South of Midnight Gets Major Update: Boss Bugs, Cutscene Fixes, and More!

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Summary

  • South of Midnight‘s new update focuses on fixing boss fight bugs, cutscene glitches, and other issues.
  • The game features stop-motion-style animation and has garnered praise for its art style and storytelling.
  • Compulsion Games will likely release more patches to address remaining bugs.

The southern gothic action-adventure game from Xbox, titled “Midnight’s Southern Border“, has been updated to primarily address issues with boss fights, cutscene performance, and other problems. This is the latest title produced by Compulsion Games, who joined Xbox Game Studios following their acquisition by Microsoft in 2018, just before the complete release of their second game, “We Happy Few“.

Moving away from their past works, Compulsion Games presents “South of Midnight,” an action-adventure game set in America’s south, richly steeped in local folklore. One unique aspect of the game is its art direction that mimics stop-motion, achieved by slowing down character animations. Although the game offers a linear journey and basic combat, it has been lauded for its visual aesthetics, music, and narrative, earning a decent 77 on Metacritic.

Approximately a week post the launch of “South of Midnight”, Compulsion Games has rolled out an update, version 1.2.0. The primary focus of this patch is to rectify problems some players have experienced during two major boss battles – Two-Toed Tom in Chapter 5 and Huggin’ Molly in Chapter 9. Regarding Two-Toed Tom, the bug causing the boss to vanish when players fell into the water has been addressed, as well as a glitch that caused players to get stuck in a specific area within the boss arena. In terms of Huggin’ Molly, the bottles players use to inflict damage will now appear correctly during phase 3 of the battle.

The narrative in “South of Midnight” significantly contributes to its overall appeal, making the game’s cutscenes crucial elements. The recent update addresses various technical issues, such as a misaligned eye in Huggin’ Molly, missing facial expressions on Hazel, and a flickering issue in Chapter 6’s cutscene involving Hazel. However, it’s important to note that a specific crash between Chapters 11 and 12 has been fixed only for Xbox Series S users. Unfortunately, players on Xbox Series X and PC might still encounter this crash as they approach the corresponding part of the game.

Regarding Compulsion Games’ debut third-person action adventure game, South of Midnight, it was launched just a week ago, yet it’s remarkable how polished it is technically. The stop-motion animation style it employs adds to its charm. Given that the team probably has a few more updates in store for us in the near future, fans should keep an eye out for any announcements about bug fixes.

South of Midnight Patch 1.2.0 Notes

Quality of Life

  • In response to community feedback, added new menu options for mouse and camera smoothing to improve control customization.

Tech

  • Fixed a crash when transitioning from chapter 11 to chapter 12 (Xbox Series S only).
  • Targeted performance improvements in gameplay and cutscenes.
  • Level of detail: Adjusted render distances on target objects to reduce popping (Kudzu, small plants, animals, etc.).

Gameplay

  • Resolved an issue where bottles during the Huggin’ Molly boss fight in Chapter 9 failed to spawn correctly during Phase 3.
  • Fixed an issue where the player would not receive damage from dropping yarn after being hit by it while standing on a jar during the chapter 9 Huggin’ Molly boss fight.
  • Resolved backtracking issue in Chapter 3 that previously blocked player progression (invisible wall at first wall run).
  • Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck when standing near the Two-Toed Tom dive-out area during the chapter 5 boss fight.
  • Fixed an issue where Two-Toed Tom would not reemerge during the Chapter 5 boss fight if the player fell into the water.
  • Fixed issue where some mushrooms appeared missing when playing on the lowest graphics settings in chapter 10.
  • Fixed various collision blockers in chapter 2, 10 and 11 where Hazel could navigate out of bounds or get stuck.
  • Fixed a rare issue where Weave would fail to hit a Haint during combat but still trigger the full cooldown, even though the ability did not successfully activate.
  • Addressed an issue where Haints would occasionally disappear during combat.
  • Fixed an issue where the first Crouton upgrade (Crouton Detonation) was missing its intended functionality.
  • Fixed an issue where using the pull ability on a rock projectile during the camera zoom-in would deactivate the weavable platform.
  • Fixed an issue where the 14/19 readable could not be collected when approaching the weavable platform from the left side
  • Fixed an issue where Hazel would enter a T-pose when grappling immediately after unsummoning the puppet.
  • Fixed an issue where VFX would remain attached to Hazel’s feet when entering or exiting Wall runs quickly.

Lighting

  • Adjusted the HDR color balance in chapter 5 to address oversaturation and brightness on lower end HDR screens.
  • Fixed an issue where the fade to white in HDR would instead fade to a washed-out grey.
  • Fixed incorrect lighting issues on systems using Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPUs.

Menu, settings and User Interface

  • The default key to back out of menus has been changed from ‘Backspace’ to ‘Tab’.
  • Fixed an issue where pressing ‘Esc’ on keyboard or the ‘Menu’ button on Xbox controller failed to save remapped controls or custom difficulty settings when exiting menus.
  • Ensured that keys are displayed in English consistently across all languages.
  • Resolved an issue where the “Applying changes in progress” message for graphics settings was untranslated.
  • Fixed an issue where the input display would default to “Keyboard” on Xbox if no controller was detected when launching the game.
  • Fixed an issue where unassigned controls would automatically remain unassigned after quitting the remapping menu and confirming to exit, requiring the player to remap them again.
  • Fixed an issue on Xbox where enabling HDR would cause pop-ups to appear without a background, making them harder to read.

Cinematics

  • Fixed a visual issue where one of Molly’s eyelids was misaligned.
  • Improved the transition from the wound Restore cinematic to catfish Outro removing camera and Hazel glitch.
  • Resolved a bug where Hazel’s facial expressions were missing and Hazel was flickering during the Chapter 6 Cherie Tree cutscene.
  • Fixed an issue during the Lacey Argument cutscene where Hazel was incorrectly holding two right shoes.

Narrative & Localization

  • Fixed multiple localization issues across various languages, including missing subtitles, cut-off subtitles, and incorrect subtitle languages.
  • Fixed various typos and grammar issues across the lore tab, readables, and other in-game text.

Audio

  • Implemented various audio fixes, including volume adjustments for improved balance.

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2025-04-16 22:48