Details of Marvels Midnight Suns
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K
Platform: PC, Playstation 4 & 5, Xbox One & Series X/S.
Release Date: 2nd December 2022
Age Rating: 15
Introduction
I have always loved Marvel and DC ever since I was a child. Video games are the perfect medium for the superhero genre in my opinion as they put you into the life of the hero, as you live out the story as them. Marvels Midnight Suns had another strong selling point of being developed by one of my all-time beloved people in the gaming industry Jake Solomon. With Firaxis being most known for the iconic turn-based strategy game franchise- X-Com. Yet this game is more than X-Com with a Marvel skin, this is truly one of the most unique superhero games to be released and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it!
Story of Marvels Midnight Suns
The story follows the player character- The Hunter. The Hunter are resurrected by the Midnight Suns in order to put an end to Lilith’s, their mother, plans. In undertaking her plan Lilith corrupts various villains and heroes. Including but not limited to: Sabretooth, Hulk and Scarlett Witch. With a post credit scene teasing a sequel!
Characters and Friendships
There are 13 playable characters in vanilla Midnight Suns and an extra 4 included in the Season Pass. The base roster consists of the Hunter alongside 12 heroes from the Avengers (Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man), the X-Men (Wolverine), and Midnight Suns (Sister Grimm, Blade, Ghost Rider). With the DLC characters (in release order) being Venom, Deadpool, Morbius, and Storm. Each character’s abilities, cards, and stats ensure they all play unique to one another. My personal favourites to play with was Captain Marvel, the Hunter, and Blade. With each hero having their own personalized card decks it allowed the player to have a great sense of versatility in deciding how characters would play.
The friendship levels were what kept me playing into the long hours of the night, wanting desperately to continue a conversation with a particular hero had me enthralled with the personal stories that inhabit Midnight Suns as well as the overarching main story. It was fascinating to have heart to hearts with heroes like Blade, Magik, and Scarlett Witch. I really like seeing more of Magik in particular after loving her inclusion in the New Mutants movie, portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy.
The Abbey
The Abbey serves as the hub for the player. In which you can peruse the grounds to locate arcane chests, various collectables and of course hangout spots which are used to boost your friendship with your fellow Midnight Suns. Yet it isn’t your typical X-Com esque hub your used to, the Abbey is full of puzzles and secrets just calling out to be explored. As well as two different animal friends you can pet! Ebony the black cat and Charlie the hellhound can be found lounging around the Abbey, just waiting for some affection!
Gameplay of Marvels Midnight Suns
The Gameplay is more than just a typical tactical turn-based game, and more than just a carbon copy of the very well-developed X-Com combat system. Instead, we get something that is entirely unique for Firaxis. With the game utilizing cards to attack, which players draw randomly from the assigned deck loadouts of the heroes you selected for that mission. With players able to acquire new cards (through gamma coils, activities, hero ops, crafting), as well as mod and upgrade existing ones. This level of customization really gives players full control on tweaking their team to their personal desire.
Cons of Marvels Midnight Suns
With a game as outstanding and as polished as Midnight Suns there is only a couple of nitpicky things I can point out as cons. The first being that on Steam Deck you have to tediously change a few settings such as launching in DX11 not 12 in order to actively play the game without it crashing when you sleep. Perhaps the overuse of talking to Lilith in your sleep pushes your system to its limits when refreshing the Abbey at the same time. Either way it was rather frustrating and pushed me away from the game for a little while until I researched a fix.
The game also could have stood without Spider-Man in my opinion. I know Venom and the symbiotes are involved in the story, and the symbiote enemy is by far one of the most unique and most frustrating, but I would have liked something Marvel without Spider-Man. With 2021’s Guardians of the Galaxy being one of the few Marvel offerings that don’t include the web crawler. Don’t get me wrong I love me some Spider-Man – Miles, Peter, or my personal fav 2099! Yet it seems Marvel are not letting other heroes shine in order to include Spiderman in everything, when in reality he has some of the best superhero games with a backlog that could rival DC’s Batman. Plus, Spiderman is the only superhero that actually has an ongoing game series at the moment. With Insomniacs Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales being recently released and the upcoming Spider-Man 2.
Summary of Marvels Midnight Suns
In conclusion Marvel’s Midnight Suns is an excellent story driven, card-based, turn based strategy game that holds hours upon hours of gameplay in a very stylish aesthetic. The friendship mechanics will have you sinking hours into the game just to get to the next conversation between you and your favorite Marvel superhero. The variety in the roster both in representing various superhero teams and lesser and more known characters, and gameplay. With 12 amazing, addictively playing superheroes you will most definitely find your perfect team of 3!
Overall Rating: 9.5 – Classic!
Platform Played On: Steam Deck
Game Time At Review: 52 Hours
Recommendation: Yes
You can buy Midnight Suns on Steam here!
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