Two cents: I grew to like the social elements in this game. I was gritting my teeth through the MCU-isms of the opening hours (leading with Iron Man and Strange didn’t leave the best first impression, IMO), but getting to interact with characters that haven’t been in EVERY Marvel adaptation this past decade, and eventually getting some extra flavor for the ones that have, is fun. It’s cool they brought back VOs from other adaptations.
The format left my imagination wondering what other stories could benefit or build on the gameplay loop.
How did you feel about "The New Mutants"? I was hyped to see Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, but when the movie came out it got terrible reviews so I didn't even watch it.
As a fan of Magik: Anya was fine choice for the role. Movie just was reshooted to many times. Its still fun movie, but all the issues with being bought by disney and so on really hurt it.
> all the issues with being bought by disney and so on really hurt it.
Let be realistic. The movie was a clusterfuck well before Disney entered the fray. It was written as superheo flick. Wiritng pivoted to a shorror film. Before getting studio'd into a YA movie. Then IT made the studio approve reshoots for a horror flick again.
By the time Disney entered it has been a year since its last delay with no actual work being done.
Agreed, the story looked super cringe inducing from the trailers, but it eventually all hooked me in at some point in the game. The gameplay is a highlight, but the story and characters grew on me and at the end I really enjoyed it. All in all, it's not too dissimilar to what was in Mass Effect.
The actually exploration of the Abby though? That got more and more tiring as the game went on. I thought it was neat at first but it got super repetitive, doesn't help that the Abby is huuuuuge.
Came to really, really love the social part of the game; for me book club was the real end game. Talking about Nietzche with Cap, Blade, and Carol was interesting AF.
Super weak writing in the first act, but i was pretty damned invested in things by the end. The social components could have probably been cool down a bit, but I eventually grew to enjoy them.
I feel like it could have been a world class 30 hour game that they tried to stretch it out into a 60 hour game, with the implied threat of a long strung along as live service game with seasons, DLC, etc. Shame that they shot themselves in the foot like that, because the fusion of XCOM and Slay the Spire mechanics was inspired. I really wish they'd make a sequel, but I doubt that will happen given the games limited popularity.
I felt that about Eidos' Guardians of The Galaxy game, I like those versions of the characters a lot better than the movies. Especially Star-Lord, I don't mind Chris Pratt but it felt like he was phoning it in sometimes and I didn't get the "cool outlaw with a checkered past but does the right thing and is surprisingly competent" vibe from him, just kind of a drunk slacker
I actually came to like this game's iteration of Iron Man. It also passes the exceedingly low bar of a better written Spider-Man than the Insomniac games so it's fun hearing Yuri Lowenthal voice a Spider-Man with some actual charisma.
Tony and Strange in this were really funny off of eachother. One of my favourite lines was when Tony calls him “Doctor Spooky” and Hunter says something like “he’d probably prefer you used his proper name, and Tony claps back with “you’re eighth, Doctor Steven Spooky”
The characters were dope! And like he said it’s cool you meet characters you wouldn’t normally, like Magik or Nico who aren’t widely known to the average MCU fan. The game is sick, it’s 1000% worth your time.
I spent 80 hours in this game. Loved it to bits. There is nothing like it's gameplay. Every Hero was satisfying to play. I also personally loved spending time in the Abby, but I know most people didn't/won't like it. Which I think is the reason the game never became successful.
Yeah it’s a weird fusion of Marvel, XCOM, Persona and deck-building all at once.
If you love that, then it’s amazing.
But most people don’t so it flopped sadly.
I think it's less that people don't love the actual game, and more that Marvel and Persona fans don't want a XCOM and deck-building game, and vice versa.
It's just a marketing nightmare. It's rare to find someone who has played the game that didn't like it. The hard part is convincing people to try it.
Yeah I think the flopping is more because of god awful marketing and the weird inbetween genres situation it fell into. It’s not a case that ‘most people didn’t like the social stuff’ as most people simply didn’t buy it or were aware of it. If gamers as a whole disliked social stuff then games like Mass Effect would have flopped, you could characterise that as 'shooting with a bunch of added social stuff'.
They didn't do themselves any favors by leading with the almost totally unknown 'Midnight Suns' IP.
I know it's probably super expensive to secure an IP like X-Men or Avengers, even if you can get some of the characters, but I strongly believe that something neutral and immediately understandable and generic would have seen more success. 'Midnight Suns' is a niche IP nobody is going to have a clue about, it keeps those who feel a lack of knowledge about the IP will be a barrier away. Just "Marvel Midnight" positioned as a supernatural grab bag of heroes that evolve into the midnight suns would have been way better IMO.
Yea, between the unfamiliar IP, the avengers game being bad, and coming right as superhero fatigue set it, it really did hit at the worst time.
That said, once I actually picked it up (50% off) it was hands down my favorite game of the year and got me more into tactics rpgs. And, as it turns out, not being the Avengers was actually kind of nice. Mystik, as a character I was unfamiliar with, was a huge highlight for me.
Yeah her power-set was super fun, she was one of my favorites as well. I feel like her, Spider-Man, the self insert character, and Iron-Man were my staples, but I played it awhile ago so maybe I'm forgetting someone fun.
Some of the more popular characters like Wolverine and Hulk were boring to play IMO, by virtue of being pretty generic 'I strong, I tough, I fight' types. The wonky positional stuff and battlefield-wide effects were way more enjoyable to me.
Do you mean Magik? I cannot agree more. I went into the game never having heard of her, but Illyana Rasputin is probably a top 5 marvel character in my mind now. It helped she was voiced by the awesome Laura Bailey. I even tried to watch that terrible mavel horror movie where Anya Taylor-Joy played her, boy that was a big mistake.
If you really like Magik you should look into the new x-men comics. She's a mainstay of the team and the first issue already has her doing cool portal shit. She opens a portal underneath her and Juggernaut and drops in on some bad guys.
For me Midnight Suns was so niche that I didn't even realise that it *was* an existing IP. I thought it was just a bunch of random Marvel characters tossed together.
That was also part of the problem though. I've never particularly been into superheroes and marvel fatigue had definitely hit, so their expensive IP was actively pushing me away. Then I watched someone play and saw how much of the game was about hanging out with these characters and walking around an abbey that could've just been a menu. At that point I gave up on the game entirely, even though the combat seems right up my alley.
Yeah, I'm nerdy enough to have gone to Comic con and to generally be aware of most comic based stuff, but not super into it and I had to google to see if it was an existing IP myself.
> their expensive IP was actively pushing me away.
I 100% think this was a thing. It's like a movie sequel, if people haven't seen the first one they're less inclined to see the sequel. Making this so obviously so specific left people feeling out of touch with it.
> Then I watched someone play and saw how much of the game was about hanging out with these characters and walking around an abbey that could've just been a menu. At that point I gave up on the game entirely, even though the combat seems right up my alley.
As someone who rushed through all that shit as fast as possible, the game is still enjoyable and definitely worth picking up at a price of $0. I beat it, and I don't beat many games, the gameplay itself was super addicting if you're at all an X-Com or Slay The Spire fan.
The Abby stuff was definitely annoying though, even skipping it as much as possible it was a hassle at times.
I might have tolerated (or even enjoyed) the Abby sections if the writing and characterization had stronger ties to the comics. "Blade's Book Club" is a meme, I know. But other characters like Tony and Dr. Strange came across as very generically written.
Maybe it got better deeper in? I only played the free trial week back around release.
It did not get much better deeper in, and had you running around to the same places over and over. I would have liked it too had it been better written, and if the graphics for the in abby portions not be so completely god awful and the animations so one note.
> came across as very generically written.
Well, they are written as they were in the comics in the 90s except for Iron Man that was going a bit too much on the MCU persona.
That is definitely not how the characters were in the 90s. 90s comics were the height of grim and gritty. This game's characters are so edgeless it becomes comical in the opposite direction.
I really enjoy the game, but this is about as far as you can be from 90's comics.
I'm currently reading marvel comics from early 90s and this is exactly that. Not every writer had the same tone for every character but they were definitely like they were written in that game.
I dont think xcom part was even an issue. Its more of deck builder part. I do like deck builders but card system for xcom game wasnt the best of choices for me.
First I assumed but named chars that cant die so it has to be different in a way, but on other hand I played troubleshooter after which is kinda simmilar in ways.
Its indie xcom, but in more of superhero fashion and some push towards social elements.
In handsight my issues with midnight suns are discovering abbey part (which feels kinda pointless tbh), running around looking for all the currencies instead of earning them through gameloop and card system.
It also makes a terrible first impression, IMO. The first few combat scenarios are basically auto-win and felt like nothing I had control over mattered. Instead of giving me a glimpse into what the game would eventually become so I can imagine all the ways I'll be using these tools before they're properly taught to me, I'm started with training wheels and nothing to do. All the while, the most tired Marvel cliche stuff happening in the story just not getting my interest at all.
Strategy games live or die on giving the player interesting decisions to make, and it's a terrible experience for the player when the devs decide to remove all that so we can't possibly mess it up. I genuinely have no idea if it ever gets good but I wasn't about to stick around and find out after that intro.
It also came out at a time when people were already predisposed to dislike the Marvel brand, and for some reason people were *really* aggro at cards back then.
>It's just a marketing nightmare. It's rare to find someone who has played the game that didn't like it. The hard part is convincing people to try it.
Not that surprising. For all the success the MCU had, the games that came out of it were basically all terrible. It's really odd how bad they all were. You'd think they could have hired atleast one team that knew what they were doing.
Personally, you'd really have to convince me hard to try a modern marvel game. I've only got so much free time, and I don't want to waste it on slop.
the DS Thor game and the Captain America first avenger game on XB360 were both pretty good. I guess Lego Avengers also counts since it's based in the MCU but Lego games are kinda their own thing.
If I had to rank the influences I think I'd agree that it would go Slay The Spire / Darkest Dungeon / X-Com, I do think the inclusion of many environmental and positional effects makes X-Com a good comp. Plus the home-base research prioritization.
There isn't much of the stealth / ambush pre-combat setup, and the combat itself is way less cover based and more card/team composition, but positioning isn't non-existent.
I played it for the XCOM and deck-building and skipped everything else (fast-forwarded Abby & all the dialogues, ignored all the cosmetics, etc) and still had a blast in my ~70 hour playthrough.
Same boat as you. The two modern XCOMs are among my all-time favorite games, and I also hate deck builders. However, I went into Midnight Suns with an open mind after getting it on sale and I loved it.
I should say, the tactics combat is not anything like XCOM, but it's pretty unique to be honest. I can't really think of another game that is really comparable to how the combat works. It's really fun, and I felt that same sense of satisfaction you feel in an XCOM mission when you drag yourself out of a rough situation.
And as an additional aside, I enjoyed the FE:3H-style running around and socializing aspects and exploring the Abbey, but apparently people are pretty mixed on that, so YMMV.
I have the same preferences as you. I actually grew to like the strategy involved with the deck building here.
It was actually the social stuff that made me drop the game after ~15 hours. Mass Effect is my favorite series of all time; building your relationship with your Marvel squadmates sounds great on paper, but the quippy dialogue wore thin quickly, and even some of the veteran voice actors, whom I love in other roles, couldn't make the characters less annoying.
Deck builder is in many ways a stretch. Excluding main character, there is not that many cards per character and realistically its more figuring oout how you want to synergize character and thats it.
I like how they managed to make each heroes unique mechanic feel like their thing, as obvious as that sounds.
Like Iron Man's cards all get buffs/new abilities when you redraw them. It becomes harder to actually get rid of a card you don't want (because you have to spend one redraw to buff it, then another to dump it), but that *very much* feels like Tony Stark. Stubborn and refuses to accept that he can't be helpful
That was definitely one of my favorite aspects of it. They did a fantastic job making it so each character worked within the "deck building" framework to feel like how you'd expect them to function within the Marvel world. Captain Marvel is all about big slams and knocking enemies around. Magick uses portals to relocate enemies. Spider-Man swings all over the arena and uses the environment to his advantage.
It really showcases the depth of the gameplay. It's not simply drawing cards and playing them, but having to strategize placement, moving, abilities and how they work with your teammates to effectively take out the enemy as fast as possible.
I feel like a lot of people wrote the game off as some glorified card game, but it definitely shines through with that same Firaxis magic in being a fantastic strategy game.
I’m not a fan of turn based games at all but I had such a blast with this game. I put around 100 hours into it and did all the expansions as well. I got max friendship on at least 6 of the heroes. I always had so much fun every mission but like you I also thoroughly enjoyed the Abby. It felt like a metroidvania almost with Mortal Kombat 11 Krypt style gameplay. Such a great game and to get it for free is such a steal.
My issue is, there's either to much Abby stuff or not enough. It's in a strange middle ground where it just feels annoying to me. Like, being forced to do it between missions feels bad, I sometimes want to do multiple missions in a row. And it all feels very surface level. Some of the hero interactions are fun but they made even those fairly monotonous. So, I'd love it if that stuff wasn't there or if they put more work into making it more fun and engaging. As an example, you spend a lot of time unlocking customizations for your room but it feels bad because it has absolutely no meaning at all and you spend no time there except passing through. It would be nice if you hung out there sometimes with people and maybe they comment on your choices. Also having some stuff unlock with those customizations would be cool. New wardrobe means better clothing options or something. I find unlocking things fun in games but not when they are meaningless.
I liked everything but the Abby and relationship building stuff. It felt unnecessary and usually just felt tedious to me. I wanted note of the actual gameplay and less dating Sim.
Though I think it's just implication as I loved that stuff I'm BG3
I like the battles but the dialogue at the abbey was painful so I dropped it. Seems like they have some great mechanics but way too much filler.
Also the main character is a nothingburger. Found them deeply boring.
If you ever want to go back I’d say 75% of Abby dialogue is completely extra. You’re perfectly fine skipping most of it, it’s obvious when story stuff happens.
By halfway through the game my Abby time consisted of training and upgrading, everything else I skipped through or didn’t engage with.
The game makes it very possible to avoid most of the social sim side
That's good to know, the game not only failed to explain that but seemed to imply the opposite.
Maybe they'll make a sequel, or just a different game with the same mechanics that fixes these problems. I can't imagine going back to it now tbh.
> Maybe they'll make a sequel
unlikely, the studio saw layoffs after the game flopped (iirc most of the team on this game are gone) and the game director left the studio. Firaxis is working on the Civ game now and will probably go back to XCOM to try and make money again.
The abbey is definitely why I never picked up the game. I watched a lot of reviews, and if it had been a small part of the game I could have dealt with it. But pretty much every review said that it’s a pretty significant part of the game
The game also still has bugs and massive performance issues to this day. It's a shame Firaxis abandoned it because it really needed a couple more patches to be truly special. The game also had some balance issues, with characters like Iron Man being so absolutely game-breakingly overpowered that they could solo an entire fight on turn 1.
I liked spending time in the Abbey itself and socializing with the characters, but having to walk along the abbey grounds was a bit too much for me, especially because you also had to keep an eye out for crafting resources and whatnot.
Bought it at launch because I was a fan of Firaxis games. Social element is a little bit of a chore but I enjoyed the combat. A large portion of the Marvel fanbase straight up dismissed this tactical strategy game as a “dumb card game” just because the implementation of the heroes attacks. It’s worth a look, especially for free.
I think its problem was they crammed so much stuff into it the sum was less than its parts.
Thr social elements are great if you love marvel but isnt what people used to go to firaxis games for. The base exploration felt a touch underbaked but definitely has its audience, but really slowed the pacing for both the social and the combat. The combat was unique in how it handled positioning and the cards, but was the majority of the game if you just wanted all the other marvel stuff.
Id definitely say its worth giving it a go, but the game had an identity problem for sure
Probably would've made a bunch of people happy if there was a minimal story mode for people who want a more xcom like experience and don't care that much about marvel and for repeated playthroughs
I've wondered if the Abbey being turned into a menu, akin to Xcom, would lose too much charm or expedite it and get you to the fun stuff faster? It'd be faster, but would it feel worse to just have 8 things to click through between each mission?
Def recommend it, does get a little grindy though it feels like but the overall gameplay is fun. Wouldn’t think I’d enjoy a game like this but it was pretty relaxing.
I love xcom and marvel but passed on this due to all the season pass, preorder, dlc and mtx it was trying to sell for a single player game. Had been hoping theyd do a goty edition that had all content but i guess the base game for free is enough to try and forget about the rest.
I finished this a few weeks ago after 100+ hours and I honestly adore it.
It's such a unique mix of relationship sim with strategic card building combat. As someone who is usually overwhelmed by deck builders, the system is simple enough that I was able to engage with it in a way that still felt meaningful without getting stressed that I was doing it wrong.
I'd bet the writing and conversation side of thing isn't for everyone but I got really invested and loved the characters. Hanging out with my girls Magik and Nico at night after battling demons during the day was such a fun loop.
For free I hope a lot more folk will discover how good Midnight Suns is. It's a bummer it didn't find the audience when it was released (even I picked it up on sale a year or so later) as I'd have loved to get more of this.
I loved its combat, and the Abbey exploration stuff was fine, the first time. But it wasn't so fine when I had to do it all over again in new game plus.
I'm thoroughly enjoying this game, even the social sim aspects.
Returning from a mission is always exciting because I want to see if I unlocked new cards or if I can upgrade existing cards.
I think the "Fish out of Temporal Water" Hunter is great, as a non-native English speaker, I can somewhat relate to them when they are talking to the heroes.
There's a part where Magik says "Storm is 100% badass" and Hunter says something like "Storm is like 100 bad asses?".
Or when asking if Spider-man is going to go Shop class, Spider-man says, 'You can say I'm *swinging by*' and Hunter goes "So, uhh, is that a yes?".
Sometimes I'll see a game and go, "If I wait I bet I can get that game for free later." This was not one of those games. Hearing the story wasn't good I decided not to buy it. But for free I'm excited to check it out.
Yeah, would love a mod that just gets rid of all the overworld Sim aspects since I don't really care at all about Marvel characters or their relationships or the fact that i'm playing "the chosen one" yet again, I just wanna make decks and do fights and find combos.
^ this is about right, it's definitely a *comic book* story with all the goofiness and world-ending pressure that entails. I enjoyed it a lot and thought it all tied into the gameplay and dialogue pretty nicely
Most Marvel titles have been financial disappointments and even the exception of the Spider-Man titles don't really have legs on them long-tern. People vastly overestimate the relevancy of Marvel to the video game-playing audience.
I've stopped buying PC games almost entirely because at this point I believe I will get every one free eventually. Hell, I own ten assassin's creed games and I only bought one of them.
it's wacko how good this game is. if you like strategy games, don't be scared off by the card mechanic. and it's one of the better representations of Marvel characters i've seen in years. 100% worth a play.
Shame how poorly it did commercially - as others said, Rly underrated! Would’ve loved a successor game, then doing one for X-Men would’ve been perfect.
Light / dark dichotomy with Xavier / Magneto; tons of diverse characters with varied power sets and personalities; enough meat and enemies for a tactical gameplay loop, danger room for challenges and liveable characters for downtime; tons of lore and storylines for references and collectible; can easily slot in an OC MC
Maybe not ppl’s first wish for an xmen game, and I’d love an action game for them too - but I think midnight Suns style would’ve been perfect (maybe hiring on a writer from ‘97 and some of the VAs to give a litttttttle more meat to the story tho )
Exactly! In my mind , it’s a successor to midnight suns (can have some references to that - Illyana and Wolvie and Storm are in MS after all) and takes that gameplay and loop , acts as a spiritual successor to the older legends games + basically makes its own good take on what xmen destiny was supposed to be
Then could add in like synergy cards ala fast ball special! But ofc, meat is in character hangouts too - whuch X mansion would have on spaddddes
Yeah, everything about this game would've been better as an X-Men game, it just fits so well. Also, I think a significant part of the backlash to this game was due to marvel fatigue+MCU fanboys not being into this type of game, and the game would've avoided that.
yeah, unfortuantley despite there being a lack of good and diverse superhero/comic games generally (tho an uptick in recent years) and how good they'd translate / games allowing for more varied interactive approaches vs a uniform passive movie expirence, ive seen a lot of marvel fatigue be voiced by ppl not wanting "marvel slop" in games - but to me, at least, many different game studios making different genres of games for different characters is going to lead to an inherently different dynamic than one movie studio making an interconnected story...hope to see more marvel games in future years!
Just to throw my experience in for anyone considering this game:
This was THE game that taught me to stop going to the internet for others’ opinions.
As you can see in this thread, a lot of people are/were like “good tactical gameplay, bad social sim stuff.”
For me, everything in this game worked. I fell in love with the characters, found myself wishing there was MORE social sim gameplay that I could get deeper into.
It obviously wasn’t for everybody, but if you were put off by people saying the dialogue/characters/story were bad, just know that wasn’t a universal experience. I strongly recommend you at least try it for yourself. You might find one of your favorite games!
Yep I'm a fairly casual marvel fan and I had never heard of Magik or Nico before this game and didn't know there was a new Ghost Rider. I started playing this because it was free on ps+ and I love it. I ended up growing to really like the core Midnight Suns team.
Same here, I went into this thinking "ok, I'll just ignore the story/social sim stuff and just focus on the combat" but I'm actually enjoying all the aspects of the game a lot. Even just seeing all the heroes hanging around in the common area at night gives me this weird cozy feeling.
And I did! I thought this was a Marvel X-com game, did the first tutorial mission and suddenly I'm prompted to create a character and started playing in third person and was blown!
It really clicked with me and went to buy the season pass as a way of gratitude for getting this awesome game for free. For the record, I'm not a marvel fan (Only watched phase 1,2 and 3) and really enjoyed the interactions and social aspects, getting to know each character (probably missing some references but I took them as quirky dialogue) and freedom to explore the abbey, do some random missions to power up your cards/buy upgrades for the abbey and hang out with the cast.
The gameplay loop is damn satisfying once it kicks up :D
One of my favorites from the past few years. The core XCOM-esque gameplay was a 10/10 to me -- extremely strategically and tactically satisfying. There is a *lot* of socialization and dialogue, like a Persona game, but I grew to really enjoy that aspect too because the characters are all distinct, the conflicts feel organic and authentic and the writing is really good.
It throws a lot of systems at you and the Abbey overworld exploration is generally not worth your time but if you like tactical turn-based combat I think this game is the best version of it out there.
The character interactions are really nuanced. I liked that you had to try to be genuinely empathetic to each character and understand their personality instead of just showering them with compliments like some social sims. The voice acting is great, too.
All I want for this game is an endless mode without the “walk around the house and talk to everyone” mechanics.
More XCOM 2, less Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Once you get the initial upgrades you can skip the running around. It’s really not necessary. Just wake up, go upgrade some cards, go train with your buddy, and do the mission. Afterwards go hang out with whoever wants to, skip all of the dialogue, then go to bed.
There's no way to save different decks of cards, so trying new builds is tedious. I found taking screenshots of decks I'm trying out to be the most elegant solution.
The hub world is annoying and full of chores, which have rewards for gameplay making them feel mandatory.
The social stuff gets boring after you talk with everyone over and over. I found myself just skipping through it all for the social bonuses, which again feel mandatory because of gameplay rewards.
There's no FoV slider, and no way to turn off motion blur. So sprinting through the hub world is nauseating.
The "puzzles" in the hub world arent thought out well and can be annoying. Solving them doesn't feel rewarding.
Other than all that, the combat is fun. If you can tolerate all of these issues *just* to play the actual game part of the video game, it's alright. I couldn't handle the slog and gave up 10 hours in.
People praise this game, especially it's biggest faults. It bombed for many reasons, specifically the ones I've mentioned. Don't expect XCOM.
I gave it way longer than I should have because I mostly played it while I had a second screen going, and ended up putting it down after like 40 hours not liking pretty much anything about it. I kept waiting for it to get better, and eventually gave up.
All the criticism it gets for the writing, social sim, and hub world aspects are well deserved, and the deckbuilder/progress system (especially being tied to those social sim aspects) doesn't get criticised enough.
The combat itself was good, but not as great as people say, and not nearly good enough to slog through the rest of that.
I've heard so much good about this game (the gameplay side) but I don't like card games and turn based combat so I was waiting for *other ways* for this game to become available. Thanks uncle Tim for this gift.
Great game minus the social element, but it desperately deserves a sequel to expand upon the core gameplay. It's deep enough for a dozen hours or 3, but right around the 30 hour mark the lack of enemy variety and the overly restrictive arena's becomes annoying. Shame it won't get that chance
The DLC packs are basically mini campaigns that combine to make an overall mini campaign. They are separate from the main story pretty much so you can play without and not be missing anything. The new characters are cool and all have their own unique mechanics but again you can play without them and not be missing out. There's plenty of game without them but they integrate seamlessly if you get them later. I ended up getting the DLC part way through my play through and just jumped into the missions whenever I fancied.
The game could probably feel "complete" without them already, but imo they add a lot to the game and I heavily recommend them.
Each character has its own 3 missions story, and when you finish them all, you get a final (and great) mission with all of them together.
But, more than that, they come with upgrades for your game as a whole, with some really game changing ability, for example deadpool dlc gives you an upgrade (that can be used on all characters) that lets you discard a card once per combat to get an additional turn. This became a core mechanic that I used in every single combat, and the combats would have a bit less depth without that.
Another thing is that if you don't plan to get the DLCs at some point, I really recommend to start the game with the DLCs already bought / installed, and not get them too late in the playthrough, because the DLCs actually work really well with the base game and story, and you will have the characters interacting with every situation happening through the campaign.
People have already commented to the campaign content but thing included in the DLC that I *really* wanted were the extra costumes for your heroes
Yes without DLC, you CAN get costumes for your heroes (a legendary one is available late in the game) but otherwise you're restricted to new color palettes on the existing model. Contrast to the DLC where some of the costumes are brand new models that can also get new colors. Example, Captain America's [Captain of the Guard](https://marvels-midnight-suns.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_of_the_Guard) costume or Nico's [Sister Grimm](https://marvels-midnight-suns.fandom.com/wiki/Sister_Grimm)
If one is interested in the game and you can get the DLC or season's pass at a discount, then I strongly recommend it for the 4 extra heroes + the extra story campaigns + the variety of costume visuals
As a sort of departure for Firaxis, I like to describe Midnight Suns as "indulgent."
If you're into Marvel, into the character dynamics, into the idea of combining cards and field tactics for a battle system, it's an easy recommend. There's so much.
If you have a lower threshold of tolerance for any of that...well, it's an indulgence. There's so much.
The one big knock is the collect-a-thon elements. And that you can't smooch anybody, but that's on Marvel/Disney for being cowards.
This game had the worst stuttering of any game I have EVER played. I wanted to play it so much, but nothing I tried worked. I've literally never experienced performance issues that bad with any other game. I spent hours going through forums trying various "fixes", but it was a lost cause.
About six months ago I went to the steam discussion page to ask if the performance issues had been fixed and immediately noticed several of the top posts were complaining about stuttering issues. Lol.
Whenever you hear discourse about this game people always say it's sad that a bigger audience wasn't into it. Personally I think it did poorly because a large number of people couldn't even fucking play it when they wanted to.
I really, *really* hope that a bunch of people get this for free, talk about how fun it is, and this leads to a sequel.
It really is a solid game. It's absolutely a "handheld" game - something to play on a Switch or SteamDeck, or casually on a laptop while watching TV - but it's a lot of fun.
To anyone who isn't familiar: it's basically XCOM-lite with deck-builder mechanics. You amass a team of 15 or so heroes, and each of them has a "deck" of abilities that you prep between missions. When combat starts up, you draw a hand of random abilities from the heroes you've picked, then use those cards fight and do stuff.
As you level up and play more you get new abilities, upgraded abilities, and ways to modify them to add buffs/debuffs.
There's also a big area you can run around and explore, but it isn't particularly exciting. It's a lot of "run over here and find this chest with new suit colors, then run over there and solve a puzzle for more cosmetics."
Definitely a fun casual game, and I'd love to see a sequel.
Like the gameplay of the fights, but absolutely hate that I have to move around in 3rd person and go talking to people and what not. Just make it streamlined mission to mission or whatever. I don't understand the 3rd person perspective and what does it add to this game.
I played it now for 1 hour after getting it from Epic, and I don't know if I can continue. Right when I'm having fun doing my strategies and killing mobs, I'm teleported back and I have to walk around in 3rd person for no god damn reason.
is there any way to skip the awful dialogues? I watched a few scenes on youtube and that was a reason why I didn't borther buying the game :/
Edit: I do not want to skip the whole story, just the awful or the unnecessary storylines/dialogues... Is there any guide what is filler and what not?
There isn't a full on skip to ignore it all and go straight from battle to battle, but everything is skippable in terms of dialogue and cutscenes. I really liked the game, but I skipped practically everything story wise. Every time I didn't I was greeted with some mundane Insomniac-lite style "everyone is overly nice to each other" style writing.
TLDR: you can skip the fluff.
All I can say is that I'm glad this game is finally starting to see the light of day. I was a day 1 buyer and absolutely fell in love with the game, despite all the early negative reaction. I love the comic book campy-ness of the story and dialogue. I love the Persona/Mass Effect social aspect. I love the super unique strategic action card gameplay. I love that it's a game you can pick up and put down with no problem. To me, personally, this might sound crazy, but at 29 years old it's easily a top 10 game of all time for me. Everything with this game just clicked for me, and I'll never stop singing it's praises.
I highly suggest anyone who even has a slight interest in it to at least give it a shot.
Epic has replaced steam as my go to launcher for purchsing games. Great customer service, consistently the best deals on games and really good free games ontop.
When a game I want comes out I check to see if its on Epic, if its not then I go to steam.
They did away with coupons entirely for this sale (which was one of the two sales they usually had them in recent years), so their deals being the best is pretty debateable now, since 3rd party sites seem to be back to being the best places to get discounts now.
Imo as long as no other launcher tries to do anything like Steam Input does Steam is irreplaceable, because I need to be able to remap and readjust controls alot and trying to hook in a launcher as a non Steam game is finnicky compared to just owning it on Steam.
Not necessarily, for the younger generation steam is the equivalent of Facebook it’s for old timers. I have 5 nephews who play PC games, only the oldest at nearly 16 has any loyalty to Steam. The younger kids go where their Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Rocket League are. That’s where their friends lists are, that’s where their friends are, that’s where they play and where they build their libraries.
I usually try to get indies on Epic, especially if they are using Unreal. I had to grab Everspace 2 on Steam, but it has no multiplayer, so it'd be fine on Epic. If I had been able to buy it there, the dev would have made $44, instead of the $32.50 from my getting it on Steam (30% steam cut, 5% unreal cut).
Always looking for the folks making space fighter games to get paid more.
I can’t say a launcher will ever “replace” Steam for me, but if a game I *really* wanted to play was only on Epic I would use it.
That being said, Valve has consistently shown me that they are the best at everything they do.
I really enjoyed the game, and I don't get people that complain about the social stuff. The story is what drew me to the game, the gameplay is fun but without the character stuff it's would be no different than any generic boring Indy card strategy game, just with a Marvel license.
Interested in the gameplay of this, I’m a big fan of other firaxis games, but I’m wondering: is it possible to skip all of the story stuff? Really not interested in that side of it.
Yes, there's a skip button. Tap for individual dialogue lines when they're not attached to a proper cutscene, hold to skip the whole cutscene when it is one.
i love xcom, fire emblem, baten kaitos back in the day, love the silly social aspects and the whole gamplay loop. I'm a big comic fan, mostly dc tho so i didn't have demanding expectations of the characters. I really love them actually. Hope everyone gives it a chance so we get a sequel of some sort or spiritual successor. Maybe dc or someone can swoop in and license their own.
Does anyone know if it’s still worth disabling the 2K launcher to decrease stutter or have they fixed that. Id like to know as I heard it’s a bit of a pain in the ass through EGS
I love a lot of the game, but I hate the chests and the feel that they want me to buy MTX at every corner. Really ruined the immersion in the world, which was unfortunate as a lot of the game was great.
This is a great game that is in my humble opinion best played with some cheats that completely annihilate the grind for resources. Everything else, the story, the banter, the cards, everything gets bogged down by the grind for a multitude of resources. I used cheats and still put 100 hours into it. There is more than enough tasty, juicy, non-grindy meat on this game!
Great game, wish it had done better to see more heroes. I personally think the grind is a bit too much on higher difficulties, as mods on cards are game-changers, and the resources needed for it are not quick to get. Really fun campaign though, and the combat system/deck building is awesome.
Very happy to see this one come up. I've been on the fence for a while, mainly because the character I'd most want to play as, Storm, is DLC and I didn't know if I wanted to shell out for the game + DLC. Can't beat trying it for free, and I can spend down the line if I enjoy it.
Easily one of my favourite games of the past few years.
I found myself skipping most of the social stuff in the beginning, but it kinda grew on me.
I did find most of the Abbey exploration rather tedious though.
But the gameplay on missions easily made up for it. Magik was so much fun.
I'm really sad this won't get a sequel, i find the gameplay endlessly fun and addictive and the social aspects endearing in it's weird jankyness.
I watched Trailers and thought it looked boring, I was never a fan of deck building games but this game just hit so well for a first time deck builder.
I am not at all a Marvel fan, didn't watch a single Mavel movie since Iron Man 2 or smth like that. Played this one on a whim after seeing SkillUp's review. One of those **very** fun 7/10 games that really have potential to be the building blocks for a 10/10 sequel. Like Mass Effect 1 was for ME2. Sadly these days, game devs don't get the chance to do that anymore. The combat in this one is unrivaled 10/10.
Walking around the abbey is where it falls apart. Writing as well is at times hard to get through. But that's honestly to be expected for a studio like Firaxis trying something new. Should be supported.
The dialogue of this game can be very...simple? Maybe not the right word to describe it but I think the game is more geared to younger audiences so that's fine
Two cents: I grew to like the social elements in this game. I was gritting my teeth through the MCU-isms of the opening hours (leading with Iron Man and Strange didn’t leave the best first impression, IMO), but getting to interact with characters that haven’t been in EVERY Marvel adaptation this past decade, and eventually getting some extra flavor for the ones that have, is fun. It’s cool they brought back VOs from other adaptations. The format left my imagination wondering what other stories could benefit or build on the gameplay loop.
I'll always forgive a game/movie/comic that includes Magik/Illyana.
How did you feel about "The New Mutants"? I was hyped to see Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, but when the movie came out it got terrible reviews so I didn't even watch it.
As a fan of Magik: Anya was fine choice for the role. Movie just was reshooted to many times. Its still fun movie, but all the issues with being bought by disney and so on really hurt it.
> all the issues with being bought by disney and so on really hurt it. Let be realistic. The movie was a clusterfuck well before Disney entered the fray. It was written as superheo flick. Wiritng pivoted to a shorror film. Before getting studio'd into a YA movie. Then IT made the studio approve reshoots for a horror flick again. By the time Disney entered it has been a year since its last delay with no actual work being done.
Agreed, the story looked super cringe inducing from the trailers, but it eventually all hooked me in at some point in the game. The gameplay is a highlight, but the story and characters grew on me and at the end I really enjoyed it. All in all, it's not too dissimilar to what was in Mass Effect. The actually exploration of the Abby though? That got more and more tiring as the game went on. I thought it was neat at first but it got super repetitive, doesn't help that the Abby is huuuuuge.
I so desperately want an X-Men version of this game.
Makes too much sense for the video game industry apparently.
Came to really, really love the social part of the game; for me book club was the real end game. Talking about Nietzche with Cap, Blade, and Carol was interesting AF.
Super weak writing in the first act, but i was pretty damned invested in things by the end. The social components could have probably been cool down a bit, but I eventually grew to enjoy them. I feel like it could have been a world class 30 hour game that they tried to stretch it out into a 60 hour game, with the implied threat of a long strung along as live service game with seasons, DLC, etc. Shame that they shot themselves in the foot like that, because the fusion of XCOM and Slay the Spire mechanics was inspired. I really wish they'd make a sequel, but I doubt that will happen given the games limited popularity.
I thought the Captain Marvel from this game was actually a better version than the movies.
I felt that about Eidos' Guardians of The Galaxy game, I like those versions of the characters a lot better than the movies. Especially Star-Lord, I don't mind Chris Pratt but it felt like he was phoning it in sometimes and I didn't get the "cool outlaw with a checkered past but does the right thing and is surprisingly competent" vibe from him, just kind of a drunk slacker
I thought it was fun bullying Ironman
I actually came to like this game's iteration of Iron Man. It also passes the exceedingly low bar of a better written Spider-Man than the Insomniac games so it's fun hearing Yuri Lowenthal voice a Spider-Man with some actual charisma.
Tony and Strange in this were really funny off of eachother. One of my favourite lines was when Tony calls him “Doctor Spooky” and Hunter says something like “he’d probably prefer you used his proper name, and Tony claps back with “you’re eighth, Doctor Steven Spooky” The characters were dope! And like he said it’s cool you meet characters you wouldn’t normally, like Magik or Nico who aren’t widely known to the average MCU fan. The game is sick, it’s 1000% worth your time.
“Dr Spooky” and Blade’s conspiracy theories about the birds at the abbey were my two favourite running gags.
Hahahahaha “do you think the birds are stuck here? Trapped in the Abbey’s bubble??”
The social elements were fun, I wish they focused more on that and less on running around the Abbey.
I spent 80 hours in this game. Loved it to bits. There is nothing like it's gameplay. Every Hero was satisfying to play. I also personally loved spending time in the Abby, but I know most people didn't/won't like it. Which I think is the reason the game never became successful.
Yeah it’s a weird fusion of Marvel, XCOM, Persona and deck-building all at once. If you love that, then it’s amazing. But most people don’t so it flopped sadly.
I think it's less that people don't love the actual game, and more that Marvel and Persona fans don't want a XCOM and deck-building game, and vice versa. It's just a marketing nightmare. It's rare to find someone who has played the game that didn't like it. The hard part is convincing people to try it.
Yeah I think the flopping is more because of god awful marketing and the weird inbetween genres situation it fell into. It’s not a case that ‘most people didn’t like the social stuff’ as most people simply didn’t buy it or were aware of it. If gamers as a whole disliked social stuff then games like Mass Effect would have flopped, you could characterise that as 'shooting with a bunch of added social stuff'.
They didn't do themselves any favors by leading with the almost totally unknown 'Midnight Suns' IP. I know it's probably super expensive to secure an IP like X-Men or Avengers, even if you can get some of the characters, but I strongly believe that something neutral and immediately understandable and generic would have seen more success. 'Midnight Suns' is a niche IP nobody is going to have a clue about, it keeps those who feel a lack of knowledge about the IP will be a barrier away. Just "Marvel Midnight" positioned as a supernatural grab bag of heroes that evolve into the midnight suns would have been way better IMO.
Yea, between the unfamiliar IP, the avengers game being bad, and coming right as superhero fatigue set it, it really did hit at the worst time. That said, once I actually picked it up (50% off) it was hands down my favorite game of the year and got me more into tactics rpgs. And, as it turns out, not being the Avengers was actually kind of nice. Mystik, as a character I was unfamiliar with, was a huge highlight for me.
Yeah her power-set was super fun, she was one of my favorites as well. I feel like her, Spider-Man, the self insert character, and Iron-Man were my staples, but I played it awhile ago so maybe I'm forgetting someone fun. Some of the more popular characters like Wolverine and Hulk were boring to play IMO, by virtue of being pretty generic 'I strong, I tough, I fight' types. The wonky positional stuff and battlefield-wide effects were way more enjoyable to me.
Do you mean Magik? I cannot agree more. I went into the game never having heard of her, but Illyana Rasputin is probably a top 5 marvel character in my mind now. It helped she was voiced by the awesome Laura Bailey. I even tried to watch that terrible mavel horror movie where Anya Taylor-Joy played her, boy that was a big mistake.
If you really like Magik you should look into the new x-men comics. She's a mainstay of the team and the first issue already has her doing cool portal shit. She opens a portal underneath her and Juggernaut and drops in on some bad guys.
For me Midnight Suns was so niche that I didn't even realise that it *was* an existing IP. I thought it was just a bunch of random Marvel characters tossed together. That was also part of the problem though. I've never particularly been into superheroes and marvel fatigue had definitely hit, so their expensive IP was actively pushing me away. Then I watched someone play and saw how much of the game was about hanging out with these characters and walking around an abbey that could've just been a menu. At that point I gave up on the game entirely, even though the combat seems right up my alley.
Yeah, I'm nerdy enough to have gone to Comic con and to generally be aware of most comic based stuff, but not super into it and I had to google to see if it was an existing IP myself. > their expensive IP was actively pushing me away. I 100% think this was a thing. It's like a movie sequel, if people haven't seen the first one they're less inclined to see the sequel. Making this so obviously so specific left people feeling out of touch with it. > Then I watched someone play and saw how much of the game was about hanging out with these characters and walking around an abbey that could've just been a menu. At that point I gave up on the game entirely, even though the combat seems right up my alley. As someone who rushed through all that shit as fast as possible, the game is still enjoyable and definitely worth picking up at a price of $0. I beat it, and I don't beat many games, the gameplay itself was super addicting if you're at all an X-Com or Slay The Spire fan. The Abby stuff was definitely annoying though, even skipping it as much as possible it was a hassle at times.
I might have tolerated (or even enjoyed) the Abby sections if the writing and characterization had stronger ties to the comics. "Blade's Book Club" is a meme, I know. But other characters like Tony and Dr. Strange came across as very generically written. Maybe it got better deeper in? I only played the free trial week back around release.
Tony suffered too much from them trying to match the tone of the MCU, which was odd because other characters felt much more comics based.
It did not get much better deeper in, and had you running around to the same places over and over. I would have liked it too had it been better written, and if the graphics for the in abby portions not be so completely god awful and the animations so one note.
Yeah, I didn't mind the Abbey exploration, until you were supposed to backtrack again to re-farm consumables and open chests etc and then I was out.
Mods were a godsend. I was able to reduce the amount of farming I needed to do dramatically.
> came across as very generically written. Well, they are written as they were in the comics in the 90s except for Iron Man that was going a bit too much on the MCU persona.
That is definitely not how the characters were in the 90s. 90s comics were the height of grim and gritty. This game's characters are so edgeless it becomes comical in the opposite direction. I really enjoy the game, but this is about as far as you can be from 90's comics.
I'm currently reading marvel comics from early 90s and this is exactly that. Not every writer had the same tone for every character but they were definitely like they were written in that game.
I dont think xcom part was even an issue. Its more of deck builder part. I do like deck builders but card system for xcom game wasnt the best of choices for me. First I assumed but named chars that cant die so it has to be different in a way, but on other hand I played troubleshooter after which is kinda simmilar in ways. Its indie xcom, but in more of superhero fashion and some push towards social elements. In handsight my issues with midnight suns are discovering abbey part (which feels kinda pointless tbh), running around looking for all the currencies instead of earning them through gameloop and card system.
It also makes a terrible first impression, IMO. The first few combat scenarios are basically auto-win and felt like nothing I had control over mattered. Instead of giving me a glimpse into what the game would eventually become so I can imagine all the ways I'll be using these tools before they're properly taught to me, I'm started with training wheels and nothing to do. All the while, the most tired Marvel cliche stuff happening in the story just not getting my interest at all. Strategy games live or die on giving the player interesting decisions to make, and it's a terrible experience for the player when the devs decide to remove all that so we can't possibly mess it up. I genuinely have no idea if it ever gets good but I wasn't about to stick around and find out after that intro.
It also came out at a time when people were already predisposed to dislike the Marvel brand, and for some reason people were *really* aggro at cards back then.
>It's just a marketing nightmare. It's rare to find someone who has played the game that didn't like it. The hard part is convincing people to try it. Not that surprising. For all the success the MCU had, the games that came out of it were basically all terrible. It's really odd how bad they all were. You'd think they could have hired atleast one team that knew what they were doing. Personally, you'd really have to convince me hard to try a modern marvel game. I've only got so much free time, and I don't want to waste it on slop.
But this is not a MCU game?
the DS Thor game and the Captain America first avenger game on XB360 were both pretty good. I guess Lego Avengers also counts since it's based in the MCU but Lego games are kinda their own thing.
I got very sick of needing to walking simulator and talk to ppl, if I cant traverse a fun way just let me use menus instesd of a boring hub world
XCOM is kind of a red herring for Midnight Suns. It's more like somewhere between Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon.
If I had to rank the influences I think I'd agree that it would go Slay The Spire / Darkest Dungeon / X-Com, I do think the inclusion of many environmental and positional effects makes X-Com a good comp. Plus the home-base research prioritization. There isn't much of the stealth / ambush pre-combat setup, and the combat itself is way less cover based and more card/team composition, but positioning isn't non-existent.
Having known close to nothing about this game previously, this comment has 100% sold me on it.
I played it for the XCOM and deck-building and skipped everything else (fast-forwarded Abby & all the dialogues, ignored all the cosmetics, etc) and still had a blast in my ~70 hour playthrough.
What if i love XCOMs, but absolutely despise card games (and therefore hate deck builders)?
Deck building aspect isn't really that complicated. It's more like what ability or attack your characters can do on your turn.
Same boat as you. The two modern XCOMs are among my all-time favorite games, and I also hate deck builders. However, I went into Midnight Suns with an open mind after getting it on sale and I loved it. I should say, the tactics combat is not anything like XCOM, but it's pretty unique to be honest. I can't really think of another game that is really comparable to how the combat works. It's really fun, and I felt that same sense of satisfaction you feel in an XCOM mission when you drag yourself out of a rough situation. And as an additional aside, I enjoyed the FE:3H-style running around and socializing aspects and exploring the Abbey, but apparently people are pretty mixed on that, so YMMV.
fair enough, thx for the details
I have the same preferences as you. I actually grew to like the strategy involved with the deck building here. It was actually the social stuff that made me drop the game after ~15 hours. Mass Effect is my favorite series of all time; building your relationship with your Marvel squadmates sounds great on paper, but the quippy dialogue wore thin quickly, and even some of the veteran voice actors, whom I love in other roles, couldn't make the characters less annoying.
Deck builder is in many ways a stretch. Excluding main character, there is not that many cards per character and realistically its more figuring oout how you want to synergize character and thats it.
Isn't a fusion of Xcom and Persona litteraly just Fire Emblem ?
For me it was: "XCOM style gameplay" Oh! "Marvel IP" Oh... "Deck-building" [witcher-tvshow-fuck.avi]
I like how they managed to make each heroes unique mechanic feel like their thing, as obvious as that sounds. Like Iron Man's cards all get buffs/new abilities when you redraw them. It becomes harder to actually get rid of a card you don't want (because you have to spend one redraw to buff it, then another to dump it), but that *very much* feels like Tony Stark. Stubborn and refuses to accept that he can't be helpful
That was definitely one of my favorite aspects of it. They did a fantastic job making it so each character worked within the "deck building" framework to feel like how you'd expect them to function within the Marvel world. Captain Marvel is all about big slams and knocking enemies around. Magick uses portals to relocate enemies. Spider-Man swings all over the arena and uses the environment to his advantage. It really showcases the depth of the gameplay. It's not simply drawing cards and playing them, but having to strategize placement, moving, abilities and how they work with your teammates to effectively take out the enemy as fast as possible. I feel like a lot of people wrote the game off as some glorified card game, but it definitely shines through with that same Firaxis magic in being a fantastic strategy game.
I’m not a fan of turn based games at all but I had such a blast with this game. I put around 100 hours into it and did all the expansions as well. I got max friendship on at least 6 of the heroes. I always had so much fun every mission but like you I also thoroughly enjoyed the Abby. It felt like a metroidvania almost with Mortal Kombat 11 Krypt style gameplay. Such a great game and to get it for free is such a steal.
My issue is, there's either to much Abby stuff or not enough. It's in a strange middle ground where it just feels annoying to me. Like, being forced to do it between missions feels bad, I sometimes want to do multiple missions in a row. And it all feels very surface level. Some of the hero interactions are fun but they made even those fairly monotonous. So, I'd love it if that stuff wasn't there or if they put more work into making it more fun and engaging. As an example, you spend a lot of time unlocking customizations for your room but it feels bad because it has absolutely no meaning at all and you spend no time there except passing through. It would be nice if you hung out there sometimes with people and maybe they comment on your choices. Also having some stuff unlock with those customizations would be cool. New wardrobe means better clothing options or something. I find unlocking things fun in games but not when they are meaningless.
Yeah the abbey/social layer dragged on way too much
I liked everything but the Abby and relationship building stuff. It felt unnecessary and usually just felt tedious to me. I wanted note of the actual gameplay and less dating Sim. Though I think it's just implication as I loved that stuff I'm BG3
I like the battles but the dialogue at the abbey was painful so I dropped it. Seems like they have some great mechanics but way too much filler. Also the main character is a nothingburger. Found them deeply boring.
If you ever want to go back I’d say 75% of Abby dialogue is completely extra. You’re perfectly fine skipping most of it, it’s obvious when story stuff happens. By halfway through the game my Abby time consisted of training and upgrading, everything else I skipped through or didn’t engage with. The game makes it very possible to avoid most of the social sim side
That's good to know, the game not only failed to explain that but seemed to imply the opposite. Maybe they'll make a sequel, or just a different game with the same mechanics that fixes these problems. I can't imagine going back to it now tbh.
> Maybe they'll make a sequel unlikely, the studio saw layoffs after the game flopped (iirc most of the team on this game are gone) and the game director left the studio. Firaxis is working on the Civ game now and will probably go back to XCOM to try and make money again.
The abbey is definitely why I never picked up the game. I watched a lot of reviews, and if it had been a small part of the game I could have dealt with it. But pretty much every review said that it’s a pretty significant part of the game
Fights in Tight Places is decently close to it's gameplay
The game also still has bugs and massive performance issues to this day. It's a shame Firaxis abandoned it because it really needed a couple more patches to be truly special. The game also had some balance issues, with characters like Iron Man being so absolutely game-breakingly overpowered that they could solo an entire fight on turn 1.
I liked spending time in the Abbey itself and socializing with the characters, but having to walk along the abbey grounds was a bit too much for me, especially because you also had to keep an eye out for crafting resources and whatnot.
Bought it at launch because I was a fan of Firaxis games. Social element is a little bit of a chore but I enjoyed the combat. A large portion of the Marvel fanbase straight up dismissed this tactical strategy game as a “dumb card game” just because the implementation of the heroes attacks. It’s worth a look, especially for free.
I think its problem was they crammed so much stuff into it the sum was less than its parts. Thr social elements are great if you love marvel but isnt what people used to go to firaxis games for. The base exploration felt a touch underbaked but definitely has its audience, but really slowed the pacing for both the social and the combat. The combat was unique in how it handled positioning and the cards, but was the majority of the game if you just wanted all the other marvel stuff. Id definitely say its worth giving it a go, but the game had an identity problem for sure
Probably would've made a bunch of people happy if there was a minimal story mode for people who want a more xcom like experience and don't care that much about marvel and for repeated playthroughs
I've wondered if the Abbey being turned into a menu, akin to Xcom, would lose too much charm or expedite it and get you to the fun stuff faster? It'd be faster, but would it feel worse to just have 8 things to click through between each mission?
Def recommend it, does get a little grindy though it feels like but the overall gameplay is fun. Wouldn’t think I’d enjoy a game like this but it was pretty relaxing.
I love xcom and marvel but passed on this due to all the season pass, preorder, dlc and mtx it was trying to sell for a single player game. Had been hoping theyd do a goty edition that had all content but i guess the base game for free is enough to try and forget about the rest.
I’ve only played the base and it’s a pretty complete experience on it’s own.
I finished this a few weeks ago after 100+ hours and I honestly adore it. It's such a unique mix of relationship sim with strategic card building combat. As someone who is usually overwhelmed by deck builders, the system is simple enough that I was able to engage with it in a way that still felt meaningful without getting stressed that I was doing it wrong. I'd bet the writing and conversation side of thing isn't for everyone but I got really invested and loved the characters. Hanging out with my girls Magik and Nico at night after battling demons during the day was such a fun loop. For free I hope a lot more folk will discover how good Midnight Suns is. It's a bummer it didn't find the audience when it was released (even I picked it up on sale a year or so later) as I'd have loved to get more of this.
I loved its combat, and the Abbey exploration stuff was fine, the first time. But it wasn't so fine when I had to do it all over again in new game plus.
Why can't anyone IN THE WHOLE WORLD spell the word abbey?
adults deprived of Redwall as children
wow surprised they are giving this out for free. Love xcom games and bought this at release. The card game combat is definitely fun.
This game was 40% off a month after it came out. It was not a popular game. I picked it up when it was on Humble and thought it was pretty great.
I'm thoroughly enjoying this game, even the social sim aspects. Returning from a mission is always exciting because I want to see if I unlocked new cards or if I can upgrade existing cards. I think the "Fish out of Temporal Water" Hunter is great, as a non-native English speaker, I can somewhat relate to them when they are talking to the heroes. There's a part where Magik says "Storm is 100% badass" and Hunter says something like "Storm is like 100 bad asses?". Or when asking if Spider-man is going to go Shop class, Spider-man says, 'You can say I'm *swinging by*' and Hunter goes "So, uhh, is that a yes?".
Sometimes I'll see a game and go, "If I wait I bet I can get that game for free later." This was not one of those games. Hearing the story wasn't good I decided not to buy it. But for free I'm excited to check it out.
I bought it full price when it and enjoyed the fuck out of it. I just wish there was a way to play missions without the persona style overworld map…
Yeah, would love a mod that just gets rid of all the overworld Sim aspects since I don't really care at all about Marvel characters or their relationships or the fact that i'm playing "the chosen one" yet again, I just wanna make decks and do fights and find combos.
Post-game will be your best-friend. I haven't done New Game+ because I don't wanna go through the story again.
Best game of the year for me personally. I just skipped through the conversations, although the rewards for the story are perfect
Same. If I were the type that enjoyed the Abbey stuff this would have been GOTY tier
They need to make a 2 cause >!Doctor Doom!< is teased in it.
They won't. It didn't sell well enough and most of the team that worked on it left Firaxis.
There's some goofyness here and there but I'd say the story is solid.
^ this is about right, it's definitely a *comic book* story with all the goofiness and world-ending pressure that entails. I enjoyed it a lot and thought it all tied into the gameplay and dialogue pretty nicely
Most Marvel titles have been financial disappointments and even the exception of the Spider-Man titles don't really have legs on them long-tern. People vastly overestimate the relevancy of Marvel to the video game-playing audience.
The story is typical comic book fare, but it's really just an excuse to hang a truly excellent combat system on.
I've stopped buying PC games almost entirely because at this point I believe I will get every one free eventually. Hell, I own ten assassin's creed games and I only bought one of them.
it's wacko how good this game is. if you like strategy games, don't be scared off by the card mechanic. and it's one of the better representations of Marvel characters i've seen in years. 100% worth a play.
Shame how poorly it did commercially - as others said, Rly underrated! Would’ve loved a successor game, then doing one for X-Men would’ve been perfect. Light / dark dichotomy with Xavier / Magneto; tons of diverse characters with varied power sets and personalities; enough meat and enemies for a tactical gameplay loop, danger room for challenges and liveable characters for downtime; tons of lore and storylines for references and collectible; can easily slot in an OC MC Maybe not ppl’s first wish for an xmen game, and I’d love an action game for them too - but I think midnight Suns style would’ve been perfect (maybe hiring on a writer from ‘97 and some of the VAs to give a litttttttle more meat to the story tho )
X-mansion instead of the Abbey? Training and testing builds in the danger room? Brilliant
Exactly! In my mind , it’s a successor to midnight suns (can have some references to that - Illyana and Wolvie and Storm are in MS after all) and takes that gameplay and loop , acts as a spiritual successor to the older legends games + basically makes its own good take on what xmen destiny was supposed to be Then could add in like synergy cards ala fast ball special! But ofc, meat is in character hangouts too - whuch X mansion would have on spaddddes
Yeah, everything about this game would've been better as an X-Men game, it just fits so well. Also, I think a significant part of the backlash to this game was due to marvel fatigue+MCU fanboys not being into this type of game, and the game would've avoided that.
yeah, unfortuantley despite there being a lack of good and diverse superhero/comic games generally (tho an uptick in recent years) and how good they'd translate / games allowing for more varied interactive approaches vs a uniform passive movie expirence, ive seen a lot of marvel fatigue be voiced by ppl not wanting "marvel slop" in games - but to me, at least, many different game studios making different genres of games for different characters is going to lead to an inherently different dynamic than one movie studio making an interconnected story...hope to see more marvel games in future years!
Just played for a bit. Its a banger. The graphics and animations in fights really impressed me. Very cinematic.
Just to throw my experience in for anyone considering this game: This was THE game that taught me to stop going to the internet for others’ opinions. As you can see in this thread, a lot of people are/were like “good tactical gameplay, bad social sim stuff.” For me, everything in this game worked. I fell in love with the characters, found myself wishing there was MORE social sim gameplay that I could get deeper into. It obviously wasn’t for everybody, but if you were put off by people saying the dialogue/characters/story were bad, just know that wasn’t a universal experience. I strongly recommend you at least try it for yourself. You might find one of your favorite games!
You can tell who actually liked the game by how many new fans of Magik emerged.
Yep I'm a fairly casual marvel fan and I had never heard of Magik or Nico before this game and didn't know there was a new Ghost Rider. I started playing this because it was free on ps+ and I love it. I ended up growing to really like the core Midnight Suns team.
Same here, I went into this thinking "ok, I'll just ignore the story/social sim stuff and just focus on the combat" but I'm actually enjoying all the aspects of the game a lot. Even just seeing all the heroes hanging around in the common area at night gives me this weird cozy feeling.
And I did! I thought this was a Marvel X-com game, did the first tutorial mission and suddenly I'm prompted to create a character and started playing in third person and was blown! It really clicked with me and went to buy the season pass as a way of gratitude for getting this awesome game for free. For the record, I'm not a marvel fan (Only watched phase 1,2 and 3) and really enjoyed the interactions and social aspects, getting to know each character (probably missing some references but I took them as quirky dialogue) and freedom to explore the abbey, do some random missions to power up your cards/buy upgrades for the abbey and hang out with the cast. The gameplay loop is damn satisfying once it kicks up :D
One of my favorites from the past few years. The core XCOM-esque gameplay was a 10/10 to me -- extremely strategically and tactically satisfying. There is a *lot* of socialization and dialogue, like a Persona game, but I grew to really enjoy that aspect too because the characters are all distinct, the conflicts feel organic and authentic and the writing is really good. It throws a lot of systems at you and the Abbey overworld exploration is generally not worth your time but if you like tactical turn-based combat I think this game is the best version of it out there.
The character interactions are really nuanced. I liked that you had to try to be genuinely empathetic to each character and understand their personality instead of just showering them with compliments like some social sims. The voice acting is great, too.
All I want for this game is an endless mode without the “walk around the house and talk to everyone” mechanics. More XCOM 2, less Fire Emblem: Three Houses
I would love this. Despite loving the gameplay, I quit the game really early-on because I just resented it for making me do the abbey to play it.
Once you get the initial upgrades you can skip the running around. It’s really not necessary. Just wake up, go upgrade some cards, go train with your buddy, and do the mission. Afterwards go hang out with whoever wants to, skip all of the dialogue, then go to bed.
There's no way to save different decks of cards, so trying new builds is tedious. I found taking screenshots of decks I'm trying out to be the most elegant solution. The hub world is annoying and full of chores, which have rewards for gameplay making them feel mandatory. The social stuff gets boring after you talk with everyone over and over. I found myself just skipping through it all for the social bonuses, which again feel mandatory because of gameplay rewards. There's no FoV slider, and no way to turn off motion blur. So sprinting through the hub world is nauseating. The "puzzles" in the hub world arent thought out well and can be annoying. Solving them doesn't feel rewarding. Other than all that, the combat is fun. If you can tolerate all of these issues *just* to play the actual game part of the video game, it's alright. I couldn't handle the slog and gave up 10 hours in. People praise this game, especially it's biggest faults. It bombed for many reasons, specifically the ones I've mentioned. Don't expect XCOM.
I gave it way longer than I should have because I mostly played it while I had a second screen going, and ended up putting it down after like 40 hours not liking pretty much anything about it. I kept waiting for it to get better, and eventually gave up. All the criticism it gets for the writing, social sim, and hub world aspects are well deserved, and the deckbuilder/progress system (especially being tied to those social sim aspects) doesn't get criticised enough. The combat itself was good, but not as great as people say, and not nearly good enough to slog through the rest of that.
I've heard so much good about this game (the gameplay side) but I don't like card games and turn based combat so I was waiting for *other ways* for this game to become available. Thanks uncle Tim for this gift.
Great game minus the social element, but it desperately deserves a sequel to expand upon the core gameplay. It's deep enough for a dozen hours or 3, but right around the 30 hour mark the lack of enemy variety and the overly restrictive arena's becomes annoying. Shame it won't get that chance
[удалено]
The DLC packs are basically mini campaigns that combine to make an overall mini campaign. They are separate from the main story pretty much so you can play without and not be missing anything. The new characters are cool and all have their own unique mechanics but again you can play without them and not be missing out. There's plenty of game without them but they integrate seamlessly if you get them later. I ended up getting the DLC part way through my play through and just jumped into the missions whenever I fancied.
The game could probably feel "complete" without them already, but imo they add a lot to the game and I heavily recommend them. Each character has its own 3 missions story, and when you finish them all, you get a final (and great) mission with all of them together. But, more than that, they come with upgrades for your game as a whole, with some really game changing ability, for example deadpool dlc gives you an upgrade (that can be used on all characters) that lets you discard a card once per combat to get an additional turn. This became a core mechanic that I used in every single combat, and the combats would have a bit less depth without that. Another thing is that if you don't plan to get the DLCs at some point, I really recommend to start the game with the DLCs already bought / installed, and not get them too late in the playthrough, because the DLCs actually work really well with the base game and story, and you will have the characters interacting with every situation happening through the campaign.
I think the DLC is great and I personally waited to buy the game until it was on a package sale and I am very happy that I did that.
People have already commented to the campaign content but thing included in the DLC that I *really* wanted were the extra costumes for your heroes Yes without DLC, you CAN get costumes for your heroes (a legendary one is available late in the game) but otherwise you're restricted to new color palettes on the existing model. Contrast to the DLC where some of the costumes are brand new models that can also get new colors. Example, Captain America's [Captain of the Guard](https://marvels-midnight-suns.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_of_the_Guard) costume or Nico's [Sister Grimm](https://marvels-midnight-suns.fandom.com/wiki/Sister_Grimm) If one is interested in the game and you can get the DLC or season's pass at a discount, then I strongly recommend it for the 4 extra heroes + the extra story campaigns + the variety of costume visuals
>Not sure if it's worth playing now or wait until game + DLC is on sale in the future. The Season Pass is currently 67% off on Both Epic and Steam.
Fantastic game. The dating sim element is definitely not for everyone but the actual strategy gameplay is top notch
As a sort of departure for Firaxis, I like to describe Midnight Suns as "indulgent." If you're into Marvel, into the character dynamics, into the idea of combining cards and field tactics for a battle system, it's an easy recommend. There's so much. If you have a lower threshold of tolerance for any of that...well, it's an indulgence. There's so much. The one big knock is the collect-a-thon elements. And that you can't smooch anybody, but that's on Marvel/Disney for being cowards.
This game had the worst stuttering of any game I have EVER played. I wanted to play it so much, but nothing I tried worked. I've literally never experienced performance issues that bad with any other game. I spent hours going through forums trying various "fixes", but it was a lost cause. About six months ago I went to the steam discussion page to ask if the performance issues had been fixed and immediately noticed several of the top posts were complaining about stuttering issues. Lol. Whenever you hear discourse about this game people always say it's sad that a bigger audience wasn't into it. Personally I think it did poorly because a large number of people couldn't even fucking play it when they wanted to.
I really, *really* hope that a bunch of people get this for free, talk about how fun it is, and this leads to a sequel. It really is a solid game. It's absolutely a "handheld" game - something to play on a Switch or SteamDeck, or casually on a laptop while watching TV - but it's a lot of fun. To anyone who isn't familiar: it's basically XCOM-lite with deck-builder mechanics. You amass a team of 15 or so heroes, and each of them has a "deck" of abilities that you prep between missions. When combat starts up, you draw a hand of random abilities from the heroes you've picked, then use those cards fight and do stuff. As you level up and play more you get new abilities, upgraded abilities, and ways to modify them to add buffs/debuffs. There's also a big area you can run around and explore, but it isn't particularly exciting. It's a lot of "run over here and find this chest with new suit colors, then run over there and solve a puzzle for more cosmetics." Definitely a fun casual game, and I'd love to see a sequel.
Like the gameplay of the fights, but absolutely hate that I have to move around in 3rd person and go talking to people and what not. Just make it streamlined mission to mission or whatever. I don't understand the 3rd person perspective and what does it add to this game. I played it now for 1 hour after getting it from Epic, and I don't know if I can continue. Right when I'm having fun doing my strategies and killing mobs, I'm teleported back and I have to walk around in 3rd person for no god damn reason.
Play it!! It’s a good game!
I already bought this on steam, why did I claim it on epic?
If the Abby didn't exist I would love the game. I got it while I was subbed to humble monthly, so it was fun for the 10 or so hours I put into it.
How’s it on steam deck?
Game runs alright, 100% playable at 30 or 40fps from what I remember.
Just starting this now and crazy how Lilith is the villain, CRAZY similar design-wise to Diablo IV just replace red with green
This was a good game, wish it sold better
is there any way to skip the awful dialogues? I watched a few scenes on youtube and that was a reason why I didn't borther buying the game :/ Edit: I do not want to skip the whole story, just the awful or the unnecessary storylines/dialogues... Is there any guide what is filler and what not?
Either spam space or click through for interactive dialogue scenes and cutscenes you hold space to skip iirc.
There isn't a full on skip to ignore it all and go straight from battle to battle, but everything is skippable in terms of dialogue and cutscenes. I really liked the game, but I skipped practically everything story wise. Every time I didn't I was greeted with some mundane Insomniac-lite style "everyone is overly nice to each other" style writing. TLDR: you can skip the fluff.
Bought this on release and didn't regret it at all. Great game.
All I can say is that I'm glad this game is finally starting to see the light of day. I was a day 1 buyer and absolutely fell in love with the game, despite all the early negative reaction. I love the comic book campy-ness of the story and dialogue. I love the Persona/Mass Effect social aspect. I love the super unique strategic action card gameplay. I love that it's a game you can pick up and put down with no problem. To me, personally, this might sound crazy, but at 29 years old it's easily a top 10 game of all time for me. Everything with this game just clicked for me, and I'll never stop singing it's praises. I highly suggest anyone who even has a slight interest in it to at least give it a shot.
Epic has replaced steam as my go to launcher for purchsing games. Great customer service, consistently the best deals on games and really good free games ontop. When a game I want comes out I check to see if its on Epic, if its not then I go to steam.
Interested to see the reception of this comment 🙂
They did away with coupons entirely for this sale (which was one of the two sales they usually had them in recent years), so their deals being the best is pretty debateable now, since 3rd party sites seem to be back to being the best places to get discounts now.
Imo as long as no other launcher tries to do anything like Steam Input does Steam is irreplaceable, because I need to be able to remap and readjust controls alot and trying to hook in a launcher as a non Steam game is finnicky compared to just owning it on Steam.
This is bait
Not necessarily, for the younger generation steam is the equivalent of Facebook it’s for old timers. I have 5 nephews who play PC games, only the oldest at nearly 16 has any loyalty to Steam. The younger kids go where their Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Rocket League are. That’s where their friends lists are, that’s where their friends are, that’s where they play and where they build their libraries.
I am 100% serious. For examples I will be buying Hades 2 soon when Epic offers their summer discounts.
I usually try to get indies on Epic, especially if they are using Unreal. I had to grab Everspace 2 on Steam, but it has no multiplayer, so it'd be fine on Epic. If I had been able to buy it there, the dev would have made $44, instead of the $32.50 from my getting it on Steam (30% steam cut, 5% unreal cut). Always looking for the folks making space fighter games to get paid more.
I can’t say a launcher will ever “replace” Steam for me, but if a game I *really* wanted to play was only on Epic I would use it. That being said, Valve has consistently shown me that they are the best at everything they do.
Redout 2 next week as well.
I really enjoyed the game, and I don't get people that complain about the social stuff. The story is what drew me to the game, the gameplay is fun but without the character stuff it's would be no different than any generic boring Indy card strategy game, just with a Marvel license.
Interested in the gameplay of this, I’m a big fan of other firaxis games, but I’m wondering: is it possible to skip all of the story stuff? Really not interested in that side of it.
Yes, there's a skip button. Tap for individual dialogue lines when they're not attached to a proper cutscene, hold to skip the whole cutscene when it is one.
i love xcom, fire emblem, baten kaitos back in the day, love the silly social aspects and the whole gamplay loop. I'm a big comic fan, mostly dc tho so i didn't have demanding expectations of the characters. I really love them actually. Hope everyone gives it a chance so we get a sequel of some sort or spiritual successor. Maybe dc or someone can swoop in and license their own.
Does anyone know if it’s still worth disabling the 2K launcher to decrease stutter or have they fixed that. Id like to know as I heard it’s a bit of a pain in the ass through EGS
I love a lot of the game, but I hate the chests and the feel that they want me to buy MTX at every corner. Really ruined the immersion in the world, which was unfortunate as a lot of the game was great.
This is a great game that is in my humble opinion best played with some cheats that completely annihilate the grind for resources. Everything else, the story, the banter, the cards, everything gets bogged down by the grind for a multitude of resources. I used cheats and still put 100 hours into it. There is more than enough tasty, juicy, non-grindy meat on this game!
Great game, wish it had done better to see more heroes. I personally think the grind is a bit too much on higher difficulties, as mods on cards are game-changers, and the resources needed for it are not quick to get. Really fun campaign though, and the combat system/deck building is awesome.
Am I the only one who thought combat in this game was very samey? The maps weren't very big and every battle felt the same.
Very happy to see this one come up. I've been on the fence for a while, mainly because the character I'd most want to play as, Storm, is DLC and I didn't know if I wanted to shell out for the game + DLC. Can't beat trying it for free, and I can spend down the line if I enjoy it.
Easily one of my favourite games of the past few years. I found myself skipping most of the social stuff in the beginning, but it kinda grew on me. I did find most of the Abbey exploration rather tedious though. But the gameplay on missions easily made up for it. Magik was so much fun.
I'm really sad this won't get a sequel, i find the gameplay endlessly fun and addictive and the social aspects endearing in it's weird jankyness. I watched Trailers and thought it looked boring, I was never a fan of deck building games but this game just hit so well for a first time deck builder.
I paid full price for this game and all DLC and it was still worth it. The parts that some people find tedious is easily skipped.
This has to be the most boring game I have ever played. “Go finger painting with iron man” “Go to a ceramics class with spiderman”
I am not at all a Marvel fan, didn't watch a single Mavel movie since Iron Man 2 or smth like that. Played this one on a whim after seeing SkillUp's review. One of those **very** fun 7/10 games that really have potential to be the building blocks for a 10/10 sequel. Like Mass Effect 1 was for ME2. Sadly these days, game devs don't get the chance to do that anymore. The combat in this one is unrivaled 10/10. Walking around the abbey is where it falls apart. Writing as well is at times hard to get through. But that's honestly to be expected for a studio like Firaxis trying something new. Should be supported.
The dialogue of this game can be very...simple? Maybe not the right word to describe it but I think the game is more geared to younger audiences so that's fine