Marvel’s Midnight Suns will feature a similar XCOM-like structure but when it comes to actual gameplay and presentation, the Marvel-themed tactical game promises to be fairly different.
Speaking with Edge for the latest issue, creative director Jake Solomon and narrative director Chad Rocco stated that the role-playing elements of Marvel’s Midnight Suns will result in a rather complicated storyline, leading to more complicated narrative missions which “can take a little longer” to complete.
For standard encounters however, developer Firaxis Games has intentionally focused on fast-paced gameplay where a single battle should last ten minutes or less on average. That is quite in contrast to the slow and methodical encounters of XCOM where a single battle can take a while to finish.
In another comparison; where XCOM would handicap players to survive in every alien encounter, Midnight Suns does the reverse by actually tasking players to beat up as many enemies as possible.
“It’s not about can I beat this guy?” said Solomon. “It’s about how many guys can I beat with this one ability? How can I take out three guys at once?”
Marvel’s Midnight Suns will feature The Abbey as its base of operations but might not offer the same XCOM-style base building. The Abbey can still be upgraded, details of which remain to be revealed, but the cathedral-like building will be more akin to the Normandy sequences of Mass Effect.
In a way, Marvel’s Midnight Suns will be about building relationships and understanding between missions, and not building bases as it was the case with the XCOM franchise. The Abbey will house all available characters and players can head over there to interact through typical dialogue-wheel conversations.
“You can work out with Captain Marvel, play games with Ghost Rider, meditate with Doctor Strange, and even hold a book club with Blade.”
Marvel’s Midnight Suns will release for all major platforms in March 2022.
