The question I keep coming back to as I try to get to the end of my apparently endlessly ongoing playthrough of Marvel’s Midnight Suns is, alas, probably going to sound boring at best and trivial at worst, but I hasten to add that I don’t mean it in a boring or a trivial way. You guessed it, I imagine: genre. Just what the Hell is this possibility space that confronts us, full of RPG storytelling and exploration, genre-crossing collection and crafting, and above all deckbuilderesque-but-tactics-inflected card-based combat, segmented according to a twenty-four cycle during which it’s apparently not possible to hang out before you go beat up some Hydra minions, and not possible to craft after you come home victorious?

I mean, who cares, if it’s fun? — and the vast majority of it is, for me, very fun. But where games are concerned, genre is a matter of the kinds of choices afforded to the player, and Midnight Suns has some fascinating sets of choices, arranged and afforded in some fascinating ways.

So, since you know card games are a thing for me right now, let’s at least see if we can nail down the card system and how it relates to other games, both card and not, that seem worth comparing. Is all the thematic RPG stuff just an elaborate exegetic frame for the deckbuilding?

Then maybe we can take a look from the other way round: how effectively does the card-based combat serve as a set of metaphors (the set, too, being in itself an overarching metaphor) for the BIF!, POW!, and KKKKKRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAKKKKKAAAAAATHHHHOOOOM!!!!! of Marvel Universe whacking contests? What are the specific pleasures and meaning effects of Midnight Suns’ combat system, and how do they relate to the pleasures and meaning effects of other Marvel platforms? How does all of that help (or fail to help) the player tell their own version of Hunter’s story in the MU?

Conversation on Discord at 8:30pm Eastern/5:30 Pacific!