The last decade has seen Marvel dominate the pop culture and entertainment space through various shows, films, and games, with the comic book giant showing no signs of slowing down. The gaming space, in particular, has seen a recent surge of triple-A Marvel games between 2018's Spider-Man and 2021's Guardians of the Galaxy while several more are on the way. However, players will have to wait a little longer to get their hands on Firaxis Games' upcoming tactical strategy game exploring the darker side of the Marvel universe, Marvel's Midnight Suns.
Midnight Suns follows an original character, dubbed The Hunter, who awakens after their mother, the demonic Lilith, is awakened by Hydra to dominate the world. To stop Lilith, The Hunter recruits the Avengers along with darker heroes like Ghost Rider and Blade to put an end to Lilith's apocalyptic schemes. Players will be able to customize The Hunter to their liking, down to the powers them have, and control them and various other heroes in tactical battles befitting a Firaxis game.
While the game was originally announced with a March 2022 release, Firaxis Games has since said it will not meet said window. Firaxis creative director Jake Solomon and senior franchise producer Garth DeAngelis shared a statement on the game's official Twitter confirming the release window is being pushed back to the second half of 2022. The pair said the delay will allow Firaxis to make Midnight Suns "the best game possible" to give the gameplay and story elements extra polish.
Delays are usually disappointing, but by the same token, games getting extra development time is typically beneficial for the end product. Firaxis, especially, would benefit from giving Midnight Suns additional development to meet the bar the studio set with its XCOM and Civilization series. Both series have been praised for their respective use of tactical strategy gameplay, with Civilization focusing on global expansion while XCOM's focus is on squad-to-squad combat.
That said, its also fair to wonder if delays could become a regular thing for Midnight Suns if development turns south at some point. Games like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 15 languished in development hell for years, almost a decade in Final Fantasy 15's case, before either saw the light of day. While its unlikely Midnight Suns would suffer a fate like this, as mentioned, there's always the chance it could get bogged down in development thanks to unforseen problems either inside the game or Firaxis Games itself.
Marvel's Midnights Suns is scheduled to release in the second half of 2022 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.