Releasing at the tail end of 2022, Marvel’s Midnight Suns was I think eagerly, but skeptically, awaited.

There has been a general feeling of Marvel fatigue in general thanks to an overabundance of TV shows, movies and comics, and it seems there’s a wariness of superhero games since the acrimonious release of Gotham Knights.

There was also a feeling that Marvel’s Midnight Suns was an already known property. Developer ‘Firaxis licensed Marvel characters to do XCOM with a super hero skin’ went the thinking.

It would be good, but nothing revolutionary, surely.

Marvel's Midnight Suns

I am very pleased to let you know that this thinking was entirely wrong. Marvel’s Midnight Suns is not just a fantastic Marvel game, but a fresh take and evolution of the tactical role playing game genre as a whole. 2022 saw a number of good RPG releases and Marvel’s Midnight Suns is the cherry on top of a year of revival for the genre.

So what is it all about?

Marvel’s Midnight Suns starts with the resurrection of your main character, The Hunter, drawn out of a three century slumber to fight against their… mother, a demon intent on taking over the world.

A bit of a fish out of water, you find yourself teaming up with members of both the Avengers and titular Midnight Suns, going on missions and deepening relationships with your supernatural acquaintances. And that last part was the most surprising part of the whole package for me – the strong focus of Marvel’s Midnight Suns on relationships.

Marvel's Midnight Suns

In fact, Marvel’s Midnight Suns plays much more like a Persona title than any tRPG that I’ve come across. Between missions you have a lot to do. Beyond upgrading abilities, cards, and more, a key part of your time will be going on little “dates” with various superheroes.

Once your dates are over though, you’re thrust through into combat, and here you see some of the most major changes to the tactical tRPG genre that the game brings.

Gone are two staples – cover and percentages.

This is seemingly to fit thematically with superhero combat – does Iron Man really cower behind a wooden box? – and through that, revolutionise what a tRPG can be. I was smitten with these changes from the get go. No more save scumming just because a 95% chance to hit failed, and the lesser importance of cover has lead the developers to double down on elements such as environmental damage and knockbacks.

Marvel's Midnight Suns

The other major change to combat is the use of a card deck, consisting of skills, attacks and support moves. I was initially wary of this, but in the end deck sizes are small, leading to the whole system feeling like a more powerful version of swapping skills in and out of a character screen.

You can upgrade cards, build your deck in a particular way to take your individual superheroes in particular directions, and it’s a surprisingly versatile system for having only limited numbers of cards in each deck. Within combat, deciding who gets how many moves, countered against what else is left in the deck to draw, always keeps combat fresh and interesting.

As you use these cards, you build up heroic points, which lets you either use the environment as additional attacks, or use more powerful cards, typically with larger attack radiuses and / or damage.

Demeo

Despite all this good stuff, there were some parts of Marvel’s Midnight Suns that need addressing. First and foremost, there is no pausing in cutscenes. This was surprisingly infuriating and needs to be addressed in a patch ASAP. Even backing out to the PS5 home screen kept the cutscene running in the background. Given how long some cutscenes are, and their importance to the story, missing story beats because you have to look away for whatever reason is quite annoying.

And while the game looks pretty good, if not amazing visually, I feel more work needed to be put into most of the character models and their animation. For the amount of talking these characters do, most are very basically animated, leading to quite a few relatively boring A-B shot conversations.

Something to note is that Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a surprisingly long game. The wide variety of combat missions are augmented by the deep relationship development side of the game. A quick license tie in this is not.

Marvel's Midnight Suns

This review is coming in a little bit after the game has come out, and it has gone on sale a few times, so you should be able to pick it up cheap. Even at its full price though, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a game that’s worth supporting. It revolutionizes the tRPG genre with care, so even if you don’t have any particular affection for Marvel properties, it will be engaging and a worthwhile adventure.

Does every game need to have the core structure of Persona though? We’ve seen the social sim aspect expand to genres other than JRPGs recently, such as Neon White’s first person platforming and now Marvel’s Midnight Suns. While not necessary, it can be a nice inclusion for those invested in particular superheroes, particularly the lesser-known ones featured in this game.

Still, I empathise if all you want to do is get to the combat, because it is excellent and there is a lot to sit through and manage in between each fight. Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a refreshing, surprising release. It is absolutely worth your time, for Marvel fans and tRPG fans alike – including when that Venn diagram doesn’t overlap at all. If you’re in either, or both camps,, you would be remiss to let this late-2022 release pass you by.

Marvel's Midnight Suns
Marvel’s Midnight Suns (PlayStation 5) Review
Game details

Released: December 2022
Rating: M15+
Platforms reviewed: PlayStation 5
Genre: Tactical / RPG
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games

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4
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