If you weren’t aware, on December 11th, The Game Awards took place. While many games shined across categories like Game of the Year, Best Audio, and Best Sim/Strategy Game, only one title stood out in a deeply meaningful way. South of Midnight was nominated for AND WON, the Games for Impact award.
Only a few weeks earlier, South of Midnight received two additional nominations: Best Soundtrack and Best Lead Performer at the Golden Joystick Awards.
Adyrian Rae, who voices the main character Hazel Flood, expressed in several interviews how honored she felt to be recognized for her work on this single-player action-adventure.
The game is set in the Deep South, where Gullah Geechee culture and folklore take center stage. In this gothic fantasy, you begin by learning about Hazel and her mother, Lacey, as they prepare for a hurricane approaching their small town of Prospero. After an unfortunate accident separates Hazel from her mother during the storm, it becomes Hazel’s mission to rescue the person she loves most.
We follow Hazel into the supernatural, a world steeped in Southern African American mythology that is often overlooked. Along the way, Hazel must defeat haints, trapped and tormented souls, and use her blue tree bottles to cleanse tangled knots of negative emotions while confronting the past. “Tree bottles” have increasingly appeared in media, most recently referenced in “Sinners” from award-winning director Ryan Coogler.
Armed with weaving hooks as weapons, Hazel becomes a protector tasked with setting lingering suffering right; cleansing the world of guilt, rage, and darkness that has lain trapped in time, seeping into everything it touches. With each victory, she draws closer to Lacey, who was taken by one of the ghouls haunting the bayous.
Combat never takes a back seat.
Hazel gains spells and magical abilities that fuel hard-hitting combos, allowing her to unravel the malevolent spirits plaguing the southern marshes. Along the way, she is revealed to be a Weaver, an African American “chosen one” who channels the power to heal wounds of the past, while aiding the restless spirits born of them. As the Weaver, her mission is to restore the Great Tapestry, a delicate web that binds the living and the supernatural, past and present.
What has captured audiences are the game’s enchanting visuals, heartfelt storytelling, and dynamic art style. The soundtrack’s blues, jazz and gospel-inspired compositions immerses players in a world that feels lived-in from the cicadas chirping in the evening to the fog settling over the marsh grass during twilight quests.
The game also presents deeply emotional stories, such as that of an enslaved woman who throws herself from a boat while holding her baby in a final attempt to escape toward a better future. When she reaches the shore, she realizes her baby is gone. Her grief echoes for centuries, transforming her into a monstrous spirit forced to forever search and sing for her lost child.
One of the game’s main criticisms has been its relatively simple battle sequences.
Obstacles are rarely too difficult to overcome. While some may see this as a flaw, it also makes the game accessible for beginners and younger players. At its core, this is a journey through grief, and it does justice to a folklore genre that deserves its own cultural category.
Currently, South of Midnight sits at 77% on Metacritic and 67% on OpenCritic.
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