Midnight Suns devs 'absolutely' knew cards would be a controversial choice, but they were also 'absolutely the right fit for this game and our design goals'

In a talk at last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Firaxis game director Joe Weinhoffer broke down the evolution of Marvel's Midnight Suns' tactical combat and explained the thinking behind the game's most polarizing element: using cards to represent superhero powers.

«Is it odd that we have cards in a tactical superhero game? Yes, absolutely,» Weinhoffer said early in the talk. «We knew this would be a controversial choice, and that reception and first impressions would be mixed. We certainly had plenty of people see the game and say 'oh, it has cards in it? Eh, nevermind, not for me.' But was it the right fit for this game and our design goals? Yes, absolutely.»

We ended up loving Midnight Suns, awarding it runner-up to the 2022 GOTY. But back when it was announced in 2021, the marriage of deckbuilder and XCOM didn't go over so well at first blush. Maybe that was because strategy fans have been waiting so long for a full-on XCOM 2 sequel; maybe it was just the result of general card fatigue, since deckbuilders have flooded Steam in the years since Slay the Spire. Those same concerns may have also contributed to Midnight Suns' weak sales, but Weinhoffer's GDC talk is a point-by-point justification for every design decision the team made to arrive at their final combat system and easily convinced me that cards were the right way to go.

Firaxis started with XCOM 2's combat as the rough basis for Midnight Suns, but quickly decided huge elements of it would have to be changed. «Long story short, Marvel approached us—they loved XCOM 2 and asked if we'd be interested in making a squad-based tactics game using the Marvel superheroes,» he said. After toying with the idea of an Agents of SHIELD game, Firaxis decided it wouldn't be as fun to see characters like Spider-man pop up in the game every once in a while; players would want to control the heroes themselves. And if your squad is made up of superheroes and not flesh and blood normies, most of XCOM's