Compulsion Games' gorgeous Southern Gothic adventure is a tale about grief and the difficulties of overcoming it, frequently touching on the sordid past of the American Deep South. Much like its subject matter, South of Midnight comes to a complicated, uneasy conclusion.
[Warning: Major spoilers for South of Midnight.]
The final leg of Hazel's journey sees her visiting the Town on the Tapestry, a place woven into the fabric of reality itself. It's the domain of Kooshma, the King of Dreams and Nightmares, who keeps people and their spirits locked in an incorporeal realm where they're seemingly forced to yearn forever. After finding Kooshma's Cabaret and performing a dance number with Roux, Hazel eventually reaches her mother, who appears locked in a vision of her daughter's apparent death.
Hazel Saves Her Mother From Kooshma
Escaping The Town On The Tapestry
Roux opens the way for Hazel to find her mother, Lacey, in exchange for a future favor. Despite Roux's help, who seems to have ambitions beyond remaining Kooshma's second-in-command, Hazel still has to confront Kooshma himself. Battling South of Midnight's Haints, Hazel breaks Lacey from her trance, in which she was reliving the moment Hazel fell into the flood trying to save Lacey from their runaway home. Unbeknownst to her mother, Hazel was pulled out of the water at the time, thanks to her newfound abilities.
Hazel relinquishes her magic bottle to Lacey after a brief reunion, and the fight against Kooshma continues. Hazel fights a gauntlet of Haints and dodges incoming attacks from Kooshma, who appears as a manifestation of Stigma, which Hazel, as a Weaver, has been Unraveling throughout South of Midnight. As Hazel Unravels Stigma, Lacey collects it in the magic bottle, which Hazel then runs to the bottle tree – except Kooshma, as a godlike entity, can't conceivably be trapped and dispersed completely via a bottle tree.
Instead, Roux reappears, assuring Hazel that her mother is safely back in Prospero. He also makes it clear he expects Hazel to make good on their deal: "a favor for a key." Said favor is bringing a hairbrush to Bunny, Hazel's grandmother. The exact purpose of the brush won't be clear until the last of South of Midnight's chapters, but Roux does speak plainly about what you've likely gathered throughout the game. Bunny "is what we call a False Stitcher," Roux says, "she wasn't chosen to be a Weaver." He calls the brush "a one-way trip to Kooshma."
Hazel Confronts Her Grandmother & Gives Bunny The Hairbrush
Bunny Chooses A False Reality With Her Daughter
South of Midnight's final chapter is quite brief. Hazel hastily meets with Lacey in the cemetery where their father and husband rests, then continues on to her grandmother's mansion. The house is now overrun with the Stigma Bunny has caused. As Roux said, "She uses a dark magic - killing creatures and tearing through the Grand Tapestry, leaving a trail of corruption behind." Bunny had one goal: revive her daughter, Cherie, who drowned as a toddler, and whom she loved more than her son, Trey, Hazel's father.
While searching for a means to bring her daughter back, Bunny kept Cherie's ailing spirit locked in a tree, which you see earlier in the game. Cherie's fate is similar to Benjy's, the first Mythical Creature Hazel helps, who also became a tree after suffering a tragic fate at the hands of his brother. Bunny thought Huggin' Molly's heart was the key to finally reviving her daughter, but when Hazel arrives at the mansion to confront her grandmother, she tells Bunny that you can't bring back the dead.
Hazel tells Bunny the way forward, that she needs to change and move on in order to begin healing all the pain she's caused. Bunny is tragically unable to come to with her grief, saying, "I don't even know what to live for anymore." This leaves Hazel with only one option, Roux's hairbrush, which was actually Cherie's as a baby. When Bunny picks up the brush, Roux appears, offering a way for Bunny to be reunited with her daughter, even though Bunny is aware that it will only be an illusion spun by Kooshma.
Roux preaches the veracity of Kooshma's realm, saying Bunny will "never be able to tell the difference." Bunny appears touched by the idea, takes Roux's hand, and disappears with him. The Stigma begins to erode and the Flood mansion itself collapses; Hazel flees, meeting her mother on the front lawn. A final cutscene shows Hazel reading the storybook that has bookended each chapter to Crouton and chatting with Catfish, showing she's embraced her role as Prospero's Weaver, and hints that Lacey has reunited with Laurent.
South Of Midnight's Ending Is About The Inability To Overcome Grief Without The Help Of Others
Bunny Refuses To Move On From Cherie's Tragic Death
South of Midnight's primary message is rather clear throughout: grief caused by tragic events not only affects those involved, but festers in the surrounding community, and can only be healed by accepting the help of others. This is gamified through Hazel's powers, where she's constantly Unraveling Stigma to help those who have become defined and transformed by their horrific pasts. Benjy, Two-Toed Tom, Laurent, and Honey and his mother all accept Hazel's help, and while they can't go back to how things were before, they reach a healthy level of acceptance.
Laurent broke things off with Lacey because he was afraid he'd hurt her and Hazel if he got angry and turned into the Rougarou.
Bunny refuses to accept help, though; she's convinced she can't move on. "There is a town for folks who can't move on. Or won't. You can't do any more harm there," Hazel tells her, referencing the Town on the Tapestry. Bunny vilified her living child for his part in the accident that killed her favorite, and is unable to see that her own neglect is an equally contributing factor in Cherie's death. In Bunny's worldview, others have done wrong, and she's the only one who can fix it, no matter the cost.
Instead of using her wealth and resources to help those "people who don't deserve their kids," as Bunny puts it, she selfishly works toward the impossible. Lacey stands as a direct foil to Bunny, living modestly and helping those in need. Hazel begins the game irate at her mother's hard work, and how much of Lacey's time it consumes. It's revealed throughout South of Midnight that Lacey works so hard for Hazel's benefit, and the two eventually reconcile, forming a relationship that Bunny never could with her remaining child because she became consumed by her grief.
The game's most poignant line comes from Roux, right before he takes Bunny into Kooshma's embrace: "There's a fine line between mercy and justice, ain't that right, Hazel Flood? You chose a hard road for yourself." Hazel replies, "I know." There may be a fine line, but it's also blurred. Bunny leaving for the Town in the Tapestry is mercy – she's freed from her grief, even if it's a charade – but it's also justice, liberating Prospero from hoarded wealth, potentially avoiding tragic events like those witnessed by Hazel in the abandoned logging company town in the mountains.
Hazel wants to come to an understanding with Bunny so that the community can be freed from the Stigma she's caused. Even though Bunny won't accept help, Hazel offers the best mercy she can, a reprieve from her grief, no matter how false. Hazel could have provided justice to Rhubarb for his abuse of his brother, Benjy. She could have dispensed punishment to Two-Toed Tom, and to Jolene for her role in his creation. She could have made sure Laurent never harmed anyone as the Rougarou again. She could have finished off Huggin' Molly herself for seemingly kidnapping children.
But Hazel learns there's more to each story, and Bunny is the only one that is incapable of change. She's given mercy, but it's unsatisfying, and the easy way out, doubling as justice for its dubiousness. Under Kooshma's purview, Bunny will be consumed by what has already dominated her life. In contrast, Hazel and Lacey sacrifice personal comfort to help others. Hazel has taken the hard road in South of Midnight, facing grief and despair and tragedy so that others might move past it.
South of Midnight
- Released
- April 8, 2025
- ESRB
- rp
- Developer(s)
- Compulsion Games
- Publisher(s)
- Xbox Game Studios
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
In "South of Midnight," players follow Hazel, a young woman navigating a surreal, Southern Gothic landscape in search of her mother after a devastating hurricane. As a newly awakened "Weaver," Hazel confronts creatures from Southern folklore, such as Two-Toed Tom and Huggin’ Molly, using her magical abilities to mend spiritual wounds.
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