The first time I saw Marvel’s Midnight Suns, it caught my attention because I’m a fan of superhero games and especially the XCom franchise, a title from the same developer as Midnight Suns.

However, when it was released, the game faced some performance problems and showed some very bad choices for consumers and fans, dividing opinions. Let’s take a look at how the game is doing today in 2024, just over a year after its official release, and how it can add to the streamer and his broadcasts.

Marvel’s mystical side is strong here

Something that this game could have advertised better, and I only found out after playing it, is how much it explores Marvel’s mystical characters, with its main focus on Dr. Strange, Wanda, Agatha Harkness, Nico Minoru and others, little known and not so popular beyond comic book fans.

And the best thing, for such fans, is that the versions of the characters here are as faithful as possible to their comic book versions and not to their animated or MCU versions, as has been the custom lately. This was something that struck me in a positive way, with references and commentary on adventures told exclusively in comics.

In the game’s story, we are introduced right away to Hydra releasing our new antagonist from her seal, Lilith, and with her, taking over Dr. Strange’s sanctuary and strengthening Hydra with her demons, corrupting Marvel villains and heroes to her side, creating very strong bosses that are very difficult to face.

In our adventure we have Hunter, our created character who we can customize his appearance and gender right from the start. I didn’t get to check out the male variation, as I created the female character, which, as well as being my preference, seemed more appropriate, not least because the promotional material was all about her. Here, too, you are born and raised in an all-witch Coven.

It’s worth pointing out that the gender you choose won’t influence the game at all, although I’ve seen reports that the male model uses a lot of the female character’s animations, which has caused some complaints among players.

So, to make things easier to understand, in my analysis I’ll refer to Hunter as female. As the daughter of Lilith and dead after her last battle against her mother, 300 years before the current events, Hunter is resurrected by our heroes, without most of her memories and in a modern world, completely different from the one she knew.

Three gameplay styles won’t appeal to everyone, but they make the game very unique

So here we have a great mix of gameplay that can attract or not the players. Starting with the interactions, in the style of games like Persona, where you create bonds with the heroes, talk to them, give them gifts, do activities, train them, have side quests… All of this allows them to connect more with our character and unlock skills and outfits, as well as their own personal stories and problems, like Captain America, for example, who really understands how it feels to wake up in a modern world after years of being presumed dead.

I really enjoyed talking to my favorite heroes and getting to know more about them and seeing their interactions with Hunter, making me strive to give the best answers and gifts. We also have response options with Light and Shadow icons, which make Hunter think towards a specific side of that spectrum, Unlocking Light or Darkness Skills.

In the second part of the gameplay, you explore a very large map, which I didn’t expect to be so full of secrets, where you explore the ruins of the Abbey, discover its secrets, collect items, diaries, materials, tarot cards, chests with skins, colors and customization materials, among other things.

Following a secondary story of how the Salem witch hunts came to be and more about the past of Lilith, her sister Sara and Agatha Harkness, for me it was a great break from combat to go out and explore the areas, pick up skills and discover more of the story. This part in particular could be very interesting to bring up in a livestream, as the map is very detailed and beautiful, with challenges and puzzles to explore.

In the last part of the gameplay, the one that drew the most attention from hero fans and was present in most of the promotional material, as well as being the most divisible, is the combat.

In Marvel’s Midnight Suns we have tactical combat, but the difference is that each character has a deck of 8 cards representing their abilities. These cards are shuffled and each turn the player draws new cards and can use them as powerful abilities, which are very well done, with incredible animations and camera angles, giving weight and charm to each character in a unique way.

The combat was the part that caught my attention the most during my livestream on Twitch. Even though it’s tactical, the animations make the combat more visually pleasing and exciting, including all the interaction with the scenery and being able to use objects to damage enemies.

However, the idea of a tactical game, even more so with cards, divided the community quite a bit, as they were expecting something more along the lines of XCom or Final Fantasy Tactics. However, the game surprised me a lot with its gameplay, but of course there were times when the RNG of the cards got in the way a little, but it was quite manageable, especially with the upgrades you can buy as you progress through the game.

And Marvel’s Midnight Suns for the streamer, is it worth the investment?

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a fantastic game if you like the genres it presents, but it’s a game that won’t appeal to everyone, especially after a troubled launch, full of microtransactions, which weren’t explained properly, and which allow you to buy the skins available in the Season Pass in-game if you prefer to buy them individually.

DLCs that, however good they are, work best if added to the main campaign and not to be played after finishing the game, was much of what happened, after all the DLCs work very well if integrated into the base game from the start, with the DLC characters interacting with all the others available, with a total of 17 playable characters.

The streamer also needs to be aware that the game is quite heavy. It uses the Firaxis launcher, so you’ll need a powerful machine to livestream if you’re playing the PC version, which was my case. I had a few bugs and crashes, but nothing too serious, after all, the game lets you save at any time, even during fights.

Its base price wasn’t converted into a regional price, so for people that don’t buy in American Dollar, I recommend waiting for a sale to buy the game. As much as I enjoyed the experience, the cost benefit for the non-american streamers is not worth the full price.

On the positive side, the game comes with 14 languages available in its subtitles. In its dubbing, there are more languages besides English.

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