Compulsion Games’ upcoming title South of Midnight releases this year and centers on a Black female protagonist in the deep South... but a whistleblower intimately familiar with the studio exposes what's really going on - a projection of racism originating from the studio itself, and how that could doom any chance of future success for the game...
The game’s marketing has been highlighting themes of Southern folklore and deep-rooted history as what feels like a main selling point, but beneath the surface lies a troubling reality: the game has been developed with the assistance of the extremely controversial consultation firm Sweet Baby Inc., known for kicking of Gamergate 2.0 when one of their now former employees, Chris Kindred, attempted to get a gamer, Kabrutus, banned from Steam. They inject unpopular Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) narratives into the videogames that they consult on, despite the overwhelmingly vast majority of gamers opposing this effort, and wanting nothing to do with that in their games.
What this whistleblower informed me about is going to blow this situation out of the water...
From jump, it's felt almost like South of Midnight was going to use race as a shield from criticism, which... was suspicious enough in it's own right. But what really caught my attention was that the only blatant racism I’ve seen surrounding this game during its development... ironically came from within Compulsion Games itself—specifically from Katie Robinson, aka PikaChulita.
She's the community manager who, in a 2022 interview with Refinery29 (above), said, "White male gamers were a mistake."
I covered this situation in a video (above) with X receipts. Shortly after, no apology was issued by Compulsion Games, PikaChulita is still employed by Microsoft-owned studio Compulsion Games, and... I was blocked by the Compulsion Game's official X account. But yeah... Nothing to see here, folks!
That's one way to handle a PR nightmare.
Manufactured Outrage: False Accusations of Racist Backlash
As previews for South of Midnight began rolling out, the expected narrative of racist backlash surfaced almost immediately, although any actual evidence of that kind of behavior was ...suspiciously absent. Instead, all I saw was vague 'claims' of racism being echoed by individuals in the community without any tangible proof or evidence provided.
Take @Colteastwood on X, who said on February 11:
"South of Midnight previews are overwhelmingly positive or optimistic, but the replies from people that haven't played are either dismissive, negative, or outright racist. How fun."
This was quickly amplified by Parris (@vicious696), who added:
"Racist comments? I AM SHOCKED! (not really). The internet is filled with anonymous avatars that proudly show off their hate and racism over a videogame that has a Black protagonist who is also a woman and features the American South. It's the triple crown of hate. South of Midnight is fantastic—be excited and ignore the ignorance."
Curious about these accusations, I decided to reach out for clarification. I replied to Parris with:
"That's really unfortunate to see. Do you have any additional screenshots of the racism? We need to end racism in gaming if we are going to move forward! Thank you for bringing more attention to this, Parris! I made a video covering it as well."
What happened next was extremely telling—Parris hid my reply almost immediately. Odd I thought, right? Why hide a call to expose racism and push his message forward and hold people accountable? This evasiveness only fueled my curiosity further...
That's when a major breakthrough happened....
The Whistleblower Comes Forward
A whistleblower intimately familiar with Compulsion Games, and someone I have known of for a long time and trust completely, reached out to me shortly after this all went down. Out of sheer frustration with the company’s internal chaos and hypocritical handling of PR, they decided it was time to reveal the real truth, and that I was the trustworthy source to get this out to the masses.
According to the whistleblower, they informed me:
"The lead voice actress for the main character was a totally different person than the one in the final game. She was hired to voice the protagonist, but apparently, she didn’t sound... err... Black enough."
Let that sink in for a second. They replaced a Black voice actress because she didn’t sound “Black enough.” If that’s not the definition of tokenism and racism, I don’t know what is.
This also disproves that original rumor that @Grummz tweeted about (above) how South of Midnight potentially raceswapped the game's protagonist, but at the same time, what actually DID happen... wasn't any better whatsoever.
The whistleblower continued:
"Eventually, they replaced her altogether with the voice actress you hear now. The irony is that the people crying racism are supporting a studio that hired a white dialect coach to teach a Black voice actress how to sound more Black."
It’s worth a serious pause here to reflect on the extremely disturbing nature of this entire situation. Whether this decision was made by Sweet Baby Inc. or internally at Compulsion Games is unclear, but none of that changes the fact that it’s deeply problematic for some pretty obvious reasons. The studio’s supposed commitment to diversity becomes extremely hollow once you realize they’re willing to engage in such blatant racial stereotyping and tokenism behind closed doors.
The Racism Is Coming from INSIDE the Studio
This whistleblower’s info exposes a disturbing pattern we’ve seen happening before: those who are accusing the gaming community of racism are actually the ones projecting their own internal issues on everyone else. Compulsion Games here, it seems, is no exception.
Even more telling is the fact that after expressing my thoughts that the game looks... pretty boring, as I stated previously, Compulsion Games blocked me on X. An odd choice, but entirely in line with how they’ve been running that wreck of a ship over there—silencing critics and refusing to engage in meaningful conversations.
A bold strategy, to put it nicely...
The Bigger Problem
Ultimately, the real tragedy here isn’t just the hypocritical behavior—it’s that all of these actions are actually hurting the developers who genuinely want to create something great for gamers. South of Midnight could have been a powerful game that tells a unique story without any of this stupid unnecessary drama. But no - when a studio decides to weaponize race to shield itself from criticism while perpetuating internal racism, it leaves a sour taste in everyone's mouth.
I’ll be watching South of Midnight closely, and I encourage others to do the same—but don’t let the manufactured outrage fool you. The real story here is happening behind the scenes, projected onto you, and it’s far uglier than their PR team wants anyone to know about.
~Smash
compulsion games more like no compulsion to buy your games, amirite lads
Even with Game Pass, this is enough to prevent me from even downloading the game. There also needs to start being legal reprecusions for this blantant discrimination. I bet we see more from this coming from lawyers representing the employee that got dismissed for no other reason than their preceived ethnicity.
One look at the main character tells you everything you need to know about this woke garbage.
Those that preach the loudest have the most to hide.