XCOM’s randomness doesn’t work in Marvel Midnight Suns, says Firaxis

But cards sure do.

Marvel Midnight Suns previews are dropping later today, though we’ve abstained to ensure our review coverage in December is as polished as can be. Ahead of this time, Stevivor sat down with Jacob Solomon, Creative Director on the title, to talk why Midnight Suns isn’t just XCOM re-skinned.

“We went into it trying — hoping — that we were going to make an XCOM,” Solomon said. “We were hoping we were going to make XCOM, put some superheroes in it and then, in short order, we’d have an amazing game.”

“We thought we had a tactical system that worked really well — and this speaks to how dumb I am as a designer sometimes — ’cause I was like, “we’ll just take this and put superheroes in’,” he continued.

“Within the first couple months, I was like, ‘well, obviously superheroes don’t take cover, and obviously superheroes don’t move on grid, and obviously superheroes don’t miss their shots.’ What was next was, ‘obviously I’ve just destroyed the design of XCOM and now we have to come up with an entirely new tactical design,’ and so that’s really where the card system started.”

According to Solomon, the randomness of XCOM makes up “a big part of the puzzle” that is a tactics-based game. Soldiers could miss their shot, and that idea of being on- or off-target also plays into the amount of damage dealt. Solomon realised that couldn’t be the case with Marvel’s roster of do-gooders.

“When you’re a superhero, you shouldn’t miss your shots,” he explained. “You shouldn’t do random damage. You shouldn’t do low damage.”

While in XCOM, soldiers are generally weaker than their alien would-be oppressors, it’s the other way around in Midnight Suns: the heroes are the superior ones, usually fighting the henchmen of a villainous outfit like Hydra.

“[Superheroes] will absolutely do exactly what they say they will do,” Solomon continued. “They will always succeed.

“That’s why cards were so valuable — it allowed us to come to introduce randomness, but at the same time make sure that the hero still felt appropriately powerful.”

Things could potentially become too random, but Firaxis has planned for that too. You’ll have a host of cards to choose from at any given time, though you’ll only be able to play three cards per turn. If you’ve got cards that require a high amount of Heroism, a type of currency that’s need to play certain cards, you can do things like redraw one card per encounter. Heroes can also use objects in the environment – like rocks, as shown in tutorial missions – as weapons when cards won’t do.

We’ll have much more on Midnight Suns in the coming weeks, including a discussion with Garth DeAngelis, Senior Franchise Producer, and our thoughts on how Midnight Suns is for Marvel what Injustice is for DC (how’s that for a cliffhanger?).

Marvel Midnight Suns heads to Windows PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PS5 on 2 December. We previewed the game last year if you’re itching for that type of content.

Marvel Midnight Suns 2 December 2022 PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC via Steam Buy on the Microsoft Store Buy on Amazon: PS5, Xbox