Compulsion Games, the Montreal studio behind South of Midnight, is an independent developer again. PC Gamer reports that chief executive Guillaume Provost told GamesBeat on Thursday that the management buyout is complete and that the studio owns its original intellectual property once more, with Microsoft having transferred the IP back. Provost said management has acquired the studio and its staff as well.
The exit follows Xbox's most recent round of layoffs, which prompted rumours that Compulsion would be closed outright. The studio said instead that it would leave Microsoft and pursue other partnerships, ending what PC Gamer described as a lengthy stay under the Xbox Game Studios banner.
What it means for South of Midnight
The most immediate consequence is commercial. With the IP back in the studio's hands, Compulsion now takes a bigger share of the money when someone buys South of Midnight, and Microsoft gets none of it at all unless the sale goes through the Xbox digital storefront, PC Gamer said. For anyone who has been holding off on the game while rooting for the studio, the outlet argued, this is the moment to buy it.
South of Midnight, an action-adventure set in the American South, launched in 2025 and was, in PC Gamer's telling, one of that year's highlights. The outlet scored it 83% in a review by Andrea Shearon, who called it "a Deep South delight drenched in superstition and pain." The award-winning studio's earlier work includes We Happy Few and Contrast, which released in 2013.
PC Gamer framed the outcome as a hard thing to pull off, writing that sustainably cutting ties with a publisher that size is no easy feat. It also noted that the turmoil at Xbox had already sent some Compulsion developers looking for new jobs before the company's "reset" took place.
Neither Provost's comments nor the report set out what Compulsion is working on next, or which partners it is talking to.