With Marvel being the arguably the biggest brand in the world right now, it makes sense that they’re taking over everything they can in the world of entertainment, from movies to TV shows, and even video games. While not developing the games themselves, Marvel has been active in pursuing video game contracts for their many IP’s. Their success has varied with the recent Spider-Man games being a huge hit, while The Avengers game has been unable to capture that same level of excitement. They have a Guardians of the Galaxy game on the way, and that looks promising, but we won’t know for sure until it’s out.
Despite the spotty history, there’s still plenty of reason to be excited about the next Marvel game that has been announced, Marvel Midnight Suns. The game will be a tactical RPG, most likely similar to XCOM, and the trailer features some of the biggest names in comic books like Iron Man, Wolverine, and Captain America. In a lot of ways, it looks like the game that many people wanted Marvel’s Avengers to be, but we’ll have to wait until we see some gameplay to know for certain.
This is a game that has been rumored to be in development for quite some time, so it’s cool to finally see it actually become a reality. The developers behind it, Firaxis Games, have a strong history with Tactical RPGs. They’ve not only developed the XCOM series but also the incredibly addicting Civilization series. This pedigree shows they know how to make characters feel powerful and turn-based combat fun. No need to be concerned about superheroes not feeling, well, super.
One tidbit that will be interesting to see is that games like XCOM, and other character-based tactical RPGs such as Fire Emblem, have permadeath as a feature. When a character dies in combat they’re gone for good. Will this game have this as well? If so, how do they plan to get around that from a story perspective? The people who die in XCOM are replaceable from a story perspective, but in Fire Emblem when someone dies they’re gone from the story, which means that the player can miss out on content. Of course, it’s possible they’ll have a way to turn off the permadeath feature so no story is missed out on. We’ll just have to wait until more info comes out about the game, but for now, we can be excited about the possibilities.