Marvel's Midnight Suns Hands-On Preview

The logical pitch for Marvel's Midnight Suns is XCOM but with superheroes. But in fact, the new Marvel title from developer Firaxis Games isn't another XCOM game--it's something very different.

The team behind Marvel's Midnight Suns are best known for XCOM, the stellar tactical strategy series about sending squads of elite soldiers against an invading alien force, and often, watching those soldiers die horrifically. The logical pitch for Midnight Suns, then, is XCOM but with superheroes. But in fact, the new Marvel title from developer Firaxis Games is much more RPG than strategy title. This isn't another XCOM game--it's something very different.

As Firaxis notes, Midnight Suns focuses on some of the more "spooky" elements of the Marvel universe, including its more arcane heroes. The initial premise is  pretty standard: The evil military group Hydra uses some occult weirdness to resurrect a supervillain named Lilith, the Mother of Demons, and starts aiding her in taking over the world. To combat that threat, characters like Doctor Strange and Iron Man band together with  more supernaturally-inclined folks from around the Marvel universe, such as Blade, Ghost Rider, and Magick. Included in that group is The Hunter, a fully customizable character you create, who is also Lilith's child and the chosen one who can stop her once and for all.

GameSpot recently got a chance to play about five hours of Midnight Suns at Firaxis's studios in Baltimore, which gave us a close look at the beginning of the game. And yes, this is a turn-based tactical strategy game--but what surprised me most was how much of the game is taken up by storytelling and character interaction. It probably has the most in common with the more character-driven XCOM: Chimera Squad, but even that game pales in comparison to the focus on story in Midnight Suns.

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