Compulsion Games Is Officially Independent, and It Walked Out of Xbox With Every Game It Ever Made

Every so often a story from this brutal industry year actually ends well. Compulsion Games, the Montreal studio behind South of Midnight and We Happy Few, has completed its management buyout from Microsoft and is officially an independent developer again. The deal closed on August 11, and CEO Guillaume Provost confirmed it publicly this week, along with the detail that matters most: the studio kept everything.

"I can confirm we have regained ownership of our IP, and that the publishing rights are transferring back to Compulsion," Provost said. That covers the studio's entire catalog, from 2013's puzzle platformer Contrast through 2018's We Happy Few to last year's South of Midnight, which has already been quietly updated on Steam to list Compulsion as both developer and publisher. From now on, every copy sold funds the studio directly.

Video: Compulsion Games on YouTube

Eat rocks and drink gasoline

The path here started in July, when Microsoft announced the biggest restructure in Xbox history, cutting around 3,200 jobs and parting ways with four studios. Compulsion, acquired back in 2018, could easily have been shut down outright. Instead Provost negotiated a way out, and his explanation of why is the most human quote we have read all summer. "I did this deal for the team first and foremost. I asked the team, do you want to stay together? The team told me we would rather eat rocks and drink gasoline than be split up."

The separation was not painless. Some staff left after the restructuring was announced, though most of the studio's leadership stayed on. Provost also made a point of calling the exit gracious on Microsoft's part, which tracks with how these departures have gone. Double Fine took a similar road out the same door, leaner but alive and holding its own games.

What comes next

Part of the team is still working on a project that was already underway before the Xbox news broke, and Compulsion says it is talking with other companies about potential partnerships and collaborative work. Provost is being deliberately careful about scale, picking projects the newly independent studio can actually sustain rather than chasing another big publisher deal on day one.

We will take this outcome every time. A twenty year old studio with a distinct voice keeps its people, its catalog and its future, and South of Midnight, which reached PlayStation 5 and Switch 2 in March, now has its revenue flowing home. In a year defined by closures and layoffs, a team that chose rocks and gasoline over splitting up deserved exactly this ending.