I mentioned this previously, but I’ve sort of stumbled into doing a series of Horror-themed Recommendation posts roughly corresponding to the month of October and therefore the lead-up to Halloween in previously posting about Mononoke (my favourite anime) and the Mononoke movie trilogy (the film version of my favourite anime).
I was a little worried about keeping that going because I’m not really into Horror. Luckily, I had this prior Recommendation post ready to dust off. And I feel it’s pretty relevant to the season, given that we’re dealing with Marvel’s superheroes getting scary.
Admitt(night)edly, Midnight Suns is not an out-and-out Horror game like, say, Resident Evil or Silent Hill. And it’s not even especially scary like something like Subnautica. Still, there’s definitely an element of Horror and Supernatural plot beats, along with a darker tone – both visually and thematically – than the typical comic book-inspired story.
To briefly provide some context: Midnight Suns (as in “Yellow Sun of Earth“) the game is based on Midnight Sons (as in “male offspring“) the comic, referring to Marvel’s paranormal-focused superhero team.
“Sons” was changed to “Suns” on the one hand to presumably be more inclusive and on the other just to be more factually accurate. The game’s version of the team is basically gender-equal and actually ends predominantly female if you’re playing as a woman.
Conceptually, the team is the same and still dealing with predominantly fighting against paranormal and supernatural threats — though mostly Hydra, who tried to control the demons and ended up getting taken over by the demons…
For the most part, the in-game version of the team mostly has an obvious connection to the supernatural. Dr. Strange is a wizard, Blade is a Vampire (technically a dhampir), Nico Minoru is literally a witch, Ghost Rider is a demon (also, not Johnny Blaze), Magik is… self-explanatory, really.
On the other hand, several of the playable heroes decidedly aren’t supernatural-oriented. The Avengers are represented by Iron Man and Captains Marvel and America. They don’t really have any connection to the magical aspects of the Marvel universe, but it at least makes sense to include them because they’re obviously associated with Dr. Strange.
On the other hand, Spider-Man (incidentally basically the same version as from the PS4 Spider-Man) and Wolverine were included probably just because it would be stupid to release a Marvel video game without including Marvel’s two most popular characters. That being said, their inclusion ends up making sense as the plot progresses given that Venom and Sabretooth end up also being taken over by the demons and becoming major bosses.
The player character is a completely original hero called the Hunter, created specifically for the game by 2K with creative input from Marvel and whose power – as we can see above – is apparently badassfully slow-walking into every mission.
I think especially for an entirely new character introduced specifically to serve as a player avatar, the Hunter is a fairly interesting character and 2K did a good job of justifying the Hunter’s presence in the story. Without getting either too much into spoilers or an overly in-depth explanation: you’ve been dead(ish) for 300 years, your (actual) mother is Lilith, the (metaphorical) Mother of all Demons. She’s been dead(ish) for 300 years too, Hydra woke her up, she took over Hydra, things promptly go south, as they do when the bad guys try to bind the eldritch evil power to their will…
The heroes wake you up to stop Lilith.
All in all, the plot isn’t that much different from the old Ultimate Alliance games, in that it’s a fairly episodic series of events largely just intended to let you see as much of the Marvel universe as possible, though with an obvious focus on the magical and paranormal aspects.
There are some interesting twists and plot developments, but it’s not really that anything other than exactly as serviceable as it needs to be.
Gameplay-wise, though, Midnight Suns is really not like Ultimate Alliance: Ultimate Alliance was basically Gauntlet, Midnight Suns is more like XCOM (also a 2K/Firaxis game) with a twist.
The gameplay is probably the most novel and interesting thing about Midnight Suns. Maybe that’s because I don’t play a lot of deck-building games, to the point I’m not even entirely clear on what a deck-building game is. But I think Midnight Suns is one.
The thing that’s tripping me up in the definition is that Midnight Suns isn’t a full-on virtual card game like Hearthstone. But at the same time, it’s clearly card-based, because all your characters’ abilities are represented by cards, which you then build into decks for each characters and which you draw more of each turn to determine what each character can actually do each turn.
The gameplay loop works by using your basic abilities to build up Heroism, which is the resource used by your more powerful abilities, as well as triggering environmental attacks like, say, throwing a dumpster at somebody or dropping a crane on them.
With the exception of shoving enemies, which can be used to score instant KOs by pushing them off edges, there’s no basic, simple “Attack” option. Everything other than moving or shoving needs to be activated by playing a card and you only have so many non-card actions per turn.
Although every character has the same basic categories of card abilities, each characters abilities work in different ways that encourage different playstyles. Most of Iron Man’s abilities are powered up by discarding and redrawing them, Captain America builds up defence points called Guard and his abilities are stronger the more of it he has, Spider-Man moves around a lot and gives himself bonus actions, Nico’s powers have effects triggered randomly, Magik’s abilities are centred on teleporting around the map and setting up portals that can be used as stage hazards, synergising with the aforementioned ‘shove a guy’ action.
The Hunter has the most adaptable playstyle and starts off able to go a little bit of everything. You have a certain level of influence and control over the Hunter’s personality. The game calls it Light and Dark, which is less a full on-morality system and more like Compassionate vs. Ruthless, which affects how the Hunter’s abilities develop: Light is focused on support and healing and Dark is focused on offence and raw power.
On paper, Dark probably sounds better, but a high-level Light Hunter is one of the most effective support characters in the game.
Honestly, the system is a little daunting and it took few a few hours before I was comfortable with it. Midnight Suns isn’t necessarily hard but there’s definitely a learning curve and some of the fights, especially the bosses, have pretty annoying gimmicks that can feel really cheap and basically every enemy causes some kind of status effect with every attack.
There’s also a social/relationship-building component to the game.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns: 2K, Firaxis, and Marvel.
Between missions, there’s a fully-explorable hub called the Abbey, where the heroes hang out and which is full of various side missions and little mysteries to unravel. That’s all basically entirely optional, which is good because the Abbey grounds are too big and too labyrinthine for their own good. On the other hand, unravelling said mysteries does reveal some pretty interesting supplementary materials about the game’s backstory, as well as being necessary to getting the Hunter up to full potential by unlocking exploration abilities that in turn unlock opportunities to gain new in-mission powers.
The real appeal to the between-mission time in the Abbey is the interactions and relationships between the Hunter and the other heroes. Again, this is all purely optional, but does help the other heroes get stronger and the dialogues between the Hunter and the other heroes are actually really, really well-executed.
Befriending the other heroes ends up feeling a lot like a Dating Sim, actually. In fact, the original plan was for the other heroes to be romanceable but this was ultimately walked back when the devs realized it had the potential to create some real contradictions to the established Marvel canon.
But, hey, having Spider-Man get together with anybody but Mary Jane would be entirely in character for Marvel…
Even without actual romances, the relationships the Hunter can develop with the other characters are still really compelling. Hunter and the other heroes clearly end up genuinely caring about each other and even some of the more aloof or self-centred heroes really open up to Hunter. And, honestly, given that it’s pretty much taken for granted that a modern RPG will have romanceable companions, the focus on deep, but purely platonic friendships is actually a pretty cool change of pace.
While Midnight Suns is left open-ended enough to imply a sequel and is compelling enough as a story and a gameplay experience that it deserves one it probably won’t be getting one. I can’t find concrete numbers, but various sources, up to and including 2K’s execs have described it as a flop — with the potential silver lining that those same execs have also noted that Firaxis games tend to have pretty long tails, though a sequel does seem to have been ruled out by the studio.
The game came out in 2022. If there were serious plans for a sequel, we’ probably would have heard about them by now. Still, Midnight Suns is definitely worth playing if you haven’t yet.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is available on PC, Playstation, and Xbox.
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