Octopus Overlords

Sudy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 10:35 am I do. I guess I've just come to accept the convention. Buttons and APs aren't "realistic" either. This doesn't have to be Marvel: The Simulation. We can have Marvel: Street Fighter Clone, or Marvel: Puzzle Quest, or whatever.

Sudy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 10:35 am I do. I guess I've just come to accept the convention. Buttons and APs aren't "realistic" either. This doesn't have to be Marvel: The Simulation. We can have Marvel: Street Fighter Clone, or Marvel: Puzzle Quest, or whatever.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 11:29 am Sure, but it's not what those of us dying for xcom 3 are looking for and it will be a disappointment.

Grifman wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 1:55 pm AP are indeed realistic in some sense. They symbolize the amount of time it takes to carry out an action. You could argue whether those time increments are accurate but there is an attempt to be "realistic" in some sense, at least at lot more than just drawing action cards at random.

Sudy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 2:22 pm Cards represent the fog of war. (Or something.) Everything's an abstraction on some level. But I get that you want something "more" realistic.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 3:04 pm That was disappointingly short. Aside from confirming the card-based tactical gameplay, there wasn't anything really substantial revealed. This all could have been included in their GamesCom time slot. I was hoping that they delayed this event by a week so that they could take a more in-depth look at the gameplay, but that obviously wasn't the case.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:37 pm Just needs Gambit and I can pre-order with ease.

Watch the Hunter and Wolverine take on Sabretooth during the first Marvel's Midnight Suns gameplay stream, September 7 at 11:30am PT!

To say that Wolverine and Sabretooth are sworn enemies doesn't even begin to describe the depth of their hatred for one another. The regenerating mutant pair have been fighting and occasionally killing each other in comic books since the mid '80s when, after sharing the cover of Power Pack #27, they clashed in Uncanny X-Men #212. They've scrapped in sewers and secret labs, gone head-to-head in Hell, and even tore into each other as zombies. At 11:30am PT / 7:30pm BST on September 7 (2:30am UTC+8 / 4:30am AET on September 8), the Hunter and Wolverine are teaming up against Sabretooth for a ferocious grudge match during the first ever gameplay stream of Marvel's Midnight Suns.

In one corner, we've got the Hunter and Wolverine fighting to save the world. Wolverine's razor-sharp claws, regenerating health, and ability to taunt enemies into focusing on him make him well-suited to fighting on the front line. Tilting the odds in Wolverine's favor on this occasion will be members of the Firaxis development team and the Hunter, Marvel's Midnight Suns' protagonist and the first customizable original hero in the Marvel Universe. The Hunter has a previous lifetime of training and experience to draw on and can fill a number of different combat roles by focusing on dealing damage, supporting allies, controlling enemies, mitigating incoming damage, or any combination thereof.

In the other corner is Wolverine's age-old nemesis Sabretooth, another mutant with a superpowered healing factor and the animalistic instincts and strength of a fearsome predator. Even in a two-on-one battle, Sabretooth should prove to be a fierce opponent. You'll have to tune in to see who stands victorious when Wolverine and the Hunter take on Sabretooth in an intense head-to-head fight.

If you've been anxiously waiting to get a good look at Marvel's Midnight Suns' tactical combat system, this epic battle is not to be missed! Watch it right here or over at IGN.com.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 3:40 pm I'm intrigued. Not sold by the tactical combat yet, but wanting to see more. As I said before, I will be buying this because Firaxis and Marvel, which is kind of funny to say as I still haven't bought the Avengers game. Square Enix and Marvel should be a pretty similar draw for me, but it just didn't catch my eye as much.

A late 2021 delay pushed Marvel's Midnight Suns, the turn-based tactical RPG being developed by XCOM studio Firaxis, into the second half of 2022. An official release date still hasn't been announced, but it may have slipped out thanks to leaked box art and preorder details.

The leaked images have been taken offline by a copyright claim issued by 2K Games (although they're still easy enough to find if you're interested), but as noted by Nils Ahrensmeier on Twitter, they indicated an October 6 release date, and that three editions will be available: The standard release, an Enhanced Edition with five premium skins (Captain America (Future Soldier), Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell), Magik (Phoenix 5), Nico Minoru (Sister Grimm), and Wolverine (X-Force), and a Legendary Edition, with 23 premium skins and the four-DLC season pass.

Nine of the 12 Marvel heroes who will appear in Midnight Suns are already known—Doctor Strange, Magik, Iron Man, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Blade, Captain America, Nico Minoru, and Captain Marvel—and the box art leak revealed two more: Spider-Man and the Scarlet Witch. That leaves one character still unaccounted for (could it actually be Morbin' Time for real?), while the player will take on the role of a 13th hero known as the Hunter.

It's kind of preposterous to say that Marvel's Midnight Suns is "the complete opposite" of XCOM 2. They're both turn-based tactics games. And yet, I have a hard time completely disagreeing with that claim from creative director Jake Solomon. They kind of are opposites. At the very least, Midnight Suns is the version of XCOM you'd get if you rewrote all its rules after declaring that it's Opposite Day. (Something I can imagine Solomon doing.)

A couple weeks ago, I spoke to Solomon and played Midnight Suns for a feature appearing in the next issue of PC Gamer magazine (on sale late June 23 in the UK and July 12 in the US). This is an excerpt from that article that I've modified for the web.

Here are a few of the ways that Midnight Suns really is the Bizarro version of XCOM (excuse the DC reference):

• In XCOM, each unit acts independently with their own resources. In Midnight Suns, three heroes all share the same turn and resources.
• In XCOM, deciding who to send charging toward near-certain death to complete an objective is an essential part of the experience. In Midnight Suns, it isn't super important which hero lifts the concrete slab off a bystander, just that it gets done.
• In XCOM, you always know what each soldier can do on a turn (shoot at aliens, mostly), but there's a chance they'll miss. In Midnight Suns, your heroes never miss, but what they can do on a turn is always changing, because their abilities are cards dealt from a shuffled deck.

Freyland wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 2:41 pm That gameplay video did not make me want to play this.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 5:02 pm
[*]In XCOM, you always know what each soldier can do on a turn (shoot at aliens, mostly), but there's a chance they'll miss. In Midnight Suns, your heroes never miss, but what they can do on a turn is always changing, because their abilities are cards dealt from a shuffled deck.[/list]

Grifman wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 4:07 pm My only complaint was the Venom boss fight. I got tired of all the adds, it just seemed to go on and on, way too long, IMO.

Having waves of enemies does come as a surprise. Instead of all goons appearing onscreen at the start of battle, a handful of back-up bods keep flooding the compact battle arenas at the end of each turn until everyone’s felled at the same time. Compared to XCOM, battles are much more about effective crowd control than picking off troublesome loners, which perhaps sounds tedious on paper, but it feels pretty rad under the thumbs. The best comparison I can give is probably Into The Breach, just with superheroes instead of giant mech suits.

It helps that battles are much shorter than XCOM’s. There are no hour long wars of attrition here; nearly all of my Midnight Suns missions were done and dusted in around 20 minutes. Solomon has spoken before about how fast this game is compared to Firaxis’ previous work, and battles really do have a welcome zip. With each attack guaranteed to hit, you’re free to plot epic takedowns rather than cringe through dice rolls, especially as you can also use those cards to shove enemies into sparking electrical transistors for extra damage, or put them down altogether to topple a lamp post onto their skulls, or lob a stack of Daily Bugles into their kneecaps. Say goodbye to cowering behind cover in Midnight Suns. Here, it’s just another supercharged tool for your toolbox.

Keep the pressure on Lilith with the Season Pass, an extra dose of vengeance that includes four DLC packs for Marvel’s Midnight Suns, each introducing a new fully playable hero, new missions, new enemies, and more. DLC contents and release timing will be revealed at a future date.