There are a lot of aspects ofMarvel’s Midnight Sunsthat make it unique. For one thing, it’s using social sim elements in the style ofPersonaandFire Emblem,encouraging players to befriend their teammates as a means of empowering them. It’s also retelling theMidnight Sonscomic book storyline, which allows it to star someMarvelsuperheroes who haven’t gotten the spotlight in the MCU or recent Marvel games. On top of that, it’s a new entry in the tactics genre, which hasn’t had a particularly dominant presence in the game industry for a little while now. To be specific,Marvel’s Midnight Sunshas a card game system where players draw random battle cards to determine each character’s options on every turn.
All of these aspects add up to a pretty remarkable game concept. However,the battle cards inMarvel’s Midnight Sunsinspired some anxiety in fans when they first got revealed. While the deckbuilding system introduces a fun new level of strategy that also helps differentiateMidnight Sunsfrom developer Firaxis' famousXCOMfranchise, fans were immediately worried that cards could be bought through microtransactions. Thankfully, Firaxis has confirmed that battle cards won’t be obtainable through microtransactions.Midnight Sunssurely has a lot more potential fans on its side knowing that players can only improve their decks through the merit of their play and not the size of their wallet.
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Midnight Suns Discards Lootboxes
Microtransactions are more common in video games than ever. For free-to-play games likeLeague of LegendsandFortnite,purchasable cosmetics are a natural, necessary source of income for the developers, but microtransactions aren’t just limited to free games, or to cosmetics. For instance,FIFA 21players are highly critical ofFIFA Ultimate Team’s monetization system. Players can buy packs to get player cards to build their teams with, which means wealthy players can buy in-game power, putting them at a massive advantage.
Thankfully,Marvel’s Midnight Sunsdoesn’t have a similar system in place. Even ifMidnight Sunsis a single-player game, lootboxes or card packs would be a bad look for the game.TheMidnight Sunsfanbasewould inevitably be divided into two warring categories—fans who can buy all of the best cards and cruise throughMidnight Suns' hardest levels, and fans who have to earn all of their upgrades in game. The last thing thatMidnight Sunsneeds is frustration and infighting within its own fanbase. After all, fans who can’t buy endless card packs would’ve inevitably turned their frustration to Firaxis as the one responsible for implementing the system.
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Midnight Suns' Combat is Self-Contained
Midnight Sunsstill raises questions about the future of microtransactions in the game industry. While the officialMidnight SunsTwitter account assured fans that there won’t be microtransactions, it sounds like some but not all cosmetics will be behind paywalls. Considering the fact thatMidnight Sunsprobably won’t be free to play, story-driven design, not every Marvel fan is happy that they can’t earn every cosmetic in-game. Although the video game community is more opposed to microtransactions in paid games than ever, they don’t seem to be going away completely anyway soon.
Firaxis made the right decision by only making cosmetics available for purchase, though.Midnight Suns' battle cards are a great idea for a tactical combat game, encouraging players to make the most with what they’ve got and keeping every battle fresh. The last thing thatMidnight Sunsneeds is for its deck-building to be weighed down with purchasable cards, both for game balance reasons and for the sake of the fanbase’s support. So far, Firaxis has been very enthusiastic aboutsharing newMidnight Sunsinformation, giving fans a better picture of the game every day. Hopefully, it goes into more detail about its potential future relationship with DLC and microtransactions soon.
Marvel’s Midnight Sunsreleases March 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
