When the Firaxis Games team was first approached with the opportunity to create a new game with Marvel Entertainment, we were obviously thrilled! We knew we wanted to make a tactical combat game because we had a lot of experience making those types of games with XCOM.
However, we quickly discovered that designing a Super Hero game is very different from creating a game about soldiers fighting an alien invasion. Today, I’m excited to chat with PlayStation players about our journey to design an all-new hero battle experience, why we’re using cards to represent your abilities. hero and how that system works in Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Theory behind the card
To understand why we use cards, it is important to analyze what makes a strategy game interesting in the first place. All strategy games are essentially puzzles, and our job as designers is to find the right balance between that puzzle being too easy and obvious, or almost impossible and extremely complicated. Our goal is to find the point where the answer is not immediately obvious, but the player understands the mechanics and tools to control the game and reach the solution. However, over time seasoned players will learn the optimal way to use those tools and quickly overcome any obstacles. That’s where the randomness comes in.
Randomization is an important design element in strategy games, as it provides a way to make the game unpredictable even when the player has mastered the core mechanics. It requires players to constantly adapt to new situations and keep the puzzle fresh and full of surprises. And that’s how you end up with those great moments in XCOM, like hitting a 25% clutch… but also how you end up missing those 95% zero-scoring rounds!
Another important element of strategy games is to satisfy the player’s imagination. In Marvel’s Midnight Suns, we have a roster of great heroes from across the Marvel Universe, from Captain Marvel’s cosmic strength and Tony Stark’s wits to Doctor Strange’s mystical arts and hunting prowess. Blade’s Vampire. Our early prototype put these characters into XCOM-style combat with factors like hit percentage and coverage – And while the mechanics worked well, the game didn’t feel correct. These are superheroes, after all! Iron Man doesn’t miss shots with his Repulsor Blasts, and Captain Marvel won’t cover up for protection when things heat up.
As we removed more of the XCOM factors, especially the percentage hit chance, the game started to feel more heroic… but the combat puzzle quickly became too simple. It’s easy to repeat the same powerful attack with one hero each turn until the mission is over. We needed to reintroduce randomness to keep the combat puzzle engaging while still making you feel like a Super Hero. That’s when we got the idea to show off our heroic abilities in the form of cards.
Cards are great because they are commonly used in games and players are familiar with the main “mechanics” like decks, draws and discards. Drawing one card per turn gives us the perfect amount of randomness for our combat experience. Our heroes feel super power in combat because their abilities never fail and always do exactly what they say, yet still have the strategy needed to solve the battle-based puzzle which card is in your hand.
Fight and think like a Super Hero
In Marvel’s Midnight Suns, each hero has a unique set of abilities that you use to form a deck of eight cards. When heroes are brought into battle, their decks are shuffled, and at the beginning of each turn you draw up to 6 cards. On your turn you have three Hand out cards represents the number of times you can use your ability, along with two Redraw to swap out the ability you don’t want to use. You can also Move a hero of your choice wherever you want once per turn.
Regarding the possibilities themselves, we divide them into three categories: Attacks, Skill, and Hero. Attack cards are mainly used to deal damage. Some attacks have Retype will forcefully reposition enemies by hurling them back in the targeted direction – You can deal extra damage by throwing them back at other objects, enemies, or even fellow heroes your smart!
Skill Cards are used to assist, often providing multiple benefits to the player or to defuse an opponent. While these cards do no damage, they can be used to draw cards, heal characters, grant positive status effects, and more.
Hero cards are extremely powerful abilities that deal significantly more damage or provide stronger effects on the battlefield. Marvel fans will be delighted to see the many possibilities of the iconic hero represented by these cards. Hero cards require a resource called Heroism, created by playing Attack or Skill cards. Heroism is also required to use items on the battlefield in Attack the environment which does not require Playing Cards to use. If you have Heroism, you can knock down lampposts, explode crates… even pick up a stack of newspapers and smack enemies in the face, all without spending a single play of cards.
Combat in Marvel’s Midnight Suns is uniquely accessible and easy to pick up and play. There is no moving grid or covering system, and heroes will automatically reposition to reach their target. Skill play is as simple as picking an ability card from your hand, selecting an enemy or target area, and that’s it – Captain America sprints across the battlefield to take down a Hydra goon!
After mastering the basic rules, combat can also be surprisingly deep and complex. There are plenty of tactical puzzle modifiers across every mission, turn, and action.
- What abilities do I have at hand?
- What heroes are on this quest, and how do their abilities interact?
- Which enemies are the biggest threat? Are there dangerous villains to handle?
- Should I spend my Heroism on a Hero ability or use the environment?
- Can I use Knockback and terrain skills to maximize damage?
And if that’s not enough, we also have eight difficulty options for you to test your tactical excellence. Just want to get a great supernatural Marvel story? Choose Story difficulty. But what if you’re looking to torment every decision? Ultimate III would be the way to go.
I can’t wait to see how you solve the tactical combat puzzle when Marvel’s Midnight Suns launches on PlayStation 5 on December 2, 2022!
