Let’s be real for a second. If you’ve been hanging around gaming Twitter or Reddit lately, you’ve probably seen the firestorm. The phrase south of midnight woke has been tossed around like a hot potato ever since Compulsion Games pulled back the curtain on their Southern Gothic action-adventure. Some people are genuinely excited about the art style. Others? They’re convinced the game is just another "agenda-driven" project.
It’s exhausting.
But beneath the shouting matches and the YouTube thumbnails with red circles, there is a real game being built by people who clearly love the American South. South of Midnight isn't just a random title; it’s a specific vibe. You play as Hazel, a young Black woman searching for her mother in a flooded, magical-realist version of the Deep South. It looks like a stop-motion film, and the music is pure swamp blues.
Why is it so controversial? Mostly because it features a Black protagonist and was developed with input from Sweet Baby Inc., a narrative consultancy that has become a massive lightning rod in the industry. Whether you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing usually depends on which corner of the internet you call home.
The Sweet Baby Inc. Connection and Why People are Mad
You can't talk about the south of midnight woke conversation without mentioning Sweet Baby Inc. This small Montreal-based company has become the face of a much larger cultural battle in gaming. They consult on scripts, character designs, and world-building to ensure diverse representation.
Critics argue that this leads to "sanitized" or "forced" diversity. They point to games like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League or Saints Row (2022) as examples of games that lost their soul to corporate DEI initiatives. When the "Detected" list on Steam highlighted South of Midnight as a game Sweet Baby worked on, the internet basically imploded.
Compulsion Games hasn't stayed silent, though. They’ve been pretty transparent about the fact that they wanted Hazel to feel authentic. They aren't just checking boxes; they’re trying to tell a story about a specific culture—Gullah Geechee influences, Delta blues, and the folklore of the Reconstruction era.
Is that woke?
By some modern definitions, sure. Any game that prioritizes marginalized voices is going to get that label. But if we look at the actual gameplay, it looks like a love letter to a region that rarely gets a fair shake in big-budget gaming. The South is usually either a punchline or a horror setting. Here, it’s beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.
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Breaking Down the "Woke" Accusations
What are people actually mad about? If you dig into the threads, it usually boils down to three things:
- The Protagonist: Hazel isn't a traditional "action hero" archetype. She’s a Black woman with natural hair and realistic features. For some, this feels like an intentional pivot away from the hyper-sexualized or "traditional" protagonists of the 2000s.
- Consultancy: The mere presence of outside "sensitivity" consultants is enough to trigger a boycott for a segment of the audience.
- The Aesthetic: Some feel the "ugly-chic" stop-motion art style is a way to avoid making the game "conventionally attractive."
Honestly, it feels like a bit of a reach. If you look at We Happy Few, Compulsion's last game, it was also weird. It was also stylized. It was also a biting social commentary. They’ve always been a studio that does things a bit differently.
The backlash to south of midnight woke elements often ignores the technical ambition. The game uses a variable frame rate for character animations to mimic Ray Harryhausen-style stop-motion. That’s a bold creative choice that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with art.
Hazel and the Gullah Geechee Inspiration
To understand why Hazel is the way she is, you have to look at the research. Compulsion Games didn't just guess what a Southern protagonist should look like. They looked at the Gullah Geechee people—a community on the coastal islands of South Carolina and Georgia who have preserved more of their African heritage than almost any other group in the U.S.
Hazel’s world is filled with "Haint Blue" paint and protection symbols. These aren't "woke" additions; they are historical facts of the region.
If a developer makes a game about Vikings, they research Norse runes. If they make a game about the Deep South, they research hoodoo and swamp folklore. When people call South of Midnight "woke" for including these things, they’re essentially calling history "woke."
That said, the execution matters. If the dialogue feels like a HR manual, the game will fail. But from what we’ve seen in the gameplay trailers—the weaving magic, the giant talking gators, the Shako-style monsters—it looks like a fantasy epic first and a social statement second.
The Industry’s Pivot and the "Anti-Woke" Counter-Movement
Gaming is in a weird spot in 2026. On one hand, you have massive successes like Black Myth: Wukong which many hailed as a "return to tradition" because it focused on mythology and action without Western DEI influence. On the other hand, you have Sony and Microsoft doubling down on diverse storytelling.
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South of Midnight is caught in the crossfire.
Microsoft, who owns Compulsion, is trying to find their God of War or The Last of Us. They need prestige titles. The risk is that by leaning so hard into the south of midnight woke discourse, the actual quality of the game gets buried.
It’s okay to be skeptical.
Skepticism is healthy! We’ve all seen games that prioritize "The Message" over the fun factor. But it’s also important to remember that some of the greatest games of all time—BioShock, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid—were incredibly political and "woke" for their time. They just had the benefit of being released before "woke" became a catch-all term for "stuff I don't like on the internet."
What Most People Get Wrong About the Development
There’s a rumor that Sweet Baby Inc. "took over" the development. This is fundamentally false. Consultants are exactly that—consultants. They look at what the developers have already built and offer feedback. The creative directors at Compulsion are still the ones calling the shots.
The project started long before the current cultural firestorm peaked. Games take five or six years to make now. This wasn't a reactionary project built to satisfy a 2024 social media trend; it’s a long-term vision from a studio that has always been obsessed with mid-century aesthetics and surrealism.
Does the "Woke" Label Actually Hurt Sales?
This is the million-dollar question. Concord famously flopped, and many blamed its "forced diversity" and "woke character designs." But Concord also cost $40, and nobody knew what the gameplay loop actually offered in a crowded market.
Then you have Spider-Man 2 or Horizon Forbidden West, which were called "woke" by the same crowds and sold millions of copies.
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The reality? Most "normal" gamers—the ones who don't spend all day on X—don't care. They care if the combat is snappy. They care if the world is worth exploring. They care if the giant monsters look cool. South of Midnight has giant monsters. It has a unique traversal system that involves "weaving" through the air. If those systems work, the game will find an audience regardless of the political bickering.
Navigating the Noise: How to Form Your Own Opinion
If you’re genuinely curious about the game but are put off by the south of midnight woke headlines, here’s how to cut through the static:
- Watch the raw gameplay: Don't watch a commentary video. Watch the 10-minute B-roll footage. Look at how the character moves. Does it look fun to play?
- Listen to the music: The soundtrack is being handled by Olivier Derivière. He’s a genius. If the music resonates with you, the game's atmosphere probably will too.
- Read the developer blogs: Compulsion has been posting deep dives into the Southern folklore they’re using. It’s fascinating stuff if you’re into mythology.
- Ignore the "Grifter" economy: There are people who make a living by being outraged. Whether they are outraged by "wokeness" or outraged by "bigotry," they both need the conflict to keep their views up.
South of Midnight is a gamble. It’s a weird, Southern Gothic, stop-motion-inspired action game with a protagonist who doesn't fit the typical mold. In an industry full of safe sequels and generic shooters, that’s actually kind of refreshing.
Maybe it’ll be a masterpiece. Maybe it’ll be a preachy mess. But we won't know until we actually pick up the controller.
Actionable Steps for Gamers
If you're still on the fence about whether South of Midnight is for you, here are a few things you can do to get a clearer picture before launch:
- Check out the "Southern Gothic" genre: Read some Flannery O’Connor or watch True Detective Season 1. If you hate that vibe—the decay, the heat, the swampy mysticism—you will hate this game, regardless of its politics.
- Follow Compulsion’s Art Direction: Look at their work on We Happy Few. If you didn't like the "stiff" animation style there, you might struggle with the variable frame rate in South of Midnight.
- Wait for the Reviews: Don't pre-order. Wait for critics you trust—not just the big sites, but independent reviewers who focus on gameplay mechanics—to weigh in.
- Look for the "Making of" Documentary: Microsoft released a 30-minute documentary on the game’s development. It shows the real people behind the project. It’s much harder to hate a game when you see the actual artists obsessing over the physics of a swamp.
The discourse around south of midnight woke isn't going away. It’s part of the landscape now. But don't let the noise rob you of the chance to experience something that might actually be unique. The American South is a place of deep shadows and incredible stories; it’s about time someone tried to capture that in a game, "woke" or not.
Focus on the mechanics, the world-building, and the art. At the end of the day, a game is a toy. It’s meant to be played. If it’s fun, it wins. If it’s boring, no amount of representation—or lack thereof—will save it.