Myths and folklore are crucial because they represent the collective memory and spirit of a culture. They preserve history, values, and wisdom across generations engagingly and memorably, especially during times when written records were scarce or unavailable. Ultimately, myths and folklore keep cultures vibrant, adaptable, and deeply connected to their roots. In many ways, video games are the perfect medium for retelling myths, as they allow players to engage with the narrative on a deeper level through interactivity and personal choice. Even today, these works continue to inspire art, literature, and games like South of Midnight, offering timeless insights into the human experience. They allow new generations to explore profound emotional truths in innovative ways. Although South of Midnight has already been available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles, how does it perform on Nintendo Switch 2?
Hazel Flood is a young woman from the small, struggling town of Prospero in a stylised version of the American Deep South. After a devastating hurricane strikes and floods her community, she’s thrust into a desperate search for her mother, who is swept away in the chaos. What begins as a personal rescue mission quickly evolves into something far larger and more mystical. As Hazel makes her way through the storm-ravaged landscapes, she discovers that she has a unique gift called a Weaver. This ancient power lets her see and manipulate glowing “Strands,” which are the invisible threads that connect people, memories, and the spiritual fabric of the world. With this ability, she can interact with a hidden layer of reality filled with angry spirits, which are the physical manifestation of emotional trauma known as “Haints”. It’s suspiciously like Death Stranding but without the bleak futurism.
The narrative of South of Midnight leans heavily on metaphors that blend Southern folklore with emotional baggage, almost to a trite degree. The damage is visually represented in the world as a dark, thorny infection that spreads like a disease among the land and its people. This imagery evokes the old Uncle Remus story of Br’er Rabbit, but the narrative has a tone similar to Life Is Strange, set in the Deep South, rather than the more authentic Southern-fried myth of O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The imagery is pure Greek myth fantasy, boldly diving into the depiction of some of the most otherworldly creatures imaginable. At times, it’s hard to remember that the story began grounded in a small American town.
South of Midnight lives and dies by its protagonist, Hazel Flood. She’s a young woman from the small, working-class town of Prospero in the Deep South. She has an outwardly confident, witty, and somewhat abrasive smartass attitude, masking deeper vulnerabilities, including the absence of her father, family tensions, and feelings of abandonment from her hardworking single mother. She is a very “of this era” type of character. Very “modern female video game character” type of character. What this means is that she talks to herself. Endlessly. Annoyingly so.
This has become a huge cliche over the years, and it’s no less trite today. It’s usually a sign of the limitations of the writer and game designers who are unable to convey something, or they don’t trust players to infer what’s happening. Hazel often states the obvious or gives useless commentary. Other times, she seemingly makes things up that she would not know of. It would have been more interesting and endearing if she were written as a simpleton.
South of Midnight is a very narrative-driven game, and those who cannot connect with the protagonist will find the overall experience lacking. The narrative would have been more effective if the writers were more hands-off and allowed players to project their own interpretation rather than spoon-feeding the themes and plot points. The premise doesn’t seem as clever as it aims to be and feels pretentious, resembling high-school-level writing.
The stop-motion visual design aesthetic makes no sense and is out of place. The style would have worked if the human-like characters had been designed with a more whimsical flair. As they are currently portrayed, they resemble models from Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead rather than looking like handcrafted figures brought to life. The concept behind South of Midnight is that it represents a storybook coming to life; however, storybooks are not created using stop motion. The artists should have abandoned the stop-motion style in favour of a more thematically suitable approach.
Ironically, the developers weren’t confident in the stop-motion effect and included an option to disable it, making South of Midnight resemble a conventional video game. Not that it matters a lot because the frame rate in this Nintendo Switch 2 port is all over the place and highly unstable. Even with the stop-motion effect disabled during gameplay, the console struggles to maintain smooth performance. The textures also load poorly when moving the camera, giving a claymation impression for the low-level detail assets.
Not only is South of Midnight‘s protagonist “of its era”, so is the gameplay. It’s a typical third-person action-adventure game that features automated platforming. The protagonist must climb highlighted ledges along a scripted, linear path. Hazel uses a mix of double jumps, gliding, wall-running, grappling with her weaving hooks, and pulling/pushing objects with magical strands to navigate linear but scenic levels filled with optional side paths and collectibles. Combat takes place in obvious and enclosed arena-style encounters rather than open-world fights. The melee combat evokes memories of the Devil May Cry reboot, but feels slower and lacks the variety of weapon types.
A key mechanic in the game is unraveling defeated Haints; this finishing move eliminates corruption and offers minor healing or cooldown resets. Cooldowns were a mistake and only further limit the range of expression. If the action was sped up by about 20 percent and Hazel was a bit tighter and more reactive, the combat would have been enjoyable. Combat arenas feel arbitrary, interrupting the atmospheric exploration instead of enhancing it. The lack of enemy variety, weak feedback on hits, long cooldowns, and unreliable lock-on make encounters feel like an obligation instead of an exciting highlight. Boss fights are generally considered better but still formulaic.
