Marvel’s Midnight Suns: We need more Marvel games like this

When you think of console games based on Marvel properties, you generally think of games like Insomniac’s Spider-Man games or Square Enix’s Guardians of the Galaxy (or possibly Marvel’s Avengers but I know I’m in the minority on enjoying my time with that one). Character action games. They might vary in how they play but you’d never expect to see Marvel characters in much else really besides a fighting game possibly.

Which makes Marvel’s Midnight Suns so refreshing. It’s a card-based, turn-based strategy RPG starring Marvel characters both extremely famous and fairly obscure with relationship-building elements as well. That it works as well as it does (and it works pretty darn well overall even if some elements are a little basic) is really secondary to the fact that Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a game you’d never expect bearing the Marvel license.

And really, this should be more of a thing. Just because a game has superheroes doesn’t mean the only way to do the game is what we’ve seen for years if not decades, and often with middling results with a few exceptional titles here and there.

And while I certainly hope Marvel’s Midnight Suns is just the beginning of a successful franchise I can enjoy for years to come, it’s not just that I want more card-based Marvel RPGs (in fact I probably only want this one, don’t make this the next overexploited trend in gaming please). I want to see Marvel characters in genres or even sub-genres we aren’t used to. A more traditional RPG format for sure, but how about a superhero (or villain?) management sim, a throwback to the old-school side-scrolling brawlers of the arcade, and 16-bit heydays?

There’s probably some genre or combination of genres really that I’m not even thinking of because again who would’ve thought that anyone would make a card-based strategy RPG with Marvel superheroes let alone that it would work? It seems like we are going to be getting a rather large influx of Marvel (and Star Wars for that matter) games in the coming years, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as the ideas using those properties are fresh. I’m not horribly interested in playing an Iron Man game that might as well be a Spider-Man game (I mean I will play it because hey, content, but that’s not really the point here). Make it different, and think outside the box, that’s how you really avoid fatigue and avoid falling into where we were not all that long ago where the MCU was the hottest thing going and yet Marvel games were few and far between.

While I can’t provide a full review as I haven’t finished the game, as I’ve alluded to, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is really great and that’s coming from someone who hasn’t been a fan of card-based games or Firaxis for that matter. I’ll probably do more of a post-mortem thoughts after I do finish it than an actual review but you shouldn’t pass this up if you are into RPGs or strategy.

And that’s all for today, I will try and squeeze an entry about Disney Dreamlight Valley and its holiday/Toy Story update before Christmas but we’ll see how the next few days go for that. Regardless, see ya real soon!