South of Midnight was one of my favourite games of 2025. I love that particular sub-set of Americana: the folk tales, the music, the people and South of Midnight tied them all together masterfully. While it’s not a perfect game, it’s one I’ve already revisited once on PC, and now that the Switch 2 version is here I’m pleased to say this is an excellent way to enjoy the game on a small screen.
We’ve got a full South of Midnight review on the site from Steve, so I won’t spend too long covering old ground. You play as Hazel Flood, a young high school trackstar living with her mum in Prospero, Chickasaw County. When a storm drags their home down river with Hazel’s mum still in it, Hazel is herself dragged into a Southern Gothic folktale that sees her becoming a Weaver: a magically gifted individual who can see the Grand Tapestry that reality is made of.
I adore the story in South of Midnight and the way it depicts characters derived from real folktales. From Two-Toed Tom’s hulking stature and island atop his back, to the tragic tale of Huggin’ Molly, each of these creatures is given their time to shine with the game neatly segmented around them. Each section sees you learning more about the creature and how they fit into Hazel’s own story, and I was always eager to see what the next creature was and to find out more about their (often dark) backstory.
As Hazel comes to terms with her newfound powers, she becomes more adept at fighting Stigma, which can loosely be described as “dark video game gunk that you need to clear”. By fighting enemies and cleansing areas you can restore nature and beauty, making the world safe from the otherworldly threats that are creeping across the veil into our reality. If I’m being brutally honest, I don’t really like the combat in South of Midnight. It’s fairly standard, with light and charged attacks, dodging and a few moves for manipulating enemies around the battlefield. There’s nothing wrong with it, I just didn’t want to do it compared to the other things you do in the game. South of Midnight has a suite of accessibility features though and with them you’re able to turn off combat entirely, making each combat section skippable. The fact you can do this and tailor the experience to your own tastes is an excellent feature, and Compulsion Games should be commended for this.
By turning off combat I basically turned South of Midnight into a platformer with some mild puzzle elements, which was perfect for me. The game features some great set pieces that I was free to enjoy and soak in the atmosphere of (looking at you, Benjy), without needing to think about any upcoming fights I’d need to slog through. The only combat encounters I engaged with were the boss battles, in which you take on those aforementioned folk creatures. They’re pure spectacle, and while they’re not particularly taxing, they’re made 10 times better by the inclusion of some incredible music from Olivier Deriviere. His music, and these tracks in particular, drill down into your brain and your soul and will have you bopping along to Two-Toed Tom as you send the big guy packing. We’re talking an all-timer soundtrack here, people, and that alone is enough reason to play the game.
A lot of you are probably wondering how this all works on the Switch 2, and I’m pleased to say we’ve got a perfectly playable version of the game here. Docked, the game looks gorgeous and performance feels like 30fps, but don’t take my word on that. The stop-motion visual style makes it difficult to tell, but switching to handheld the game immediately felt a bit smoother, perhaps due to the Switch 2 VRR. Again, I’m not an authority on this stuff by any stretch, but playing the game in handheld felt pretty good and I didn’t feel like the visuals took much of a hit either.
South of Midnight was one of the best games of 2025 and now it’s one of the best Switch 2 games to play in 2026. If you love Americana and Southern Gothic folklore then this is an essential play, elevated by an ability to customise the gameplay to your tastes and a genuinely incredible soundtrack.
