According to Wccftech, developer Compulsion Games announced that its action-adventure title South of Midnight will launch on PlayStation 5 and the Nintendo Switch 2 in Spring 2026. The news was shared via the studio’s Bluesky account ahead of The Game Awards 2025. The game originally launched as an Xbox Series X/S console exclusive on April 8, 2025. Compulsion Games appears to be targeting a release around the game’s one-year anniversary, potentially aiming for April 8, 2026, which falls on a Wednesday. This move marks the latest in a series of former Xbox exclusives branching out to other platforms.
The platform strategy play
Here’s the thing: this isn’t a surprise anymore, is it? It’s just the latest domino to fall in Microsoft’s evolving “platform-agnostic” strategy. We saw it with Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and a bunch of others. The old model of locking games to one console to sell hardware is, for Xbox at least, basically over. The new model is about maximizing revenue per title by hitting every viable platform. For a visually striking, story-driven game like South of Midnight, that means PS5’s massive install base and the portable potential of the Switch 2. It’s simple business math.
Why the timing matters
Spring 2026 is a smart window. It gives the Switch 2, which we expect late this year or early next, time to build its audience. It also creates a nice “second wind” marketing cycle for the game, almost exactly a year after its initial release. That anniversary hook is pure PR gold. And let’s be honest, a Wednesday release date is a minor detail. The real story is the coordinated multi-platform launch. This isn’t a port that trickles out years later; it’s a planned expansion. It signals that for many Xbox Game Studios titles, exclusivity might just be a temporary, timed thing from the very start.
Who really benefits?
Obviously, players on PS5 and Switch 2 win—they get a cool game they were locked out of. Compulsion Games wins by getting their art in front of way more people. And Microsoft wins by taking a larger slice of the sales pie. But it does make you wonder about the value proposition of the Xbox console itself. If the big exclusives eventually go everywhere, what’s the unique pull? That’s a question for another day. For now, more people get to experience Compulsion’s unique Southern Gothic folklore world, and that’s probably a good thing.
