Marvel's Midnight Suns is a weird bug — most people I've talked to like it in his glowing reviews, including pc Gamer jeremy Peel. But despite everything, it did not sell as much as it needed, which led to layoffs at the developer Firaxis and the departure of its creative lead.

There are several reasons for this. First of all, the circle of tactical strategy combat/deck builder fun and RPG-loving Venn diagram doesn't overlap much. There are some — I mean, I enjoyed it — but I don't really think the people who got into XCOM or Slay The Spire, on the whole, were doing book clubs with Steve Rogers. 

Then the awkward post-launch support seemed to have missed the good points of the game— an extra Midnight Sun that was a bad idea from the offset if I'm honest, will have a lot of interpersonal conversations going on between your missions - and as much as I did in my place. Great time at Lou

But if you ask the developers of the game, they will keep pointing the cards. During Gdc2024, game director Joe Weinhoffer blamed the game's lack of mainstream success on the card mechanics. 

Reflecting on the success and failure of Midnight Sands, Jake Solomon, former creative Director of Firaxis, said:"It's fair. Midnight Suns is an amazing weird game, but for me that surprise turned into a joy as much as I played it. For others, frustration is certainly not off the table.

But, like Weinhoffer, Solomon turns to cards as culprits: "I think cards were a big problem. I think it was a good design solution, but I think they were naive about what people would think when they saw the mechanic was a card Not everyone on my team was behind the idea, but they trusted me."

I mean this with all possible kindness — I really don't think it was a card.

The card was, in fact, one of my favorite things about the Midnight Suns. I like the good XCOM brawl, but the meticulously gritty process of maneuvering your team one by one is suitable for games about superheroes The game's card system was instead your team flinging themselves in ad-hoc combos- it's a bit of a meeting mechanics with vibes. It was a nice blend.

Indeed, context cannot be ignored. The last XCOM game of Firaxis (the 2nd game) appeared in 2016. Well, technically there was a chimera squad in 2020, but it was a much more spin-off than the main line entry. For many Firaxis fans, the studio's sudden departure to the deck building may have really put them off.

The frustrating part, I think, is that it wasn't just a swerve, it was the right choice, it really, really worked — the Midnight Suns that the studio wanted it to get stuck in was the thought-out DLC structure, the weird microtransactions I still care about in principle. It was that I was a little over-dependent on the costumes, and perhaps the conversations between missions. Not to mention the lack of a good NG+ mode at launch that actually takes advantage of the deck-building nature of the game. As the controversy with Capcom proved earlier this year, the importance of politics before the purchase can not be overestimated.

Also, they should have let me date Wolverine, a coward (you may have seen Marvel set foot in, but some things should be fought

but again, I played Dan's thing, so maybe I'm just saying this — and it's not a good thing). May be the point of Solomon (and Weinhoffer). I think this game deserves more love than it got overall, so the card is just a bad optics for action strategy players and long-time Firaxis fans alike