South of Midnight: 6 Tips to Help You Thrive in This Darkish, Fantastical World

South of Midnight invitations you right into a darkish, fantastical world drawn from tales of the American South – and whereas this may appear like a fairytale, each the tales it tells and the challenges it poses are removed from simplistic.

Telling the story of Hazel, who features the magical energy of Weaving after her mom is swept away by a supernatural flood, you’ll want to cross a warped tackle the South in your hunt to discover her mom, and solutions to what precisely is occurring. Alongside the best way, you’ll battle Haints – corrupted enemies borne from the sorrow of the world – and treatment the injuries of Legendary Creatures, the themes of real-life folktales introduced to life by developer Compulsion Video games.

Premium Version homeowners can play from at present (forward of an April 8 launch date for all gamers), and to rejoice we’ve put collectively some suggestions that cowl each exploration and fight, which is able to allow you to put together for this very surprising journey:

Look In every single place

Navigating every of South of Midnight’s chapters may be so simple as following your Guiding Strand – a characteristic that sees magical threads information you to your subsequent aim. However that’s removed from all there’s to uncover. Every location is filled with hidden areas – some require platforming to attain, others want you to use your spells, whereas others will lead you into battles you may by no means have in any other case had. All of them would require a eager eye to discover.

Your rewards for doing this normally come in the shape of Floofs – the sport’s improve forex – and we vastly advocate you are taking the time to search for them. With only a bit of concerted exploration, you’ll be able to add upgrades to your ability tree (extra on these later) a lot quicker than by merely working from one goal to the subsequent.

Even higher, you might also discover Life Filaments as you go. Most chapters include one of these – normally in its most hidden aspect space – and accumulating three presents a everlasting improve to your well being bar.

Increase These Tales

South of Midnight is all about tales – from the story of Hazel’s search to discover her mom, to the tragic backstories of the Legendary Creatures you’ll discover alongside the best way. However if you need to dig actually deep, be certain to search every chapter for objects, notes, and extra. You’ll see these marked by small circles as you method, usually in out-of-the-way places.

Far out of your common world-building, every chapter’s hidden notes add much more element to the characters and tales you’re studying about alongside the core questline. You might uncover hidden motivations for why characters are the best way they’re, merely since you took the time to examine their lives. It’s an enriching approach to add to the broader story.

Improve Early and Typically

As talked about above, you’ll be able to velocity by the improve tree with a bit of exploration – and if you begin hitting tougher fight sequences, you’ll thank your self for doing it. Even on its common issue degree, South of Midnight’s fight packs a punch, with even essentially the most fundamental Haint enemies eradicating complete chunks of your well being bar after a single hit – by no means thoughts if you come up in opposition to a Legendary Creature. Upgrades are your means of turning the tables.

Upgrades have a tendency to focus extra on providing you added perks, relatively than merely buffing a capability’s current stats. While you Unravel a downed enemy to claw again some well being, for instance, you’ll be able to add an space of-effect blast to stagger any close by Haints earlier than you get again into the fray. Including a fast double-dodge to your repertoire, in the meantime, will come in very useful if you begin assembly enemies that may quick-fire a number of projectiles. Take the time to discover the ability tree, and prioritize upgrades that appear like they’ll resolve issues.

Use Dodges as Assault and Defence

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Hazel doesn’t have the flexibility to block assaults – however she greater than makes up for that with a strong bonus to her dodge. Hitting the dodge button will allow you to escape in any path (with some invulnerability frames thrown in) – however hitting a wonderfully timed dodge, simply earlier than you’re hit, comes with a nasty shock for whoever was making an attempt to harm you.

Excellent Dodges ship out a blast of vitality, staggering any enemy round you and performing some good harm, too. It’s price paying consideration to not simply what assaults enemies can do, however the time it takes to pull them off – fairly quickly, you could be doing nearly as a lot harm by not attacking.

Use Spells as Interrupts

As we talked about, getting hit in South of Midnight can get very nasty, in a short time – and whereas Hazel has that useful dodge, it will probably generally be simpler merely to cease an assault in the primary place. Towards most enemies, throwing out a spell – whether or not that’s a Pull, a Push, or a Weave (which incapacitates most Haints) – will break them out of an assault fully.

Whereas it’s tempting to spam your spells as quickly as they’ve cooled down, we’d advocate holding one in reserve as an emergency interrupt – should you see an enemy winding up throughout your combo, merely hit them with a spell and preserve thwacking.

Chain Your Spells

If you happen to really need to preserve an enemy locked down, you should utilize your full spell repertoire to preserve assaults going with out interruption. This is especially helpful after you have a number of upgrades below your belt.

For instance, you may Pull an enemy in the direction of you, with an added Weave impact (which you’ll be able to additionally improve to have them take extra harm whereas tied up). As quickly as they break away, Weave them once more with that core spell – and once they break away once more, use Push to deal some harm and preserve your distance, earlier than charging up your ranged assault to deal the killer blow.

With a bit of observe, enemies that felt like they took an age of dodging and poking to beat in the early recreation can start to go down in a single combo – it’s extraordinarily satisfying.

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South of Midnight might be out there on April 8, 2025, on Xbox Sequence X|S, Xbox App for Home windows PC, Steam and cloud, and arrives on day one with Recreation Move. Play from at present by buying the Premium Edition, and get entry to digital extras.