Midnight Suns, from developer Firaxis and publisher 2K, is almost three different games in one. In the lead-up to release, we’ve heard about The Abbey, how you can explore the grounds and how you can spend your downtime as The Hunter, hanging with the other heroes, chatting it up and growing your relationships.
I don’t think I was prepared for how deep and expansive the non-combat elements of Midnight Suns are.
Seriously.
Outside of the, frankly awesome, combat (more on that later), the superhero friend sim and third-person walking sim elements of Marvel’s Midnight Suns are just as important, maybe even moreso in establishing context, pushing the narrative and fostering those emotional connections needed for players to actually give a shit.
I spent A LOT of time, probably too much, faffing around The Abbey, playing video games with Spider-man and Ghost Rider, picking mushrooms with Nico, staring at the stars with Captain Marvel and playing cards with Iron Man and Wolverine. However, those moments are the ones I remember far more clearly than any of the combat missions. The smaller, interpersonal moments are such a strength of the MCU and it’s clear that Firaxis has doubled down on that in Midnight Suns, to make your journey as The Hunter feel worthwhile.
And it does.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns Review
By the time the credits rolled on Midnight Suns, I had tears rolling down my cheeks. After 80+ hours (I told you I did a lot of faffing), this team of superheroes had become my spooky, digital family. A superpowered Addams Family all working together to save the world from Elder God Cthon. There were plenty of speed bumps along the way though and that’s because, unfortunately, Midnight Suns leans heavily into the cliche that superhero teams don’t get along. So, for the majority of the game’s playtime, the members of the Midnight Suns and The Avengers don’t see eye to eye.
At first, it was fine, but eventually, I found myself rolling my eyes or yelling at the screen when Nico (my vote for LVP) once again started to whinge and complain about The Avengers and get all bratty and indignant about everything. It’s not endearing and it’s not a fun trait to constantly experience. Even Magik, the mouthy, sullen Russian X-Man, seemed far more chill about most situations and she was, decidedly, not chill. AT. ALL. Besides Nico being absolutely abysmal as far as characters go, the rest of Midnight Suns narrative experience is a delight.
As The Hunter, you’re tasked with stopping your demon mother, Lilith, from ending the world. No biggie right? A task this great means you’re going to need help and so Earth’s mightiest warriors drop in to lend a hand. And what are a bunch of superheroes going to do in their downtime from gutterstomping Hydra goons? Watch Charmed and sit in the spa apparently…
Get in loser, we’re going saving…
I’m not even joking. The whole “friend-sim” aspect of Midnight Suns at first seemed a little bizarre but gradually it became my favourite part of the whole game. Essentially, The Hunter has a relationship level with each of the other heroes in the game. By having conversations, sparring, giving them gifts and going on “dates” this relationship can go up or down. The higher the level, the better the buffs applied to The Hunter. Eventually, if you max out this level, you unlock the hero’s ultimate ability and Midnight Suns costume. While Firaxis has said you will only likely max out 2 or 3 in a playthrough, I managed to get 8 or 9 done. Like I said, A LOT OF FAFFING. Don’t panic if you don’t get them all done though. Once you finish the final mission, the game returns you to The Abbey prior to that point, keeps all of your relationships intact and adds a tonne of new, special difficulty missions for you to complete. You can also dive into New Game + which has similar benefits.
Hardcore Marvel fans are, no doubt, going to jump at the opportunity to “hang out” with these heroes and watch them interact in weird and wonderful ways. The Blade/Captain America romance is a highlight, as is Wolverine’s Book Club selection. Oh yes, there are clubs, Book Club being just one of a handful. And yes, you get to watch as Blade, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Wolverine and The Hunter discuss classic literature like Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The irony that Blade’s choice of book was written by ‘Sun’ does not go unnoticed. Elsewhere, little throwaway lines of dialogue and references really put the cherry on top of the friend-sim cake. Iron Man is the most referential to pop culture but both Ghost Rider and Spider-man dip their toes in the meta pool too.
Bringing it all together is the stellar voice acting. In my preview, I was a little down on the voice actors but even if you feel that way too I’m quietly confident that, like me, you’ll come around. As I mentioned in the preview, voicing a Marvel character in 2022 must be an absolute fucking nightmare. The MCU is the biggest entertainment property on the planet. There are undiscovered tribes in the Amazon who know that Iron Man sounds like Robert Downey Jr. And so, trying to straddle the line between deferential and new is an almost impossible task. This is why, for me, at first some of the voices hit the ear wrong. And no, not like how Chris Pratt’s Mario voice hits the ear wrong which is more is more of a 2+2=5 kind of wrong, but more that they’re just slightly different to what you’ve become accustomed to.
Thankfully, it’s not long into the game that you just accept these voices and eventually even like them. Also having Yuri Lowenthal as Spider-man and Steve Blum as Wolverine lend some authenticity to the proceedings.
Wanna Fight About It?
When you’re not hanging out at The Abbey, building relationships, upgrading abilities and doing superhero admin, you’re tackling missions with three of the squad. For story missions, The Hunter is required, however, there are an infinite number of side-missions (which I also faffed around in) for you to grind XP, materials, ability cards and more. Missions come in a few flavours and each has a specific objective to be accomplished. Rescue, capture, destroy, protect etc. Basically, you need to fight the Hydra goons and clear them off the field so you have a clear shot at whatever the objective is.
The card-based gameplay in Midnight Suns is really deep and complex, but it’s also simple enough that you COULD play through the majority of the game without really tinkering with it at all. It’ll be much less enjoyable and probably a whole lot more difficult, but it’s possible. Me, I like to tinker and so I did. I spent hours and hours grinding materials so I could upgrade and modify my cards and so I could build the ultimate deck with each hero. It’s mighty impressive that Firaxis has managed to make each of the heroes work so well together and it comes down to shared skills and abilities governed by the cards. Each hero has their own distinct flavour — Captain America is all about generating his overshield and taunting enemies while Magik lets you play with moving the enemies around the field — which factors in but overall, you can pick any three heroes and be confident they’ll synergise.
As you progress, the game gives you the option to up the difficulty level. I was playing on Ultimate I (the third highest) when I realised it was going to take me far too long to finish and be able to write my review in time. I settled back into Normal which still offered a decent challenge. Masochists like me though, enjoy those higher difficulties and get ready for a real challenge. Even at lower levels, there’s a hell (no pun intended) of a lot of strategy at play. Yes, you can brute force each mission (on lower difficulties) but it’s a lot more fun to play tactically and use every trick at your disposal to really wipe out the enemies. In each round, you can only play three cards, move once and redraw 2 cards but if you’re clever you can do much, much more. For instance, cards with the Quick keyword mean that any KO you get using that ability will refund your card usage. So if you have lots of Quick cards you’ll be able to wipe out a number of weak enemies.
You can also use your Abbey upgrades to help things along. Late in the game, I built an upgrade that allowed my characters to draw a card whenever one hero pushed an enemy into another. Not only was I able to get KOs from pushing enemies around, but I was also able to replenish my hand and possibly draw cards which would help me keep clearing the field. Certainly not shallow in the beginning, the combat in Midnight Suns grows increasingly complex as you play. The best part is, you don’t really have to get into the weeds with it if you don’t want to. You can happily play the game without most of the upgrades and mechanics if you like and you’ll still have a great time.
It’s Like…A Lot
Midnight Suns does tend to get a bit bloated with features as you play. There are systems on top of systems on top of systems such that by the time I reached the final mission I was a bit burnt out. While you spend your time in The Abbey exploring, getting lore and building relationships, you also use it like you’d use your base in XCOM. It’s where you upgrade systems and unlock new mechanics. Midnight Suns is broken up into days and each day has a morning and night. In the morning, you unlock new cards at the forge with Iron Man and can also; research artifacts to improve your research level, start new research projects to unlock new features, craft ability cards and tackle special missions once you reach max friendship level. In the yard you can; spar with a hero to level them up and increase your friendship, combine cards to upgrade abilities, heal wounded heroes, take part in combat training to level up and. modify your cards.
At the Ops with Carol Danvers you can…well you get the point. I’ve already admitted I was faffing around a lot, but Midnight Suns provide almost limitless faff for you to faff around with. I think it could have done with some fat being trimmed and I imagine plenty of players are going to find it all a bit overwhelming…and eventually a bit tedious. Once you’ve done all your morning chores, you complete a mission and the nighttime starts. The night is much shorter and is generally only for hanging out and clubs. Still, by the time you reach the final mission, depending on how much you’ve faffed, you’ll probably be skipping through dialogue and hurrying things along just to get past the day/night cycle. It all depends on how invested you are in the relationships, how deep you want to go into the lore and how complex you want your gaming experience to be. While there’s A LOT of stuff to do and a lot of mechanics to play with, the majority of it is optional.
If you want to just play mission after mission after mission with minimal interruption, you can. If you want to spend dozens of hours yucking it up with your hero pals, you can do that too.
Get Out What You Put In
Overall, Midnight Suns is an incredibly ambitious game with a lot, probably too many, of features. While it’s not always successful, it succeeds far more than it fails. In the event there are part(s) of the game you don’t like or don’t want to engage in, the good news is that you don’t have to. Think of Midnight Suns as an enormous Vegas-style buffet. There’s way too much to choose from and the combinations on your plate usually include things that should never go together, but somehow they still work and taste good. You know the plates I’m talking about; fried chicken, carbonara, nachos, sushi, samosas and a couple of boiled eggs.
With some stray fruit, for healthy reasons.
I’m fine with a random assortment of foods all smashed together and I’m fine with Marvel’s Midnight Suns trying and mostly succeeding to do lots of things at the same time. There’s plenty to sink your teeth into however you want to play and the combat is absolutely stellar.
If you’re a Marvel fan, a strategy game fan or just interested in a huge, broad and deep game, look no further. Now excuse me, I’ve got lots more faffing to do.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns was reviewed on PC using a digital code provided by 2K ANZ.
