Marvel’s Midnight Suns lets players see a few familiar locations like Avengers Tower and the Sanctum Sanctorum, but for the most part it charts a fairly original course in nondescript areas. Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ narrative results in the player taking refuge in the woods, obscured by magic, and taking residence with many other Marvel characters in the Caretaker's Abbey. This presents an entire gameplay feature where players can explore the grounds for myriad collectibles, but Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ mission locations are unfortunately less exciting.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns spreads all its mission content throughout three distinct landscapes: New York City, the American Southwest, and Transia. These locations are introduced sequentially and gradually in the events of the narrative, composing the only places that players travel to for their miscellaneous missions. There are different sceneries in each location, but players will have soon seen them all if they complete enough missions in each. Therefore, the Star Wars Jedi franchise would be a good well of inspiration to draw from for a sequel.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s Holotable is a Good Level Design Formula
Though they are wholly different games, the Star Wars Jedi franchise’s duology and Marvel’s Midnight Suns share a big similarity. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor both feature the Holotable aboard the Stinger Mantis, while Marvel’s Midnight Suns features the Mirror Table. Both tables behave identically as a point of interaction where players choose which location they would like to go to next.
In the Star Wars Jedi franchise that is as simple as picking any planet that is available, but in Marvel’s Midnight Suns there are a few more prerequisites and decisions to make before players can select a location. Each location features its own random assortment of missions that players can embark upon, and each will have a randomly assigned character as its leader.
This means that players need to have that character available in order to head out on that particular mission, at least at the beginning of the game. The biggest difference, though, is how many unique planets players get to fly to in the Star Wars Jedi franchise, as opposed to the incredibly limiting amount of locations players travel to in Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Because Marvel’s Midnight Suns only has three locations on Earth to explore, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s diverse planets feel much more rewarding. Thankfully, this could easily be rectified in a Marvel’s Midnight Suns sequel depending on how elaborate its narrative decides to be.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns Needs More Mission Locations
Marvel lore is certainly no slouch when it comes to having iconic and dynamic locations or planets, which makes Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ locations pale in comparison. It is fortunate that Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ tactical gameplay is as engaging as it is because the game’s repetitive landscapes could otherwise become an eyesore after 100 hours or so.
It makes sense that the game doesn’t feature outlandish planet-trekking and the like, but including a plot like that would be a great way to offer different environments for the player to see and battle within. If the sequel let players traverse Battleworld, Latveria, Asgard, Knowhere, Wakanda, or the Quantum Realm, for example, that would offer many more environments that stand out positively.
Each location could also present new enemy types, rather than the infinite horde of Hydra, Lilin, and vampyres that players endlessly encounter in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. The game is fairly intimate in its occult themes and which characters are highlighted, but a sequel should attempt to expand upon that and branch out to much more places in order to give it a representative breadth of vistas in the Marvel universe.
Marvel's Midnight Suns is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.