Marvel’s Midnight Suns
Developer Firaxis Games
Publisher 2K Games
Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Release Out now
The ‘KO’ that pops up whenever an enemy is defeated in Midnight Suns might insist that this is all good, clean, bloodless Marvel fun. But that’s a little hard to swallow as Blade darts between foes at supernatural speed, chaining katana slashes with salvos from his twin submachine guns. Or, indeed, as his teammate Captain Marvel pulls a telegraph pole from its mooring and brings it down on a pack of Hydra soldiers, then boots a straggler into a freshly opened hellmouth. A final victim is left bloodied but still standing – until Blade pounces, draining their life force in order to feed his own. He certainly seems every bit as deadly as his cinematic counterpart.
Back home at the Abbey, though, Blade is a pussycat, playing bigger brother to his teenaged teammates, and responsible for combat training and the odd yoga session. Later, after a session by the pool to take advantage of his immunity to sunlight, we offer him a gift to mark our growing friendship, and discover the Daywalker can appreciate a good candle as much as anyone. This isn’t a date, we should hasten to add – not least because Blade is busy crushing on Captain Marvel, who presumably caught his eye with her ability to reshape street furniture around Hydra skulls. In a fumbled effort to get closer to her, the vampiric hero ends up organising a book club for the entire team. He’s not gone entirely soft, though: the first book up for discussion is Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War.
This disjunct between Midnight Suns’ two sides takes a while to get used to. Sometimes you’re playing a lean tactical battler that evolves Firaxis’s work on the XCOM games in delightful new directions. At others, you might be on a fishing trip or a walk through the forest picking mushrooms or negotiating the tensions that arise from a team of superheroes living together in a confined space. Namely, the Abbey, a spooky commune tucked into an interdimensional pocket behind Salem, Massachusetts, to which you return after each battle.