Marvel's Midnight Suns

Marvel's Midnight Suns By Dale Poucher

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a tactical role-playing game developed by Firaxis Games in collaboration with Marvel Games. It features comic book characters from multiple Marvel Comics properties, such as Midnight Sons, Avengers, X-Men and Runaways. Players are able to create their own superhero named "The Hunter" with choice of over 40 different powers.

The game was announced at the virtual Gamescom 2021 in August, and was released on December 2, 2022 for Playstation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S. Versions for Playstation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch will launch at a later date. It received generally favorable reviews, " a commercial flop" due to slow sales.

Gameplay

Players take the role of "The Hunter", the sole of Lillith, as they lead a selection of heroes in various missions to defeat her. The Hunter, a customizable superhero created speciffically for Midnight Suns by Firaxis Games in collaboration with Marvel, can be played as either male or female. Players are able to choose The Hunter's superpowers from over 30 different abilities.

Combat is turn-based similar to Firaxis Games' XCOM series, mixed with deck-building simlilar to that found in Slay the Spire. Each hero, including The Hunter, has their own customizable deck of eight cards. At the start of each mission, players are allowed to choose three heroes to take into battle, with their decks combined into one that is to be drawn from each round. The cards represent abilities that may affect either enemies or the player's own heroes. Heroes may also move or interact with objects in addition to making attacks.

Between combat missions, players manage their upgrade-able base of operations called "The Abbey" which they can walk around in a third-person view to explore the grounds and interact with other heroes. Role-playing elements such as interaction with other characters influence the gameplay and those heroes' abilities. The Abbey is also the main source for acquiring new cards for hero decks and upgrading them.

• (Blade (Michael Jai White)

• Captain America (Brian Bloom)

• Captain Marvel (Erica Lindbeck)

• Deadpool (Nolan North)

• Doctor Strange (Rick Pasqualone)

The base game includes 13 different heroes, including The Hunter , with four additional characters being released as DLC.

Playable Characters

• Morbius (Jake Green)

• Nico Minoru (Lyrica Okano)

• Scarlett Witch (Emily O'Brien)

• Spider-Man (Yuri Lowenthal)

• Storm

• Venom (Jake Green / Darin De Paul)

• Wolverine (Steve Blum)

• Ghost Rider (Giancarlo Sabogal / Darin De Paul)

• Hulk (William Salyers / Tatasciroe)

• The Hunter (Elizabeth Grullon / Matthew Mercer
  )

• Iron Man (Josh Keaton)]

• Magik (Laura Bailey)

The Good, The Bad and The Undead

While investingating an art collection that a Hydra battalion led by Sin has stolen, The Hunter encounters Wade Wilson, who was hired by Doom to recover a magic statue called the Magna Corrigo in the collection. After Sin betrays Hydra, steals the Magna Corrigo, and unleashes a group of infected "vampyres", The Hunter offers Wilson sanctuary at the Abbey to protect him from Doom over the heroes' protest. With the Magna Corrigo in their possession, the emboldened vampyres publicly attack innocents and establish nests accross Manhattan.

With Wilson's help, The Midnight Suns eventually track Sin to Transia, where she intends to use the Magna Corrigo in a ritual to empower the vampyres until Wilson destroys it. Sin escapes and reports back to her master Dracula, who assures her the Magna Corrigo was not vital to his plans.

Redemption

Spider-Man and The Hunter locate Venom, who went underground and became infected from eating vampyres. Mephisto appears, offering to cure Venom in exchange for the heroes killing Dracula's forces, which Spider-Man agrees to. Upon being cured, Venom calls for a truce and joins the Midnight Suns. Seeking revenge for Dracula breaking a deal between them, Mephisto helps The Hunter, Venom and Spider-Man find the vampyres' primary nest and Dracula himself. Working together, the trio destroy the nest and force Dracula to retreat.

The Hunger

As the vampyres convert Hydra troopers and attack New York, Spider-Man convinces Blade to help him recruit a mutual acquaintance of their's, Dr. Michael Morbius. The heroes accompany Morbius to his lab, only to find the vampyres have stolen his research and a prototype "sunlight serum" capable of dampening his and the vampyres' photosensitivity. After the trio fend off vampyres who came to kill Morbius and destroy his remaining equimpent, Spider-Man offers Morbius sanctuary at the Abbey despite Blade and The Hunter's reluctance.

Deducing the vampyres intend to mass-produce the sunlight serum, Spider-Man locates a Hydra facility under attack from vampyres led by Sin. He, Morbius and The Hunter mobilize to stop them and recover the prototype serum, though they learn too late that she had already delivered several completed batches of sunlight serum to Dracula. Nonetheless, while fighting off Dracula and his empowered forces, the heroes discover the vampyres had diluted Morbius' sample while mass-producing it, weakening its effects. Defeated, Dracula escapes to the sewers.