In video game terms, South of Midnight is pretty standard. It is the sort of straightforward action-adventure story you'd expect. You are thrown into a linear world where you need to do some light puzzle solving and platforming. As you progress, you get abilities to push and pull objects to the right spots. You fight enemies in specific areas, and the combat is fairly average.
It is formulaic, even boring. After spending an hour or two in it is world and I found that the charm of its story and the undeniable beauty of its world weren't enough to make me put up with the poor gameplay. While I won't spend much time on it and I have to give credit where it is due. It is one of the most beautiful games I have played in a long time and it does so with bold art direction and stylization.
Beyond Graphics: What Makes a Game Visually Stunning
As you well know, gamers the definition of good graphics is pretty narrow these days. For a game to be effective in this sense, it needs to be as close to reality as technology allows. There should be ultra-realistic facial animations facilitated by line motion capture technology ray tracing to mic the way light bounces off of it in real life and great animation so you are never reminded that you're not actually watching a movie.
South of Midnight unlike many modern games is not a graphical showcase. As a double-A game with a relatively quick runtime South of Midnight forgoes graphic fidelity in the style of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 in favor of stylization in the style of Harold Halibut. You have probably heard this before, but the games art style is based on stop-motion animation and it is characters are made from clay mockets.
As you can imagine this leads to some truly impressive visuals. The characters are more cartoonish than realistic but they are incredibly expressive. The world feels imperfect desolate and strangely tactile just like you might imagine clay feels when you touch it. The light is beautiful, especially the way it radiates off surfaces, like the rough edges of a door frame the velvety surface of a couch and or the bark of a tree. The combined effect makes the world of South of Midnight feel real and perfectly captures its Southern Gothic fairy tale atmosphere.
When Style Becomes Storytelling
More than that, South of Midnight tells it is story through it is style. The game is divided into chapters in the style of a story, each chapter beginning with a series of stunning images and wonderful narration. It's certainly not unique in this regard many games tell their stories in chapters but this creates the illusion of a fairy tale not realism. It is an excellent example of form and content coming together to tell a story in an interesting and innovative way.
South of Midnight is by no means a perfect game. It is not something I would ever finish myself. even though there are many things I like about it. But in an industry that's increasingly focused on getting graphics as close to reality as possible and pushing consumer hardware as far as possible, South of Midnight is a breath of fresh air. It is aesthetics are focused on serving the game not on meeting the increasingly high expectations of players who have been spoiled by picture-perfect graphics. I hope more big games focus on creative art styles not just better graphics.
0 Comments