Marvels Midnight Suns: Firaxis card-based system’s first gameplay

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Marvels Midnight Suns is the next turn-based game from the team behind XCOM. Lead designer Jake Solomon was in attendance today during an IGN-hosted Twitch livestream to detail the game’s card-based combat system.

The fight was the biggest reveal of the stream, which included a six-minute sequence of heavily modified gameplay. It featured a hand of cards placed along the bottom of the UI, right over where XCOM’s skill shortcuts lived in the past. The video went on to detail how these skills are acquired, improved and combined with other hero moves.

The player will take on the role of an age-old hero known only as The Hunter. The goal is to kill Lilith, queen of the demons, before she can awaken a dark lord similar to Cthulhu. Like The Hunter, Lilith has also been asleep for some time, only recently awakened by Hydra through a combination of dark magic and science. The in-game enemies appear to be a combination of weird magical creatures and high-tech Hydra.

A cathedral-like building known as The Abbey will be the players’ base of operations and provide plenty of opportunities to interact with the other heroes in the game. Each of those heroes, including members of the Avengers, X-Men, and Runaways, have their own special skill set. These skills can be upgraded over time and, if used correctly, can create unique combo moves.

Compared to the XCOM series, the maps in this game look much smaller and flatter. The screen is clear during action sequences, with the user interface disappearing completely to highlight the action. The video showed multiple environmental effects, including the ability to throw enemies into each other, into the environment, and off the edge of skyscrapers. There were also many explosive barrels. The game’s environments range from the Avengers Tower, to Dr. Stranges Sanctum Santorum, to desolate deserts and a bizarre hell dimension.

The game will include cosmetic costume updates, but the gameplay trailer didn’t mention whether those cosmetics would be available at real cost. Later, the development team added more details on Twitter.

Hey folks, as far as our battle card system is concerned, there are no loot in Marvel’s @MidnightSuns or related microtransactions to get more cards (e.g. Gamma Reels). We will have purely cosmetic character skins for purchase that do not affect game balance in any way https://t.co/lHhdwbMpSZ

Marvel’s Midnight Suns (@midnightsuns) September 1, 2021

There are no loot, the team said. We will have purely aesthetic character skins for purchase that do not affect game balance in any way.

You can watch the full video on Twitch and YouTube.

Publisher 2K Games plans to bring Marvels Midnight Suns to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X in March 2022.

Update: Firaxis has clarified its policy regarding loot and cosmetic skins on Twitter. We have updated our original story to include these details.

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