Outside the turn-based combat missions, Marvel's Midnight Suns offers many different side activities that bring the team closer together. Players want to ensure that their friendship levels with the heroes are high so that they can get bonuses in combat, and they can raise this friendship level in many different ways. Player can either move through dialogue trees and club meetings, or they can participate in a plethora of side activities from card games and movie nights to bird watching and sparring matches. These activities give the characters more life and give players something to do outside of combat, but Marvel's Midnight Suns does not actually let players play these side activities.

The majority of the side activities in Marvel's Midnight Suns are simply a series of dialogue options that do not match what is being said; alternatively, a graphic will appear that shows players what they got out of these activities. What could have been a fun set of minigames that players could enjoy outside of combat is actually just set dressing that fills up various bars. It feels like a huge missed opportunity by Firaxis not to let players play through these side activities, and although it is unlikely to be changed, it would be great if Firaxis made these activities more engaging in a post-launch update.

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Marvel's Midnight Suns Has Loads of Side Activities

Marvel's Midnight Suns Blade At The Sword

There are many side activities in Marvel's Midnight Suns for players to pick up when they're not crafting things or fighting against the forces of Lilith. The game works on a day-night cycle where players can do activities like sparring and hanging out in havens before they head out on their daily mission, and then at night they are able to hang out with a hero of their choice or go to club meetings. Throughout the game, the player may also be prompted with a private message from one of these heroes that will start a hang-out session, but players are not able to actually do anything in these moments besides selecting different dialogue prompts.

The morning sparring sessions have players select what hero they want to spar with and then spend some credits, but they are not allowed to actually spar in a 1v1 match with Marvel heroes. Instead, the game gives players a graphic that they can turn into a painting and tells them what they earned from the sparring match. Players can also play cards or video games, watch movies, go bird watching, paint pictures, go mushroom picking, and more with the other heroes. No matter what the player chooses, though, the player character takes the reins and the player is simply left to watch it play out.

Players Should be Able to Actually Play These Side Activities

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All of these different side activities could have offered a bunch of different side content for players to enjoy, but Firaxis made the decision to not include any of these mini-games in the actual game. Players cannot try their hand at Texas hold 'em against Captain Marvel, they cannot spar against Blade, and there is no interactivity when it comes to mushroom picking with Magik. There really is next to no gameplay to be had outside the combat and running around the Abbey during the day, and that seems like an odd choice.

It is unlikely that Firaxis will go back and add all these mini-games at this point, but if it had included them from the start, then Marvel's Midnight Suns may have had more life to it. The gameplay that the game does offer is pretty fun, but there could have been much more interactive content for players to check out. Not every piece of content needs to be super in-depth or serve as a major part of the story; sometimes players just want to sit back and play some cards against the AI.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is available now for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with PS4, Switch, and Xbox One versions in development.

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