The Midnight Suns’ mission is another story. They’re a supergroup, culled from the A lists and, more intriguingly, the lower orders. Hence Ghost Rider, aka Robbie Reyes, a biker who morphs into a skull-faced spectre whenever the mood strikes. Then there’s Magik, formerly of the X-Men, who flies her comrades through a mocha-brown vortex like a slow-motion Nespresso commercial. Blade, a human-vampire crossbreed wears blood-colored shades and carries a pair of pistols. In the meantime, Nico Minoru is a sorceress who wields the Staff of One and used to be with the Runaways.
There’s an air of dejection about the team, with many of its members leaving other teams. Characters drop in and out, suggesting a leaky alliance rather than a dedicated team. In any case, Lilith, with her jutting cheekbones and billy-goat horns, is the reason for their mustering. Lilith steps from a Flubber-green vortex, flanked by a pair of demonic mutts, and Iron Man puts her right where it belongs: “Gozer?” There was a tacky texture to Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and bringing up Ghostbusters seemed right.
It pits three Suns at a time against Hydra, an organization bent on polluting the planet. The flow of each fight depends on the cards in your hand. Attack cards deal damage and accrue heroism points, which can be used to unleash uber-moves. Skill cards offer tactical buffs, status effects, and healing. Besides that, you have environmental factors like concrete wedges, junction boxes, explosive barrels, and so on.
I didn’t see this basic premise hooking me in, but I should have known better; I was a helpless convert, while many fans felt burned by it. It subjected the exploits of Solid Snake to the same process. It appealed to me how they captured bold gestures through the use of light order – rigid and bendy. Having worked on turn-based games like Civilization and XCOM, in which the globe is pelted by extraterrestrial threat, Firaxis knows the pleasure of pondering your next move as the world approaches cataclysm: in the midst of a storm, you’ve got time to ponder your next move.
The Suns convene at the Abbey, a rustic redoubt in Massachusetts, of which Nico says, “For a Haunted Transian castle raised on the cursed grounds of Old Salem, it’s pretty cozy.” That’s true, and I couldn’t help but think of Hogwarts with its dark wood, dormitories, libraries, and levitating candles. If you don’t need to go on an excursion, you can explore, hang out with your fellow freaks, and just look around. I won’t say much about these forges, but I recommend them highly. He’s in a lab, tinkering with his Staff of One, doing what he does best. The guy cooks up all kinds of tech for you, brags about his genius, and undermines the plot: “Isotope decay, magnetic fields, and gamma oscillation make a lot more sense to me than eye of newt, bat wings, and sunshine.” He’s not wrong.
As much as I liked Marvel’s Midnight Suns, its developers at Firaxis know that a story cannot handle such a crowded roster. It’s the crowding that makes the game fun. As Spider-Man, webbing up a distorted version of Venom, I knew the narrative would not unravel – that we’d soon be off, and the next hero would be revealed. Wolverine gets his own game soon – the full Insomniac treatment. When he’s pissed off, his iconic cutlery glows molten red. He can smell his opponents’ fear on the air.
We play as the Hunter, which is a shame since he’s so forgettable. Since it’s up to us to customize them, how could they not be? With a goatee and a Caesar crop, mine looked like Earth’s funkiest heroes were going to war alongside a rejected Ken doll. His destiny is inevitably bound up with Lilith – even if Doctor Strange can’t quite make it out. He’s troubled by what he perceives as a blockage in his clairvoyance. Obviously, the future is full of bad news. It’s human sacrifice. Cats and dogs living together. It’s a mass hysteria. It’s a surprising and addicting game, but Firaxis gives you more reasons to play it. It gives us pause to consider what we love about these heroes, and what we don’t mind dumping. It’s okay if the world ends.
