Summary
Xbox’s southern gothic action adventureSouth of Midnighthas received a new update that mainly focuses on boss fight bugs, cutscene performance, and other issues.South of Midnightis the latest title from Compulsion Games and the studio’s first game release as part of Xbox Game Studios. The Canadian studio was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 just months before the full 1.0 release of its sophomore game,We Happy Few.
A hard pivot from Compulsion Games' previous two projects,South of Midnightis a third-person action adventure game that takes place in the American south and is heavily infused with mythic folklore from the region. Perhaps the game’s most intriguing characteristic is its stop-motion-style art direction, which uses a reduced frame rate on character animations to make them look like they’re moving in stop-motion. WhileSouth of Midnightis quite a linear experienceand its combat is fairly simple, the game has garnered praise for its art style, music, and storytelling, earning a respectable 77 on Metacritic.
Just over a week sinceSouth of Midnight’s release,Compulsion Games has put out a new updatefor the game, Patch 1.2.0. The meat of the patch deals with fixing up issues some players have encountered with two of the game’s big boss fights,Two-Toed Tom in Chapter 5and Huggin' Molly in Chapter 9. For the former, the bug that made the boss disappear if players fell into the water has been ironed out, along with another glitch that had players get stuck in place in a certain spot of the boss arena. As for Huggin' Molly, the bottles players use to damage her will now spawn properly in phase 3 of the fight.
South of Midnight’s storytellingis a major part of the experience and, as such, the game’s cutscenes are extremely important. The new patch resolves issues related to one of Huggin' Molly’s misaligned eyeballs, Hazel’s missing facial expressions, and one Chapter 6 cutscene where Hazel appeared to be flickering. As far as game crashes go, one particularly noteworthy crash that occurred between chapters 11 and 12 has been resolved, but only on Xbox Series S. It seems players on Xbox Series X and PC may still be at risk of running into the crash as they progress toward that particular point in the game.
Considering this is Compulsion’s first ever third-person action adventure game, it’s impressive how technically polished it was at launch a week ago, especially withSouth of Midnight’s stop-motion animation style. The team likely has another couple of patches planned to roll out in the coming weeks and months, so fans should stay tuned regarding any future bug-squashing updates.
Menu, settings and User Interface
