What Happened To Marvel's Midnight Suns ?

Marvel's Midnight Suns ; When Firaxis and Jake Solomon rolled the dice with "Midnight Suns," they took a bold step into marvels superhero realm, but did it work? This wasn't just XCOM in capes; it was a mashup of slay the spire, Marvel lore, and persona elements. Yet, upon release, it seemed the reviews were strong only for the game to fall off the edge of everyones radar, dealing with its own identity and expectations.
I know I have not uploaded in a while but I have been cooking some long form content for 2024 :p Also cmon baldurs gate 3 / starfield / rogue trader and others its crazy

[@Arsylvos]

I enjoyed the game and played through the entire DLC, had fun and enjoyed the story

[@IbstarYT]

Glad to hear it I think it’s a good game just with some changes it could have been great one. It’s defiantly not a bad game tho, shame we lost Jake Solomon for xcom 3 because of the sales for this game though :(

[@sjsharp2007]

So have I I'v eplayed it multipl etimes even got a NG+run on the go atm. I twas one of my favouriet games from last year.

[@shorts26]

I definitely had way more fun than I expected I'm going to get all the dlc

[@roykong7024]

Thanks for your nuanced opinions, it's a bloody shame this game doesn't seem like it's getting a Season 2. I loved the blueprint and the idea. Just wished there was more to expect in the future.

[@IbstarYT]

Yeah I think if the game had maybe 1-2 years more time to cook they would have made a truly exceptional experience. Even as it is if you get over the slow cycles it’s really fun but just was not enough Still I am hopeful xcom 3 will be great !

[@skiddyskiddz2]

I hate how everyone let this game flop. It seems to be picking up legs now like 2K predicted but it’s annoying af we’ll never get a sequel or season 2

[@isidrohuicochea2432]

Story was crap you don’t show me johnny blaze and say no you can’t use him. To many plot holes

[@mshake7056]

2k launcher and Denuvo made this game flop. Those kept me and so many others away for so long. The only reason I recently got it was I needed something to play on my steam deck

[@IbstarYT]

Game needed more time to cook, even with the free weekend its a hard sell for casuals and too slow for xcom fans. I enjoyed it dont get me wrong, but the faults are clear.

[@dtmaddenogz]

I loved this game. I found this video trying to find out if they had any plans for new dlc lol. Good vid btw

[@IbstarYT]

Thank you ! If you have any constructive critisms/suggestions for how I make future ones that would be great.

[@MattHorton]

You liked the shop more than the Emo Kids? We are different people.

[@downBAD4SisterLily]

I was a book club guy not gonna lie😂

[@IbstarYT]

Theres just something about building cool stuff in a garage that appeals to my soul.

[@controlflix]

I had a blast with it: the addicting gameplay loop even derailed me from my Witcher 3 homerun dash. But in the grander scheme of things, it felt like a half-baked Persona offshoot. You'll run out of things to do in the Abbey pretty quickly, the missions are overly repetitive, and you'll learn soon enough that your social-linking leads to a blue-balled cul-de-sac (which may be a huge deboner for folks who'd expect romance options as much as Blade the sappy vampire slayer did).

[@IbstarYT]

Yup agree with all your points, though im shocked you left Witcher 3 for this ? ! The final act of that ( everything post the castle defenence ) had me nailed down, sure skellige was a little slow but man I had to see how it ended up.

[@controlflix]

​@@IbstarYT I didn't really fully leave. I'm almost done with everything save for the HoS part and I got the game free from Epic, so I figured why not try it out. 😅 It's got quite an addicting loop but sans the combat, everything felt half-done. They should have given it a Wasteland 3 exploration treatment (or at least a modicum of it). The social link should have romance options and allowed you to do other activities to keep the interactions fresh.

[@pukypr8964]

Game for me was 8 / 10 I like the game

[@IbstarYT]

Yeah I feel about the same tbh, wish it got more time to cook though could have been an easy 9 or 10 with more focused changes

[@SP1DEY5000]

I always say this is the best game no one has ever played. I put over 200 hours into this game. Beat it twice. And still play it. This is such a timeless classic.

[@IbstarYT]

Have you played xcom 2 ?

[@joshuaknox2724]

dude i love this game i've been playing it for the past week i love playing around with the comic book thing too and photo mode, but for real this game is a underrated gem.

[@chrisfreeman6819]

I fucking loved this game i genuinely dont understand the hate. Its the most addictive game ive played in a while. It's a shame no one played it

[@mshake7056]

Denuvo and the 2k launcher were the main cause of its demise. People hate denuvo so much that they spread false reviews to get people from buying.

[@IbstarYT]

Bad launch, performance issues, xcom fans wanting xcom 3 etc But when the loop hits its defo one of the most satisfying games.

[@odaynewilliams1810]

I concur I don't typically play strategy based games but this game addictive

[@_holy__ghost]

welcome back!

[@IbstarYT]

:) Honestly its kinda crazy someone is actually following this channel given how tiny it is and how inconsistently I upload, means a lot thank you really made my night !

[@_holy__ghost]

@@IbstarYT glad to hear it! and dont worry about the views, just focus on making your insight as valuable to watch as possible and people will inevitably tune in. plus, your channel is a nice balance against all the +3 hour long video essays i watch. its nice to see someone whos able to actually make a point in 15 minutes or less.

[@IbstarYT]

I hope to one day make longer content where I can do in depth stuff for games like rimworld/wrath/BG3 but I have ways to go to get to that level.

[@mmorpgal4229]

It was ome of my top games of 2022 and I liked it WAY more than Fire Emblem Engage.

[@IbstarYT]

Glad to hear, I tend to compare it more to xcom 2 and maybe with more time it could get to that level but as it is … just needed a little more

[@khalidbaig3864]

Game was amazing. Sad that we'll never get a sequel.

[@IbstarYT]

It defo had potential, but enough to justify a sequel over say xcom 3 I dont think so.

[@nevixx4843]

Btw whar was the cliffhanger at the end of the story? Teasing a sequel?

[@IbstarYT]

Lilith and hunter trapped in the book which dr doom has. The others are trying to free them / think they are dead.

[@Johnny_the_5]

For me, it was the lack of no real New Game+ and continuing the story with the dlc character nor bringing in more stories like facing Magneto or Onslaught or maybe having to deal with Franklin Richards.

[@IbstarYT]

I imagine if the game did well they would have brought in more characters, there were still some closed off rooms in the abbey after all.

[@Cyrath89]

I played for a good amount if hours now (got it one big discount with DLC). I do agree with the bonding system that it is fun, going to battles is slow, exploring the garden is fun but just the one time needed then it becomes a drag. But the biggest thing i miss are the amount of skins... colour swaps are fun and all, but different skins, or 'combat suits' would make it even cooler. The 'fallen' skins are just lazy.

[@IbstarYT]

The heavy restrictions on mods didnt help, just imagine all the cool stuff that could have been added if the game let there be a true workshop like xcom.

[@mshake7056]

I just recently finally got the game and really enjoyed it. What really killed this game was Denuvo and the awful 2k launcher. That's what kept me and sooo many others I know who were interested in this game from trying it out.

[@IbstarYT]

It was even worse on release, sucked all the excitement out being blocked by network and connection errors for a single player game

[@IPickUpSticks]

The the legendary edition is on sale right now for $20

[@IbstarYT]

Epic just made it free too !

[@zahedu_4488]

i would buy a sequel .. or two

[@Wingspand1]

He was making good points, but what is wrong with a day night cycle for the game. I dont get why he is complaining about it, the night is when your supposed to hangout with the other heros, if you want ro skip that and go do another battle, just use the bed. I do agree once you maie it to the end of the game, when you get no more story events happening at night and are just waiting for hamgouts to appear, it sucks.

[@IbstarYT]

Sometimes I wanted to do multiple battles back to back without the 'in between' the game never lets that happen. Why cant I sent 3 characters on a side mission and another 3 on the main and do them back to back ? Seems like a minor complaint but over time its really frustrating.

[@stefemp]

I loved the game

[@IbstarYT]

Did you come from an xcom background ?

[@TheOldMan-75]

The game is really good.

[@IbstarYT]

Yeah but I wish it had more/did more still, maybe then more people would have enjoyed it.

[@Max-zs6ur]

It will be always rememebered as the game that killed Xcom 3 for nothing.

[@IbstarYT]

Theres no way Xcom 3 isnt coming. The last rumours were that the design lead on war of the chosen is leading it since Jakes gone now. Civ 7 got annoucned so im betting on xcom being the next major one. I hope they took some ideas from some of the xcom clones that have come out since then !

[@abacusite]

Honestly? Combat was a lot of fun, and the card system worked well. But it felt like a mobile game shoehorned in to a full release on PC. Plus the drip-feed dlc heroes soured me on it too. Plus the main hero having predefined heroes once again. If we are gonna customise a hero let us customise th powerset. Marvel games are always so afraid to do that. That nuked reolayability.

[@IbstarYT]

Yeah you nailed it tbh, I know they included the hunters light/dark mechanic but it was such an afterthought and barely impacted the combat

[@1stmorgoth289]

i had a huge problem with the performance, but it looked generaly good. I had infact fun with the game for a couple of hours. Yet i had a huge problem with the battles itself. On the Pro side: i liked the charackters and there unique mechaniks, i even could live with the rng part of deckbuilding, On the negative side: the deckbuilding itself was very weak. And the tactical aspect of the fights was basicly nonexistend. Coming from xcom, and learning that positioning the various charackters is a key componant of the battle and seeing how unimportant positioning the charackters is made it less a strategie game and basicly just a weak, but pretty, deckbuilder. In conclusion, it might be a combinagion of various game mechanics but it doesn´t fuse them well and in evry single mechanic its weaker then the game its "copying". Sadly.

[@IbstarYT]

Damn your comment basically covers exactly how I felt about it too. I think the lack of stakes is something else that didn’t work, in xcom that fear of losing someone adds some tension to combat but here the only tension is if you need to repeat a section again so the stakes had to come from the story which didn’t happen either !

[@sjsharp2007]

I don' tthin ki twas rtyin gt ocop y anything from Xcomthey were trying I thin kt omake a strateg gam ethat used superheroes rather tha nsoldiers it's wh ythe yditched the percentage system stuff an dthings lik ethat as generally superheroes don' t duck and dive for cover they confront the bad guys

[@1stmorgoth289]

@@sjsharp2007 if i ever see you writing i comment in this"style" again i will not bother reading it, regardless of the information it contains. to your point tho, but thats part of the issue. If you are right and they didn´t want to make a strategie game (to any decree) than you have basicly just deckbuilder and "persona simulator" left, and while i cannot speak for the second the deckbuilding part was bad. And you can see in the game that they tried to have it "tacticaly" with the movement and the enviroment, but that stuff hardly mattered at all. Ditching the Percentega stuff isn´t even a negative, strictly speaking, you can do that, if you do it right. And for superheros not duck and dive: Here it kinda gets into a whole other debate, but Humans die/get injured when something like a bullet hits them, so like in xcom they take cover, if you or a superhero doesn´t take cover i have to asume they don´t get injured from this bullets. In this game they do tho and many superheros do so to in comics and movies. Not giving me, or them, the option to defend them ultamatly means that inunivers they either are imortal, or don´t care whatsoever about their health.

[@wampyrelli]

@@sjsharp2007 Well said, horribly written :D

[@Venzynt]

I unfortunately got bored of this game within 2 or 3 days. I was already skeptical of something as bombastic as superheroes being depicted by turn-based card gameplay. However I am an enjoyer of Magic the gathering, superheroes, the custom Hunter, and even the lifestyle/friendship stuff. So I bought the game. Ultimately the battles started to feel more like puzzles with only one or two designated ways to succeed, constant repeats of the same enemies and environments, and boss mechanics that were just annoying. Maybe if the game was about fighting villains in an interesting way, or even pvp against other players teams and builds. Also I wish Hunter could have other options beyond just light and dark, maybe like psychic or elemental. 6/10.

[@sHoNoMeRcY69]

Story was ok

[@IbstarYT]

Yeah, but for how restricted everything was it needed to be a bit more than ok.

[@sHoNoMeRcY69]

True

[@frozenangel7460]

Such a shame, if they just focused on the gameplay loop and implemented more interesting perks/powers and fully fleshed that out, instead of all the weird dating/friendship sim part. It would of been so good

[@IbstarYT]

Based off the interviews with Jake I read online it seems the friendship persona sim was the main thing and then they added the battle systems and loops around it … which is a little strange for an xcom studio

[@Ottenskjold]

I like it 😂

[@IbstarYT]

Yeah I mean it’s not a bad game by any means there’s a lot of good here but just held back by some weird decisions. Maybe another year or two of dev time might have helped here

[@trickygaming3211]

damn this man really hates The Hunter. I really disagree with all the negativity you gave to The hunter. We already know a lot about Marvel and their characters. Hunter is a brand new hero made for this game and you don't care about it? Like how much more do you need to know about Tony Stark?

[@IbstarYT]

For me I got the game for the marvel characters I grew up reading the comics of, to see them be side characters to the hunter was boring. I dont mind the hunter being there but they should have been the side character more than the main one. The midnight suns were the selling point of the game and even at the end I never felt like I got to connect with them as much as comics.

[@jocab4409]

I just finished it an hour ago. As a marvel fan I liked it 8/10. If you’re not a marvel fan and you don’t know a crap ton about every character becuase you have no life… maybe not for you. Combat was still really fun and addicting though. I wish they would do season two. And the setup for the sequel would make that so good.

[@IbstarYT]

One thing I give firaxis credit for is the combat systems are always top notch ( even with the 99% chance to hit misses :p ) Prob xcom 3 next though.

[@TL8ez]

Well maybe they shouldn't have made it into a fucking card game, screwing with some basic marvel story, grindfest and shitty denuvo.

[@Raximus3000]

...That sounds like a gahcha game. What are the odds it was changed to console?

[@TL8ez]

It's not a gacha, card game is during the fights. It is grindy when you have to wait for days for some research, and the video already brought up the time passing problem because of how it works.@@Raximus3000

[@IbstarYT]

Tbh the card system reminds me a lot of the back4blood issue where it caused a lot of controversy even before the game came out. Then in reality it’s actually not that big of a problem at all, tbh they could have just made it like a perk ability system with hero’s having energy/stamina to use certain cards. I think by now it should be clear to big studios that card systems just don’t have a place in big games even if implemented well they push people away. Like that Witcher spinoff game I forgot what it’s called but it was awesome but nobody played it because it was a card style game .. thrones one not the gwent game that’s online only

[@mshake7056]

All you had to say was Denuvo and we all would have understood to stay away from this

[@RyansFine]

Greatest IP? Bro, thats Pokemon. If we're talking sales. MCU barely cracks top 10 at 9. Even Barbie makes more money than Marvel.

[@IbstarYT]

Damn I looked it up and your right it’s only topped engagement metrics during the endgame years but otherwise Pokémon’s number 1. Wtf man they earn that much money and Pokémon games are this trash ?

[@isidrohuicochea2432]

The dlc had better writing i was promised a dark tale instead i got how to make a friend the story was crap the combat was the only fun thing about this game .

[@IbstarYT]

I just wished the social links went further, it was like they just got good and them bam there are done.

[@janihelin8170]

The game was just tedious all around. Abbey felt empty and pointless combined with the slow running around collecting worthless junk. Horrible relationship minigame of match likes with character. Slow AF deck building with whole bunch of bad or clearly inferior cards you would quickly realize. Once you min maxed few characters to reasonable degree practically all battles ended in 1-2 turns on hardest difficulty. Slow re-rolling of cards to min-max with whole bunch of worthless modifiers. Slow grind for resources. slow cycle to get into battles with ton of empty running back and forth. Too small, simplistic and easy fights. Leveling system that encouraged ignoring majority of roster and focusing on select few. Writing ranging from bad to mediocre to absolute cringe definitely didn't help things either. It's a shame really. This could've been great game, but it just fell flat practically everywhere😢

[@IbstarYT]

Yeah it felt like it was trying to do too much, though a part of me wonders if there was some kind of liver service model they scrapped with the loot/store thing becuase it never made sense with how it worked. I did think the actual battles were pretty good though, I never made it close to max difficulty but found them pretty fun for the most part except the damn invis sniper. I’m guessing you’re a xcom vet right ? Prob long war one too ?

[@Senumunu]

i didnt try it bcs of the repulsive character designs

[@IbstarYT]

I dont think they were that bad, but I wish they let mods change them more. Shame denuvo means thats not possible.

[@PicklesRTasty]

It was extremely boring. It tried so many things and ended up doing none of them well.

[@IbstarYT]

I do think the combat was acc pretty good all things considered like there’s good variety and good difficulty options too and the animations all look good. But yeah as a complete package I get what they were going for it just needed another year or two of changes before launching

[@mariotraxler1486]

This is what you get, when you ignore your (XCOM-) fans. Simple as that. I love XCOM. Marvel/Superheroes bore me to Death. So i skipped this Game.

[@IbstarYT]

XCOM 3 is being led by the guy who led the war of the chosen dlc so I think its in good hands. But I get what you mean, I REALLY cant wait for Xcom 3. I am more excited for that then GTA 6.

[@mariotraxler1486]

@@IbstarYT me too.....i also found phoenix point, aliens dark descent, jagged alliance 3, gears tactics and miasma chronicles really good!!!! They help alot to fill the gap.

[@IbstarYT]

Pheonix point was made by the original xcom devs, I was actually going to do a video on it but I just didnt enjoy the game enough, felt like it was missing something. Theres another one I thkn .. decieve inc or something thats really good, I think jacob geller mentioned it once.