Marvel’s Midnight Suns review: brilliant turn-based card combat

Marvel’s Midnight Suns It is built upon a great promise. The studio which relaunched XCOM. Combining it with a card battle system inspired by books like Take down the Spire CryptographyThen add the Marvel heroes that have been the face of popular culture over the last fifteen years. While each of these pillars can be used on their own, Firaxis Games makes use of them to support a title which is unique, rich with personality, and complicated in smart systems.

First, let’s clarify that this game of turn-based strategic is not XCOM. You don’t micromanage positioning, you don’t face constant roster turnover, and you don’t hold your breath riding the thin line of shooting percentages. Overwatch isn’t a thing and sound tactical maneuvering doesn’t exist. Instead, the hand of cards frames all tensions, negotiations, and teeth grinding around.

Within this system, there’s a duality between tight restriction and wild creative independence. You’re limited to three characters every battle, chosen from a roster that begins somewhat small but blossoms over the course of the 60-hour campaign. You can control icons such as Captain Marvel and Iron Man. Every hero has a hand-picked deck of eight cards to represent the various abilities they have. Each round of combat, you are randomly drawn from this pool of 24 cards. It gives you an uncertain feeling about which turn-to–turn options your opponent has at their disposal.

Image by Firaxis Games/2K

Each character deck is the heart of the company. Midnight Suns. They’re how you interface with the battlefield, yes, but also how you exert creative agency over the tactical experience. You can always earn new cards and this constant supply of abilities is an incentive to build decks. Each deck can be constructed throughout the campaign. This allows you to recreate the Big Personalities of the Marvel universe. Blade and Spider Man both constrict enemies using their bind attacks, while Blade deals a lot of damage. But you’re also given enough leeway in your builds to fill out certain niches in your three-person squads. I started to dig deeper into deck-building and discovered that there were natural pairs, or groups, of heroes. I was able to lean heavily on these. Ghost Rider does massive damage, while Captain America can hit hits in binary.

The game feels simple and insignificant at first. Every turn, you get three cards. You can also kill some grunts to help your opponent, or maybe even take out an enemy with more extended efforts. I found the first hours somewhat boring. Midnight Suns. The card system was competent but measured. Although it performed well, I was disappointed by the lack of emphasis on positioning in flat environments. It was a strange combination of card battles and Firaxis’ turn-based battlefields. When the card pool expanded, I found that it was possible to combine six- and seven-card play in a single turn. It was thrilling to deal several hundred damage with one attack for the first time. That turn when I was on death’s door but was able to turn it around by triggering life-steal and tossing out several huge combo attacks to fully heal — that was intoxicating.

Image by Firaxis Games/2K

The card system’s exhilaration is often reinforced but this contrasts starkly with its dull, overarching story. The pitch: Lilith is a demon that teams up with Hydra, the eternal evil organization to menace the world. The Midnight Suns, a bunch of misfits and young men led by Caretaker (a veteran hero), are on the opposite side. There are obvious similarities between the story and Professor Xavier’s X-Men. This undercuts its novelty that it often earns. But while the plot itself may be slipshod, the focus on the personal stories of the heroes holed up in the abbey, the game’s hub, creates a spark and propels things forward.

Create a unique character called The Hunter at the beginning. It is an avatar of a cold person who will make all your dialogue and other behavioral choices throughout. Midnight Suns’ run time. Ultimately, The Hunter’s backstory and plot arc are mere distractions (it’s difficult to craft an evocative hero through simple cutscenes, and Firaxis falls short in this regard) but the character plays an important part in the charming social interactions that unfold in the Midnight Suns’ headquarters.

Image by Firaxis Games/2K

It is a free form Persona 5-esque relationship-building brings The Hunter to life. You can participate in Blade’s book club, work on Ghost Rider’s hellride in a shop group, or even play video games with various allies. These activities can be used to earn new experience as well as unlock benefits. It’s impossible to dedicate time to all of the abbey-goers, so it becomes a tough decision regarding who to cozy up and trade war stories with. Fostering strong relationships with characters is highly incentivized, as it’s a source of unlocking new passive abilities as well as cards. After hours spent discussing books, fishing and walking the grounds with Blade I created an absurd deck which combined healing and bleed with large areas of effect. This encourages character development and exploration which fuels interactions at the abbey.

Marvel’s Midnight SunsIt is rich in texture. The voice acting is superb and the abbey’s relationship-building is the perfect chill interlude to the tactically sophisticated card play. The two formats are beautifully intertwined through the accrual of additional cards and abilities, and there’s a genuine sense of satisfaction in deepening both battlefield prowess and social role-playing connections. Midnight Suns is not XCOM — but that’s ultimately its greatest strength. It’s something completely distinct and entirely exceptional.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns On December 2, the game will be available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. A pre-release code from 2K was used to review the game on PC. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.