South of Midnight Director Says He Wouldn't Have Funded the Game If He Was Xbox - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 49 minutes ago / 139 Views
South of Midnight director David Sears in an interview with MinnMax says if he was leading Xbox he wouldn't have funded the game and knew the unlimited funds would eventually come to an end.
"They were funding a lot of games," said Sears (via VideoGamesChronicle). "They were also funding a lot of studios that, you know, I was like 'well, okay, great, I guess you have infinite money, you do you, I want less.' I don't want to feel the weight of the obligation of a giant budget, or an army of 600 to be responsible for. I want to make something that isn't going to bankrupt Microsoft or the games division.
"So on one hand, if everyone you're working with is either trying to make generational games at not a huge expense, or games that have huge or really significant contemporary commercial appeal – great, it's going to work. But when does that ever happen, right?
"In what corporate ecosystem is everyone a good actor – not that anybody's evil or malicious – but can be counted on to make something that is either going to increase the prestige and the the brand of the studios, or make enough money so that we can make games that increase the prestige and brand, or the reach beyond commercial success?
"There are lots of people who don't want to play Call of Duty but still love games, and today indies are supplying a lot of that, or helping them scratch that itch."
He cited a "Cassandra complex,' which means someone who accurately predicts a problem, but their warnings are ignored.
"So yeah, I was like 'maybe it's going to be hugely successful, Cassandra would love to be surprised,'" he said. "But she wasn't! And I literally told people, I was like 'wow, this could be terrible,' because somebody is going to say one day – you know, the money tap – like, 'we’re closing those floodgates,' and that's going to have really traumatic results downstream."
He added, "I mean, I wanted to make it, no doubt, right? Obviously, because we made it. Would I have turned off someone else's money flow before South of Midnight? Yeah, because I'm not completely selfless. But, you know, it just seems like in hindsight at least, it was unsustainable, so of course, it was going to have a shocking outcome.
"It's easy to dissect it now, but at the time I would talk to other directors and we'd be like: 'How is this happening? I mean, how did we get so lucky? Is this a golden era?' And I would always be like 'for now.' There's always a night when Rome burns, and I didn't know exactly when it would be, but I was always worried about it."
South of Midnight released for the Xbox Series X|S and PC in April 2025, and for the Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 5 in March 2026.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
