IRON MAN MODE

MARVEL’S MIDNIGHT SUNS successfully morphs XCOM into social simulation, somehow

- Jeremy Peel

The team behind XCOM has given me my next mission objective. It’s not to destroy an alien relay, extract a VIP from a hot zone, or board a crashed UFO. Instead, I’m to watch a movie with a friend in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. It’s a western, if the Eastwood-esque figure flashing across the television set is anything to go by, though the particulars of the film’s plot turn out to be entirely unimportant.

Movie night is merely a pretext to have a deep conversation with a new teammate, named Nico. We bond over our evil moms: hers a philanthropist sorceress who murdered children, mine a demonic goddess who banished me to a cold grave in the late 17th century. Nico, whose superpower appears to be cheeriness in the face of trauma, resolves to catch me up on the entire history of motion pictures: “The first thing you need to know – the glowing briefcase is a metaphor.”

So goes my first night in the Abbey, the picturesque fortress around which all the action of Midnight Suns revolves. I’ve long since settled in, hanging classic paintings from the austere walls of my chamber, setting up a plush bed for Charlie the hellhound, and picking the spooky estate grounds clean of reagents to throw into the library’s cauldron. Yet tens of hours later, I’ve never stopped unpacking baggage with my various magical, irradiated, or vampiric roomies. It’s a surprise I still haven’t gotten over, or stopped appreciating: Firaxis’ big-budget contribution to the Marvel universe is just as dedicated a downtime simulator as it is a turn-based tactics game. And despite the studio’s expertise historically skewing toward the latter, Midnight Suns is equally accomplished in both fields.