Marvel’s Midnight Suns Pits Spider-Man Against Venom, Out This October

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is back with Spider-Man joining the fight, and launches on October 7. After a rocky reception back when it was first revealed, the superhero strategy game from the makers of XCOM is sporting some new faces, including everyone’s favourite parasite, Venom.

Originally set to come out in March, Firaxis Games creative developer Jake Solomon announced last November it would instead be delayed until the second half of 2022 in order to add more story, cinematics, and polish to the game. That was after lots of fan scepticism following a previous livestream of the game that showed some uneven visuals and that Midnight Suns wasn’t just XCOM transported into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Here’s the new trailer, showing of Spidey as he tries to help Blade and others take down a corrupted Venom:

The game focuses on the likes of Blade, Ghost Rider, and Marvel’s other supernaturally inclined superheroes as they help the Avengers take on Lilith, Mother of Demons, who is seeking to unleash the Elder God Chthon. Against this Lovecraftian backdrop, the characters fight isometric, turn-based battles against fallen villains like Sabertooth, go for walks back at their home base, and engage in conversational dialogue trees.

One of the curveballs that caught fans of Marvel and Firaxis Games by surprise was Midnight Suns’ use of a card system to decide what actions players can take in battle. While contrary to the standard war of attrition in an XCOM, it would hardly be the first strategy game to borrow from collectible card games and deck builders.

After the incredible success of things like Slay the Spire, lots of recent indie games have dabbled in hybrid approaches, mixing and matching traditional turn-based elements with cards. Floppy Knights, which came to Steam and Game Pass last month, is the latest example and it’s excellent.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is cross-gen on both PS5 and Xbox Series X, and coming to Switch, Steam, and Epic Games Store as well. However, it will be $US70 ($97) on the new-gen consoles.