Developer Compulsion Games continues its impressive streak of eye-catching, visually creative projects with South of Midnight. Following its work on 2013’s Contrast and 2018’s We Happy Few, this time we pivot to a gothic fantasy setting inspired by American deep south myths. It’s a unique premise, and the third game from the studio to champion an aesthetic of some kind – with South of Midnight’s twist being that it plays out using a stop motion style. To complete the effect, the game puts an arbitrary frame-rate cap in place, most notably in its cutscenes, simulating the staccato motion of an actual animated feature. It’s an Xbox and PC exclusive at present, too – so how do the Series X and Series S versions compare in their delivery of this visual style, and what’s the scope of the PC release’s scalability?
South of Midnight is a single-player, circa 12 hour adventure that fits the bill for a Game Pass release perfectly. Compulsion Games focuses on three core pillars of gameplay here: platforming, combat and physics-based puzzling. Our lead Hazel’s abilities as a spell-caster give us plenty options in control for each, letting us glide through the air, push, pull and apparate scenery into existence, and even snare enemies in battle. In every aspect, this idea of manipulating the world with threads is well realised, with a satisfying flow to movement once her abilities expand on a skill tree. There are higher difficulty settings, but I found it a pleasant ride as-is on the default mode. It’s linear, no question – and there’s even an optional trail to the next objective if a hint is needed – but given the deluge of open-world extravaganzas as of late, it’s refreshing to have a more guided experience for a change.
In terms of its tech, there’s no official line on whether this is using Unreal Engine 4 or 5, but, looking at the PC install directory, there are crashdump files which heavily suggest UE4 as a base. The highlight this time though is South of Midnight’s stop motion animation style. To break this effect down, all cut-scenes run at 30fps on Xbox Series X, Series S and even PC. There’s no way to opt out on any platform, but it’s justified given it forms the basis of the game’s idiosyncratic visual style. Within this 30fps update, certain elements are chopped even down further for effect; facial movements run at 15fps, creating the illusion of face plates being swapped every other frame. Meanwhile, most of Hazel’s body movements run at 30fps, though some other elements – like the creatures roaming the land – appear to move at 15.
All combined, the stop motion effect is convincing in its delivery, creating an otherworldly, off-kilter movement that suits the story well. We’ve seen this technique used in other UE games too, most recently with Hi Fi Rush’s vivid imitation of a Saturday morning cartoon. Likewise, it authentically captures the anime influence on Ark System Works’ Guilty Gear Strive, with pre-fight sequences running at eight, 10 or 15 frames per second – or higher. South of Midnight goes a further step though, by extending this to the controllable gameplay itself in some respects. To be clear, gameplay runs at 60fps – as it should, given the focus on timing-sensitive combat and platforming – and all camera motion conforms to a 60Hz refresh too. Still, you’ll notice Hazel’s running motion and the world’s creatures use a form of decimated animation to lock movements at 30 or 15fps. If you’re not a fan of the result, you can disable the stop motion effect outright in the menus on Xbox and PC, though this toggle will not affect the cutscenes.
To the comparisons, and this is remarkably straightforward. The big difference between Series S and Series X is their resolution targets. On Series X resolution scales from 1080p to 4K internally, while Series S runs at a lower 540p to 1080p range. This is then upscaled on each machine to a fixed output resolution, 4K on Series X and 1080p on Series S, using what appears to be Unreal’s TAAU method. Alas this means that Series S does take a hit to image quality, especially in one early storm sequence where any flash of lightning reveals the raw pixel structure for a few frames. Thankfully, in other chapters the Series S release holds up better. The differing resolutions have a knock-on offect on depth of field, and shadow quality looks to have been cut back very marginally on Series S, but other visual settings are matched between the two machines.
A quick look at PC is also illuminating. Even with all settings locked on ultra on PC and the resolution fixed at a native 4K, the Series X version still spits out a competitive image in side-by-side comparisons. Shadow quality is really the main dividing point this time, with PC pushing cleaner, crisper shadows further to the distance. The PC edition also offers up options for DLSS upscaling and frame gen. My RTX 4080 setup comfortably maxes the game out at 4K and ultra settings with frame-rates between 65 and 80fps, with upscaling and frame generation boosting that figure substantially to 100-120fps. The game does seem to suffer from a degree of UE4 stutter, despite a short shader compilation step on first launch, with the appearance of ‘weaver’ characters triggering a hitch even at a capped 60fps. Hopefully this can be fixed by a patch, as the rest of the game runs smoothly.
The state of console performance is also remarkably clear-cut, with both Series X and S running at a stable 60fps for the vast majority of gameplay – with no alternative graphics modes as we’ve often seen in this console generation. The approach makes sense for the game’s linear setting, but Compulsion still deserves props for delivering a great single mode experience. Coming straight after examining the likes of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Atomfall, more open-world affairs with RT tech, it’s a relief to see a game that doesn’t lump Series S users with a 30fps cap as well.
There are a few small rough points elsewhere, but they’re hardly game-breaking. Firstly, much like on PC, there are moments during traversal that hitch on occasion. Encounters with the ghostly weavers characters early in the adventure appear to be the cause, always triggering a small hiccup on both Series X and Series S in the same spot. It’s infrequent, but sticks out given the general success of the push to 60fps. Secondly, there are sub-60fps drops in very specific areas. When Series X or S bottom out their DRS ranges, the game lurches into the mid-50s for a spell, such as during the opening chapter run during the storm, and a specific combat encounter in chapter 4. The game remains well within the VRR range, if your display supports it, but even without this feature drops are a rare enough to be overlooked in play.
The final point relates to the cutscenes. Of course, the 30fps caps and 15fps animation aren’t indicative of GPU limits on either machine, but the 30fps cap is incorrectly frame-paced. That makes these scenes animate more erratically than is perhaps intended, though the stop motion effect still works well despite it.
It’s a welcome surprise, then. South of Midnight tells a fish out of water tale with a commendable sense of style. The stop motion effect is well-executed, helping to elevate the mystique of its Deep South folklore. Hitting 60fps on both Series X and Series S isn’t to be taken for granted either, with a great single-mode experience that delivers a good blend of fidelity and performance. The game’s frame-rate delivery is solid, barring a few streaming hitches early on, even rarer sub-60 drops in battle and some frame pacing oddities. The one notable catch for Series S is the resolution drop, but it still holds up well given its 4TF profile. All of which makes South of Midnight an easy one to recommend right from the get-go, regardless of which Xbox you own – and especially given it’s on Game Pass from day one.