Latest news with #CompulsionGames
The Star
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
'South of Midnight' is a mystical journey through the American South
BERLIN: The action-adventure South Of Midnight from the developer studio Compulsion Games takes you to the Deep South of the US. The game focuses on the myths and fairy tales of the regions. From the Honey Island Swamp Monster in Louisiana to the giant Two-Toed Tom alligator in Florida, there are all sorts of creatures to discover. The main story is that, after a hurricane, the protagonist Hazel ends up in a world where fantasy and reality merge. In her search for her mother, she must not only fight sinister creatures but also confront the secrets of her family history. The often swampy, colourful game world is just as detailed as the story. Fog and occasional moonlight enhance the mystical atmosphere and a unique soundtrack with Southern music, from banjo to jazz, enriches the game. The unique art style has another twist: Everything moves in stop motion. If you're not a fan of this jerky film technique, you can turn it off in the settings and return to the familiar fluid movements. The game experience can be customised even further. Those who prefer to focus on the story can significantly reduce the difficulty of the battles while those seeking a challenge can increase it. There's also an option that allows you to individually adjust the difficulty for all aspects of the combat. South Of Midnight costs around €40/$40 for PCs and around €45/$45 for the Xbox Series X/S. The game is also included in Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. – dpa
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Xbox's next-gen console coming way sooner than we'd have liked
It seems that the next-gen Xbox console might be arriving sooner rather than later. The Xbox Series X/S launched in 2020 and has graced us with first-party titles such as Forza Horizon 5, Starfield and Halo Infinite. More recently, we were treated to the surprise hit that is South of Midnight from Compulsion Games. Check out the South of Midnight trailer below! By console generation standards with Xbox Series X/S being five years old, it's still relatively young. For example, the last generation, Xbox One, lasted from 2013 to its discontinuation in 2020. The original Xbox had a slightly longer life span from 2001 to 2009. However, Microsoft's most successful console, the Xbox 360 lasted over a decade from 2005 to 2016. So, to be fair, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the next-gen Xbox console could be around the next corner. With that in mind, a game intended to release on the next Xbox and PlayStation 6 has reportedly been cancelled. As reported by Eurogamer (via Insider Gaming), the game in question is based on the iconic Ridley Scott sci-fi movie franchise, Blade Runner. Interestingly, the game called Blade Runner: Time to Live was being developed by Until Dawn studio, Supermassive Games. So, it might be safe to assume that its estimated 10 to 12 hour story campaign would offer multiple choice scenarios and alternative endings. Players reportedly would have been the last Blade Runner bounty hunter alive in 2065, assuming the role of So-Lange, a vintage Nexus-6 model android, said to be 'inexplicably still alive well beyond your limited lifespan.' Its story would also have focused on 'the philosophical themes of Blade Runner with kinetic action-adventure gameplay.' What's more, documents obtained by Insider Gaming read: 'Journey from the teeming undercity of New Zurich 2065 to the eerie remnants of the forgotten world beyond.' 'Under orders to retire, Rev, the mysterious and ruthless leader of an underground replicant network, you are betrayed and left for dead in a brutally hostile environment.' It's claimed that Blade Runner: Time to Live had entered pre-production in September 2024, with its prototype build aimed to have been completed by March this year. Blade Runner: Time to Live was expected to be released in 2027 and was not only intended to launch on PC and next-gen consoles but also PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
New York Times
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Fighting Monsters of American Folklore to Battle Trauma
As days go, Hazel is having one for the books. Her mother was lost in a hurricane after they had a fight, there are dangerous black-and-red creatures called haints everywhere, and she discovers that she is able to see and manipulate the glowing strands that control reality. Don't even mention the talking catfish. By drawing on American folk tales and Southern Gothic literature, the action-adventure video game South of Midnight stands apart in a field crowded with Vikings, spartans, samurai, knights and sorcerers. Its world is filled with mythology that David Sears, the creative director of Compulsion Games, first learned from his grandmother. He grew up in Mississippi in a very ordinary suburb that he said felt like it was 'airdropped' into wild swamplands. His grandmother's disturbing tales about monsters of the South — the game's haints look like shadowy, screaming tree roots — stuck with him. As he explored the wilderness around his home, clambering up vines to escape boredom, he began to tell himself stories. 'At the time I believed in monsters,' Sears said. 'I still believe in monsters, but they were my friends. We went on heroic journeys together. And it's part of where I learned to spin a good tale.' American folklore is an oral tradition, making it hard to pin down definitive myths. But that also gave those working on South of Midnight the freedom to create, said Zaire Lanier, a writer and narrative designer. 'The South isn't a monolith,' she said. 'It's a tapestry.' One monster that Hazel encounters, the rougarou, is rooted in Cajun folklore and tends to be depicted as a werewolf. But the design team from the Montreal studio found other versions of the tale, and other stories about shape-shifters, in research trips it took to places like the Mississippi Delta, the Appalachian Mountains and the Great Dismal Swamp in parts of North Carolina and Virginia. The game's audio designer, Chris Fox, said they got rashes from poison sumac in the swamp while they were recording the game's ambient sounds. Lanier said the designers stayed true to the core of the rougarou myth — it represents rage and a loss of control — while presenting it instead as an owl-like creature. This particular monster, she said, was once somebody who felt that he had 'lost control' and that the 'only option was to fly away.' Every back story is important in South of Midnight. Sears wanted all of the creatures to have a soul, even the giant alligator Two-Toed Tom. He said the filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, known for 'Pan's Labyrinth' and 'The Shape of Water,' was fantastic at doing so. 'It's more about finding the humanity in the monster,' Sears said. Reckoning with pain runs through South of Midnight. Despite its stylized character design inspired by stop-motion animation, it is not a game for children. The themes it explores are those of tragedy, irrevocable decisions and the dark shadows that terrible events leave behind. 'We're operating in the Southern Gothic genre,' Lanier said. 'It's always tragic: You live hard, you die hard, and it's very depressing in between.' South of Midnight, which releases for the Xbox Series X|S and the PC this week, has all the trappings of exploration and combat that are central to the action genre. But while Hazel battles deadly creatures, she is a healer at her core. Lanier said it was important that her journey did not feel nihilistic. Though she does not know it when the story begins, Hazel is a weaver — a person chosen by the land to repair the fabric of existence, which the game calls the Grand Tapestry. The battles allow Hazel to heal the pain and trauma of the world around her. Every time she defeats the vicious haints, Hazel leaves behind light and fields of flowers. Even Hazel's weapons — which include a pair of weaver's hooks, a distaff and a drop spindle — are derived from a creative force. They were inspired by American quilting history, including Black traditions going back to slavery that were their own form of storytelling and expression. Some quilts even contained coded messages. In one section of the game, Hazel sees visions of the past in which a previous weaver leads a small group of escaped slaves to freedom. She learns that weavers are guides and healers — and fighters when they have to be. Lanier said it was important that Hazel's story departed from the more traditional 'chosen one' narrative. Hazel's powers do not come to her by right or bloodline. Anybody can be a weaver. All it takes is that, 'in a moment of need, the land would chose you.' Weavers are champions of the oppressed. But sometimes a wound is too great to fully heal. Sometimes all that can be done is to listen and acknowledge the pain. When Hazel meets the talking catfish — appropriately named Catfish — who becomes an ally and a guide, he is hanging upside down, trapped in the grip of an enormous tree that is blocking the way forward. Freeing him sends Hazel on a quest that involves a scared and manic shell of a man living in an old shack in the swamp. There, she learns about bottle trees, which are hung with colored glass vessels that trap haints and other violent spirits; a bottle from that tree becomes a vital tool on Hazel's journey. She also hears the story of two brothers, Rhubarb and Benjy. As she explores, Hazel finds notes in abandoned houses that mention a talented, accepted brother and an odder one who was constantly bullied. In one scene from their lives, a bear trap is intentionally left for Benjy to wander into it. Hazel's reactions include righteous anger and wonder at how people could be so cruel. As the tragedies and pain build, the brothers' story culminates in a shocking act of brutality that changes the very landscape. During a lengthy platforming sequence accompanied by a murder ballad, Hazel learns the full story. When she reaches the end, Hazel has been a witness and brought a measure of peace. 'Hazel's superpower is her ability to see people,' Lanier said. 'Literally, she can see the pain that people have gone through.'
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Xbox Game Pass gets arguably the best game of all time for free, no strings attached
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Quick Summary All Xbox Game Pass members get Grand Theft Auto V for free as part of their subscriptions this month, whether on Ultimate, PC Game Pass or Standard. It will be added to the service on 15 April, with Xbox Series X/S owners getting the 2022 remastered version and PC owners getting GTA V Enhanced when it's available. Microsoft has a superb lineup of games coming to Game Pass this month, with a big day one release, one of the most fun shooters of recent times, and arguably the best game of all time being made free on the platform. The headliner is undoubtably the latter – Grand Theft Auto V. Even though it was originally released more than a decade ago (on Xbox 360 and PS3, in fact), it still stands today as one of the finest games you can play. It's been through a number of remastered iterations since, gaining enhancements for subsequent console generations, and the version we have today is as sumptuous to look at as it is to play. It is this edition that'll be available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Standard members, plus PC Game Pass subscribers from 15 April. Xbox Series X/S owners will get the improved variant released for Xbox Series X and Series S a couple of years ago. PC gamers with rigs that are capable enough will even get the forthcoming GTA V Enhanced update at no extra cost, which adds new vehicles and modifications, plus some incredible and transformative new ray tracing effects. The game itself needs no other hype – it is, in my opinion, one of, if not the greatest of all time. There's good reason behind its original 97 score on Metacritic. And it's one of very few titles to have received maximum scores across many review outlets. In terms of the other games available on Game Pass in April, Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition, All You Need is Help, Still Wakes the Deep, and Wargroove 2 are each available to download and play right now – with the latter two arriving on Game Pass Standard for the first time. The all-new action-adventure from the developer of We Happy Few, Compulsion Games, will be available from 8 April, when South of Midnight makes its debut. While Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – Ultimate Evil Edition will also arrive the same day. Then there's Commandos: Origins – another day one release – and Blue Prince, which will be added on 9 and 10 April respectively. Finally, rounding up the first half of the month, will be Hunt Showdown 1896 on 15 April. All games will be included as part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, but you should check the official Xbox blog post for other details on console type, plus PC and cloud availability.
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
South of Midnight review – beautiful surfaces can't hide thin gameplay
Soaring development costs; protracted production cycles; cautious C-suites looking to deliver reliable returns for shareholders: for many reasons, there is a dearth of original programming in big-budget video games. Already this year we have seen the arrival of the seventh mainline Civilization game, the 14th entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise, and, most brain-melting of all, the 27th Monster Hunter title. But look: here's a magical-realist tale set in a moody, hurricane-ravaged imagining of the American deep south, whose title, crucially, bears no numerical suffix. South of Midnight makes a brilliantly atmospheric first impression. Winds bludgeon flimsy abodes; rain lashes down on tin roofs; the world is rendered with the macabre and crooked details of a Tim Burton film. Within minutes, a house – that of high-school athlete Hazel and her mother, a social worker – is carried away along a roiling flooded river. Playing as Hazel, you give chase, bounding with a lanky teenage gait across various platforms until the storm abates. In its wake lie miles of stagnant, fetid swamps. At one grisly point, you explore a farm stacked with the carcasses of pigs who did not survive the typhoon. As a protagonist, Hazel more than holds her own against this vivid and unusual (for video games, at least) world. With mere flicks of her wrists, connected to which are metaphysical scythe-like blades, Hazel rips through reality itself. For this spunky, determined young woman is a Weaver, adept at magically dispelling unsavoury spirits lurking amid the weeping willows and glinting glass bottle trees of her southern home. As a Weaver, she is able to see an enormous cosmic grand tapestry where myth, reality, time and space collide; peering into the past, she learns of ancestors who helped free slaves and of tragic child deaths. Sprinting with energy, South of Midnight lays out its imaginative stall: action-packed chapters whisk the player from sweltering bayous to chilly mountains that feel as if they are edging towards Appalachia. The atmosphere is thick – at times, laying it on a little too thick: your friendly guide to this folkloric romp is a gigantic catfish who speaks with a distinct Creole drawl about, among other things, the classic southern dish grits. But in the actual playing, South of Midnight is simply thin. With its mostly linear mix of 3D platforming and melee combat, the game evokes PlayStation 2-era titles. Yet neither element has much personality. The brawling looks stylish, ending with brutal finishing moves in which Hazel unravels her wraith-like enemies' very fabric of being. Really, it lacks the depth and expressive possibilities of titles such as God of War. Platforming feels floaty until you are vaulting from one conspicuously painted white ledge to another: then it just feels prescriptive and clunky. What great lengths the team of visual artists, sound designers, and scriptwriters at Microsoft-owned studio, Compulsion Games, went to in creating this rugged, earthy place, only to have it undone by gameplay of often mind-numbing smoothness. At various points, you must flee from a nebulous, mist-like entity. But these sequences are so straightforward as to lack any dramatic tension. They repeat many times throughout the game's approximately 12-hour duration, only increasing a little in difficulty each time. Other loops grate as the hours stack up: clear this area of oozing corrupted matter (a visual manifestation of the land's pain and trauma); watch another lightly animated flashback. This lovingly illustrated depiction of the south is rich and arresting yet the game is rote. What you're left with is a game whose best ideas are all optics. The fairytale southern style plays out like a modern, YA take on Toni Morrison's fiction while summoning some of the whimsical, damaged beauty of 2012's Beasts of the Southern Wild. The soundtrack is a rambunctious collage of howling blues, twanging folk and lilting jazz. Compulsion Games bottled much southern magic during the making of this seemingly risky gambit for Microsoft, yet failed to take risks where it really mattered: this unique setting deserved more. South of Midnight is released 8 April, £39.99 or GamePass subscription
