After Contrast and We Happy Few, Compulsion Games concocts a musical adventure for us in a universe with marked inspirations. A sweet folk tale with a touch of darkness that we can't wait to discover. Maxime Archetto, Realization Director, and Olivier Derivière, game music composer, presented their work to us.
The games in the Compulsion Games catalog can still only be counted on the fingers of one hand, but the world of shadows imagined for Contrast (2013) and the psychedelic dystopia of We Happy Few (2018) have already enabled the Montreal studio to forge a reputation as a weaver of deeply captivating universes. In 2025, the team will offer South of Midnight, a new experience which will set its setting in swamps reminiscent of Louisiana in the company of Hazel, a zealous and disillusioned heroine whose already difficult transition to adulthood is further disrupted by folkloric creatures, unusual weaving powers and an Alice in Wonderland-style adventure that descends into an increasingly ferocious tunnel of magic. Maxime Archetto, Realization Director, and Olivier Derivière, composer of the game, gave us the opportunity to discuss the adventure and one of its central elements: the music.
South of Midnight: love letter to the south and tales
A heroine who fights corrupted creatures to restore harmony to lands under attack, it's a video game pitch that we know all too well. But the multiple references that nourished South of Midnight already manage to make it a particular object of contemplation. These creatures that we must face are the Haints, evil spirits from southern folk tales – like the Altamaha-ha encountered in a trailer – that Hazel will have to confront all throughout his journey. Some are driven by trauma and seek to feed on the adventurer's guilt and fear. Others have a more human soul. And each represents a kind of darkness that must be gotten rid of to reveal the candid beauty of environments strongly inspired by stop-motion animated films and of course, by the Southern Gothic genre.. « The initial idea, explains David Sears (Creative Director) in a paper published in the columns of Xbox Wire, is that monsters exist and that you just have to go over the fence in your garden to encounter them. The further we move away from the influences of civilization, the more magical the world becomes ». A fervent worshiper of the South, Sears drew on his memories of Mississippi, its forgotten farms and other abandoned places, to create this beautiful love letter.
“I found items from the Civil War, the Great Depression, and more modern oddities, like a tree with doll heads nailed to it. Why was he there, in the middle of nowhere? Someone had gone to great lengths to carry all these doll heads out to the middle of the woods and then nail them to this tree. These are the kinds of things you can expect to see in the world of South of Midnight. While the game is indeed inspired by the real world, I sometimes think that it is much stranger than we think. »
A folk tale, South of Midnight also has its share of darkness; Compulsion Games says it was inspired by a slew of classics, including a few noir films. The feature film Beasts of the Southern Wild was also “ very very important » in the conception of the storyMaxime Archetto tells us. This independent American film, released in 2012, traces the life of Hushpuppy, a six-year-old girl who lives in a Louisiana bayou with her father and leads a precarious existence in an isolated hamlet. Faced with a devastating storm and global warming, she must fight to survive, while searching for answers about her missing mother and confronting fantastical events. And to also quote As I Lay Dying by Faulkner, an initiatory and macabre journey written in 1930 by William Faulkner which plunges us into the heart of a family, the Bundrens, who cross the Mississippi to grant their mother's last wish: to be buried in the town of Jefferson. For the rest, Archetto confides having been helped by a real local storyteller, and having carried out, with the other members of the team, extensive research in the field : « We met a storyteller from the American South who told us stories from the Deep South, we went into the field, we hired writers, but the work itself is original. We fictionalized existing creatures. »
Olivier Derivière's biggest musical production
If the folkloric aura of the game seems deeply particular, it is nevertheless its musicality which is most surprising. Here, if it is not so much a question of musical comedy, the songs, however, are an almost organic aspect of the universe, a driving force, and fluctuate with the steps of our protagonist. With each chapter started, snippets of corrupted, even altered notes begin. The creatures sometimes have their own sung musical theme. A special feature that we can't wait to see in pictures. “ It’s my biggest musical production, composer Olivier Derivière tells us. There are dozens of artists who participated. An orchestra recorded in London but there are mainly a lot of musicians from Nashville, and the singers had to correspond to the characters, it's a lot of in-depth work “. With Derivière, the teams spent a long time writing and performing conceptual songs, murder ballads and lullabies inspired by blues, gospel or folk. A long-term task that required careful coordination from start to finish. This is how the captivating chords of Shakin' Bones, charismatic narrator with a smooth voice who made players shudder during his first appearance. The character, immortal, is inspired by the legend of Robert Johnson, the man who made a deal with the devil at the crossroads.
“In video games there is a lot of pre-production. We have to think and make projections. We only see the game at the end actually. When you work with a studio like Compulsion, there is a real love of “doing”, of craftsmanship. When we are in configurations like this, we have the possibility of evolving with confidence while we are all at high risk. »
We no longer present Olivier Derivière. From A Plague Tale: Innocence and Requiem to Streets of Rage 4 via Assassin's Creed IV, the French composer has enhanced each of these productions with his beautiful notes and today constitutes one of the most popular artists in the medium, both he knows perfectly well how to provide the substance that will perfect the universes he works on. In 2025, it is a culminating stage of his career which he still reaches. The thinking heads at Compulsion Games offered him the opportunity to collaborate on South of Midnight with a creative freedom that allows him, to date, to realize one of his most ambitious projects: “ It's difficult to make a video gamehe tells us, and Compulsion's approach being very artistic, it was very reassuring. They are open to suggestions and bring a lot of ideas to the table. It’s a very arty studio. So, there is a kind of trust that is established. Creative Director David Sears' first words were 'I don't want music', so I felt very involved (laughs). In fact, he didn't want pretty music that would make an easy illustration, but as the conversations progressed, we understood that each of the creatures had a particular theme. We wanted to convey that musically, and why not illustrate that in song. »
And above all a human drama
The environments and the music almost constitute characters in their own right, alongside a protagonist whose personality is already overflowing. She is said to be disillusioned, sarcastic, but also endowed with a particular empathy, which will thrill this adventure which promises to be profoundly human. “ For me, Hazel stands out because she experiences most of the same problems that real people experience as well, which is refreshing for someone learning to be a hero. That doesn't stop her from being unstoppable, what matters most to her is finding her feet and making the world a better place. », Tells Sears in the columns of Xbox Wire. Already troubled by a series of personal failures and a difficult relationship with her mother, Hazel will also have to confront the weight of her new weaving powers, which materialize very elegantly in extremely modular lace threads.. « Weaving manifests itself throughout the gameplay. In navigation, weaving will allow you to jump higher, but also to trap creatures to take them towards you, Archetto explains to us. Hazel is able to bring up things from the past to interact with “. The player can therefore expect aerial movements, in spaces which would encourage exploration a little, at least, we hope: “ There is a main path but at Compulsion we work a lot in detail. There's a lot of love everywhere. Little mysteries are hidden, so exploration is encouraged. »
Human drama, folk tale, noir films, gospel and stop-motion: the myriad of influences worked at length by the Compulsion Games teams make us believe in a particularly captivating universe which has already won us over with its beauty and the place it gives to the music. We now look forward to discovering the other aspects of the game which, we remind you, will be released somewhere in the year 2025.
