have been developed to that timetable.
I believe gaming is close to a plateau where, in terms of graphics and scale at least, we don’t see many improvements. Instead, advancements start to go towards speed - to getting cutting edge results faster, cheaper, more readily. That might be gaming’s next giant leap. Right now though, you want to look to games like South of Midnight as an example of another way to live. While I’m sure the game was significantly less expensive than Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will be, I’m not sure South of Midnight’s timeline makes it look much like a viable alternative for an industry desperate to plug the gaps between its biggest releases.
Ultimately the main feeling South of Midnight will generate in people is nostalgia, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a shame in some ways that a game that doesn’t do anything new and gets in and out within 12 hours feels like it no longer has a place in gaming. It makes me wonder about what South of Midnight would be like if it had reached its full, modern potential, but it also makes me wonder what gaming would be like if more games were a bit more South of Midnight.
