Written by Edwin Francisco
Marvel’s The Midnight Suns turn based tactical RPG will be coming in March 2022 from the makers of XCOM at Firaxis Games.
We have talked a lot about the Midnight Sons since we’ve heard that Marvel Studios is working on a TV show for Hulu.
For some reason, there is a slight change of name since in the comics they are called the Midnight Sons while the game itself is titled Midnight Suns.
The Midnight Sons is well known for being the team that deals with more of the supernatural situations.
In the comics, this was a team that was conceived by Doctor Strange to battle Lilith and her demonic children called the Lilin.
This announcement came at the Gamescom event which does a lot of game announcements or extended details on upcoming games.
It was a good surprise for me to see that Marvel’s Midnight Suns game is led by XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 designer Jake Solomon at Firaxis Games.
The Midnight Suns Turn Based Tactical Role-Playing Game Announced
Image: 2k Games, Marvel Entertainment
Jake Solomon is a comic book fan himself and he said at GamesRadar:
We went back to my favorite comic from Marvel history, which is an early 1990s comic book event called the Rise of The Midnight Sons. And this is, for most people, a very deep cut. There was this all-powerful villain, and her name is Lilith – the mother of demons. She comes to Earth and the only way to stop her was to unite all the supernatural heroes of the Marvel Universe in this super awesome comic book event. And so, I love this comic and it was something that was untouched, and I think untapped. And even just the supernatural side of Marvel remains untapped. I don’t think for very long, but for now it’s untapped.
The game will include popular characters like Doctor Strange, Blade, Nico Minoru, Magik, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), Wolverine, Captain America, Captain Marvel and more. There are 13 characters that comes from the X-Men, Avengers, Runaways and more.
But the game will focus on a new character called The Hunter, which was co-developed by Firaxis Games and Marvel Comics.
The Midnight Suns Turn Based Tactical Role-Playing Game Announced
The game will be a loose adaptation of the Midnight Sons which was written by Howard Mackie, Len Kaminski, Christian Cooper, and Dan G. Chichester in 1992.
The team was formed by Ghost Riders Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze after receiving a vision that Lilith, Mother of All Demons, is planning to take over Earth.
The original team consisted of The Nightstalkers (Blade, Frank Drake, Hannibal King, Morbius), the Ghost Riders (Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze), The Darkhold Redeemers (Sam Buchanan, Victoria Montesi, Louise Hastings, and later Modred the Mystic and Jinx).
The Hunter, the main lead in the game is a child of Lilith, we are not sure at this time if you are allowed to change the gender, but if they do plan to make this part of the Gamerverse, there is a high likelihood that the game will retain the character as a female based on the trailer.
She is fully customizable.
The Midnight Suns Turn Based Tactical Role-Playing Game Announced
Image: 2K Games, Marvel Entertainment
Lead designer Jake Solomon said at GamesRadar:
They look however the player wants them to look, and they will appear however the player wants them to appear, and they will also play in combat however the player wants them to play in combat.
She is co-created by Firaxis Games and Marvel Comics.
She is the first Marvel character that is fully customizable by the player.
While Spider-Man and Avengers only allows you to play characters in the Marvel Universe.
We are not sure if this will be part of Marvel’s Gamerverse, which is like the video game version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The games include Spider-Man (2018; PlayStation 4 & 5), Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020; PlayStation 4 & 5), and Avengers (2020; PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S).
The Gamerverse has comic book tie-ins which connect or extend the stories told in the games.
The Midnight Suns Turn Based Tactical Role-Playing Game Announced
Image: 2K Games, Marvel Entertainment
In an interview from Polygon, Jake Solomon said:
It was Marvel that reached out to us after we made XCOM 2. When I had a call with the Marvel team, there was an executive vice president from Marvel on the call and they had very specific feedback about [that game’s notorious] finale mission, and a bunch of people started chiming in, and I was like, well, these guys are actually really are big fans. Right away, they understood the kind of games we make.
XCOM 2 was made in 2016. So, we can presume that the game has been in development for a while now.
Pretty much the same time Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4 was announced which is included in the Gamerverse.
Since XCOM is well known to be a turn-based strategy game, the new Midnight Suns game will still retain this style of gameplay.
You will be able to control The Hunter and three other superheroes which can level up and gain more skills as you progress.
The Midnight Suns Turn Based Tactical Role-Playing Game Announced
Image: 2K Games, Marvel Entertainment
Jake Solomon clarifies with more details about the game:
There are zero mechanics shared between XCOM and the Midnight Suns.
Robbie Reyes, the new Ghost Rider — he may want to play video games. Captain Marvel may want to go spar with you. Tony Stark may want to go play cards. You choose how to hang out with them, choose how you talk with them, give them gifts. There are [also] social clubs around The Abbey that you can join, and that affects your friendships with heroes. […] Some of these are pretty lighthearted [since] the story is dark enough.
We don’t have permadeath because the fantasy is very different. The fantasy in XCOM is the fantasy of soldiers holding on for dear life against a superior enemy. And in Midnight Suns very, very quickly — early on — I realized that the superior enemy in this game is the superheroes. So instead, the bad guys are terrified of you.
You’re doing these very large moves, these epic moves, and so the mechanics are just completely different which results in you still scratching the same itch, because it is turn-based tactics combat where you’re controlling the team. But the fantasy is very different. And that means the mechanics are 100% different.
That was surprising and terrifying in the beginning to realize like, ‘Oh man, we’ve gotta do a whole different game.’ But it’s cool, because it gives you this different feel than XCOM, for sure.
The Midnight Suns Turn Based Tactical Role-Playing Game Announced
Image: 2K Games, Marvel Entertainment
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is to be released on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PC (Steam and Epic) in March 2022.
Firaxis is scheduled to release a gameplay trailer on September 1, 2021.
This is going to be interesting since Marvel has been pushing more on making more games lately.
Guardians of the Galaxy also coming out this October, the Marvel Gamerverse is getting to be bigger and more interesting.
Related: Marvel Studios Interested In Gabriel Luna Back As Ghost Rider
