Compulsion Games is one of five studios Microsoft moved to cut loose during its latest round of mass layoffs at Xbox, and the first thing it did after going independent is win another award for 2025’s South of Midnight. The magic-infused action-adventure took home the top Game of the Year honor at this year’s Games for Change Festival in New York this week.
“South of Midnight is about rising up in challenging times when it gets tough, about growth, about resilience, and the word change right now feels really timely for us because Compulsion Games is going back to being independent,” said producer and studio general manager Geneviève Forget in her acceptance speech remarks. “That is scary, that is exciting. We built something special, this team, and I know our team, my friends, our friends, will carry our spirit wherever we go and spread it across the industry.”
South of Midnight has now won multiple awards, including a Peabody, and seemed emblematic of the type of critically lauded games Xbox wanted its smaller studios to make for Game Pass. “It’s inspiring to see the team at Compulsion Games recognized with a Peabody Award for South of Midnight,” Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty wrote just two months ago. “This award reflects the care and craft behind their work, and the power of games as a medium to tell meaningful stories that last.”
But instead of building on that success, Xbox’s latest “reset” has seen Microsoft’s gaming division divest from smaller, more creatively ambitious projects to double down on tentpole franchises like Halo and Fallout. While Microsoft has allowed studios like Compulsion to take IP like South of Midnight with them, and has promised “runway for their next games,” the separation also comes with significant layoffs as the studios in question are forced to downsize. Compulsion recently put out a call for studio work on LinkedIn.
“It’s very weird times, our industry is growing and we’re still seeing layoffs and our hearts are with all of our friends and families and coworkers that have lost jobs over the last years,” producer Anamaria Musca said on stage last night. “But this is starting to feel more like a community than an industry, and I think it’s important that we remember that games are made by people, and it’s our friends and family and all of us standing up for each other, being part of this community, and making one of the best art forms there is.”