Compulsion Games’ mythical adventure game, South of Midnight, is a one-of-a-kind tale. Drenched in folklore and unique stop-motion graphics to bring the dark tales and heroic stories of the Southern Gothic to life, the Xbox Game Studios property is a serious contender for 2025 Game of the Year, especially considering that in just under a month of its release, the game has already amassed 1 million players.
The story follows a young woman named Hazel (voiced by Adriyan Rae, who also shared motion capture duties with Nona Parker), reeling after a hurricane devastated her hometown as she journeys through the highest peaks and the bayou to find her mother, who went missing during the flood. Pulled into a magical reality where folklore creatures emerge, Hazel embraces her powers as a Weaver—a magical mender of broken spirits—to confront formidable creatures called Haints as she unravels the secrets of her family and those around her.
Below, writer Zaire Lanier speaks with Deadline about cinematic inspirations, crafting relatable narratives and building the world of South of Midnight.
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DEADLINE: You get hired to write for this game. You hear about the general concept, which is this Black girl living in the South, and she’s got some magical powers. What was the first thing going through your mind?
ZAIRE LANIER: I was just really excited about the premise. Games with Black female leads are rare in gaming, especially at the AAA level. I was floored that I was going to be able to work on a project like this. I was excited about it being set in the South with magical realism. I was excited because I was like, “Oh, I can represent and write about people I grew up with and have been around my whole life who don’t get represented in these ways in games.” So, I was excited and very nervous as well.
DEADLINE: What are some games that inspired you growing up, or games that you keep returning to?
LANIER: I didn’t game much as a kid. My grandmother bought us an Xbox, but we only played it when we went to her house. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was the first story-driven game I ever played. I was 10, and I was just flabbergasted at the end. I remember dropping the controller and running to tell my grandma [about the story], and she was trying to be a supportive grandma, but she didn’t know what the hell I was talking about [laughs]. I didn’t really game much until I was probably 16 or 17. I played Call of Duty or Ratchet & Clank with my cousins. I eventually bought a PlayStation, and the first games I played were The Last of Us, Dragon Age: Origins, and The Walking Dead games. So, I started thinking about, “Well, someone has to write these.” It had never really popped into my head that this could be a career. I didn’t even get into game writing until I was about 25 or 26. I went to school to be a doctor, and then I made the transition to this. But right now, I’m really obsessed with Helldivers, and I play Valheim.
DEADLINE: What inspirations did you and the team pull from to create Hazel’s story?
LANIER: In terms of the research for the game’s fictional locale of Prospero, the team made trips, so they went down to Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, and the Carolinas as well. They just went and talked to locals. We brought up Donna Washington, an award-winning storyteller, because so much of the storytelling tradition in the South is oral. It’s not like you’ll find a collection of stories unless it’s a Br’er Rabbit-type thing, because there are some established Br’er Rabbit stories. Then you have the more general local legend or folktale, so we brought her up to talk about those aspects.
We also had movies and books as references. We did Eve’s Bayou, Night of the Hunter, some Zora Neale Hurston, like Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Hazel is a conglomeration of a lot of the young Black women in my life, myself included. Like most Black Americans, my family comes from the South, so I talked to my grandparents as well. I spent summers in the country. One of my biggest inspirations was Spike Lee’s Crooklyn. The main character, Troy, her mom is sick, and it’s a coming-of-age story. I’ve always been fascinated by the way they portray Troy growing up over that time period, and learning more about her mother and becoming more understanding as her mother is sick. I wanted to capture that same feeling while I was working on Hazel, and her personality and her character journey throughout Midnight.
DEADLINE: A little more about Hazel. What’s something you wanted to get across with her character?
LANIER: She’s very earnest. Whatever she’s going to do, she’s going to do it all in. I wanted her to be someone that you would want to be your friend. Or if you were a parent, you would want your child to be her friend. That kind of kid in the class, someone would say, “Oh, why don’t you go talk to Hazel? She seems like a nice young lady.” She’s still a teenager, so she’s a little impulsive, maybe a little quick to anger, but you can tell she always means well. She’s empathetic, a little arrogant and cocky. She has her moments, but who hasn’t at that age? We all have a little bit of that in us.
DEADLINE: Hazel’s sentient plushie doll, Crouton, is so cute. Talk more about why he was integrated into the story.
LANIER: Adding Crouton just added more game mechanics. Once everything gets swept away in the hurricane, she gets this weird little thing, a piece of her everyday life that is suddenly also imbued with magic. Crouton’s also named after my cat Crouton. But he’s just a memento to remind her of her mom. We have that scene in the swamp where he shakes Hazel awake after Bunny tosses Hazel off the cliff. He’s a little bit of light in some very heavy moments that we have.
DEADLINE: Yes, the darkness of the storytelling. The folklore tale that got me the most was Huggin’ Molly, the spider-woman, who was perceived as snatching the children from the townspeople. But instead, she was trying to spare them from abuse from their families. How did this idea come about?
LANIER: There’s a whole extra layer of story where Hazel walks around and sees people being affected, factories that are closed down—basically, the final death throes of a small town. And often in the midst of those death throes, when it’s systemic, when you don’t have money for good public schools, you don’t have resources for public health, sometimes that turns into a lot of hardships within the community. And I think Huggin’ Molly is just the magical folk tale version of a CPS almost. It’s not perfect. Like you mentioned, there are these kids living in the mountains with a giant spider woman, potentially eternally youthful, because [they’re thinking] there is someone out there who is trying to help me and hears me. Because it’s a folktale, sometimes logic doesn’t make 100% sense, but I think folktales are often told as a means to issue a warning or to tell a lesson. For example, you find a magic lamp, you get three wishes to make your life better. Here, there’s a magic woman in the mountains who’s going to take these children away from their abusive parents because they don’t have the resources to get the help they need. And that’s what Molly represents.
When you talk to the kids in the zone, they are happy. They have beds, food and these weird little toys. But it’s an extreme solution to a problem that no one really knows how to fix. Lacey [Hazel’s mother, a social worker] talks about that struggle with her memory objects too, about how much of what she sees, she wishes she could undo, but the only way she can do that is by magical means.
DEADLINE: What was the most challenging story for you to put together?
LANIER: A challenging moment for me to write was probably Altamaha-ha and Mahalia’s story because it involves so much sensitive historical context. And when you’re writing narrative in a game, you only have so much space to give every story because it’s interactive. For really serious subjects, sometimes that can result in you glossing over something that requires a lot more detail and time put into it. So, trying to walk the line between including these elements and feeling like we were respectful towards those realities while also giving Hazel time to process what she’s seeing because it is traumatic, and applies directly to her and her community. Those were hard to do, but it was rewarding. I think we pulled it off pretty well as a team. Also, Altamaha-ha was just sad as shit. All the stories are really sad, but that one, I was just like man… I might’ve cried a couple of times while [working] on the script.
DEADLINE: We all know there are parts of the gaming community that are just so anti-DEI. But I’ve seen a large amount of support from all over the gaming community for this one. How are you feeling now that the game is out? Is there anxiety? Has anything in particular resonated with you since its release?
LANIER: I’m really proud. I was definitely extremely anxious about it. You don’t want to necessarily be the representative for Black games. Because they don’t come around very often, it can feel that way sometimes. Not that the team or anyone ever made me feel that way, but it was just me personally. South Midnight for me is just a human story. There’s something in it for everyone. And I really hope for people who grew up in the South, Black people in the South, there are parts of it that feel very hyper-specific to us that we would understand. But it’s the same thing of like, if I play Yakuza or Ghost of Tsushima, I don’t necessarily get all the nuances that would be apparent if I came from that culture, but it’s a game I still really enjoy because it’s got good storylines — and Yakuza is just really funny. I am still able to be immersed into the story and enjoy it.
For me, seeing people say, “I learned so much about this culture that I don’t know anything about” is amazing. I saw a streamer in Romania saying how much they liked South of Midnight. Then seeing someone who’s like, “This felt like my childhood.” Or people saying, “I’ve been playing with my kids, and they like it.” Those things to me mean a lot more to me than any vitriol or hate I get. My whole life I’ve been playing games with people who don’t represent me, and I’ve loved them. So, I don’t know what else to tell them, you know what I mean?
I’m really happy and proud that people seem to like it. They really like the story, and it’s really exciting that Hazel is likeable. I definitely feel the weight off my shoulders. Whether people loved it or hated it, I just needed to just know what people thought about it, and now I do, and I feel good. I’m hoping that this game for some little girl is going to be like Knights of the Old Republic for me because I would have loved to have a Hazel back then.
DEADLINE: Hazel and her mom, Lacey, have a complex relationship. What’s something you wanted to get across?
LANIER: Hazel’s graduating from high school and getting ready to go to college, and you’re in that weird space where you’re legally an adult but you were just a child last week. And you have a lot of confidence in yourself. But with Lacey, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes with her job as a social worker. Hazel keeps learning all this new information about her mom, and she comes to have a greater understanding of her mother. And that’s not saying Lacey is perfect or Hazel isn’t right to have some of the issues she has with her mom, but I think for Hazel, the game is about her gaining a new perspective on her mom. Hazel has to realize that her mom once had hopes, dreams and then her husband, Hazel’s dad, died, and then she had a boyfriend after that, who basically leaves. She then has these kids that she sees abused every day, and she feels powerless to help. Their relationship is Hazel coming to terms with everything about her mother and her flaws, but also the joy she has in watching Hazel grow up. She has her own very fond memories of Hazel. I don’t think a lot of kids think about their parents’ own happiest memories of hanging out with them. It’s not something you think about until you’re older and you look at old pictures.
Lacey’s journey is realizing that Hazel is an independent woman. At the end of the game, they have to work together to stop Kooshma. And I think it’s that sense of community and trust in each other. They’re definitely going to argue again. It’s them knowing; we can get through this together.
DEADLINE: Kooshma is the big bad, but he’s untouchable. You fight his henchmen. What went into him being an ethereal big bad that still exists after the fight is over?
LANIER: We wanted Roux [a henchman] to be a figurehead; he’d be your face-to-face interaction with the world of dreams and nightmares. You go to his cabaret in the caravan and see all these extremely broken people. At least for me, Kooshma is tangible, but he’s also just a concept, almost because he’s feeding on people’s hopes, dreams, and whatever they’re unable to get over. I feel like Kooshma represents the inability to almost let go of something or the inability to work through something. And that’s why I think in part you can never kill Kooshma because there’s always broken dreamers, and people in pain and all that. Hazel broke the cycle by realizing that something was off.
DEADLINE: With that said, we need a sequel, some DLC, something. What’s the tea?
LANIER: That’s above my pay grade. I have no idea. [laughs].
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
