news Marvel’s Midnight Suns review – superheroes, strategy and Gen Z banter | Games

Playing a turn-based strategy game developed by genre leader Firaxis, creator of the brilliant XCOM reboots, there were several things I did not expect to be doing. I did not

foresee having to sort out the love life of macho vampiric superhero, Blade. I didn't expect to be joining a book club with Captain Marvel (first read: Sun Tzu's Art of War). At no

point while the game was installing did I envision going on a bird-watching trip with Doctor Strange.Yet all these unlikely scenarios are very much a part of this latest Marvel

video game spinoff, which takes as many of its design cues from the fantasy role-playing series Fire Emblem as it does from XCOM. Here, players take on the role of a new hero

character, Hunter, a 300-year-old sorceress reanimated by a re-imagining of a character from the Ghost Rider comics, to battle an evil witch bent on galactic domination. That witch

also happens to be Hunter's mother – and she's recruited a whole army of Hydra goons to help out.Unlikely scenarios … Marvel's Midnight Suns. Photograph: 2K GamesUsefully,

you're accompanied by two superhero collectives: the Avengers and the titular Midnight Suns, a group of mystical magic-weavers that includes teen goth Nico Minoru from The Runaways

and fiery stuntbike dudebro, Ghost Rider. Between missions you all hang out together in an abbey, surrounded by a country estate laden with caves, graveyards and standing stones.As

in XCOM, you fight a series of turn-based battles: three heroes, an array of Hydra soldiers and the odd supervillain face off in small arenas. And as in the recent mobile hit

Marvel Snap, you attack with cards. At the start of each fight, players draw random attack and skill cards from their packs, three of which can be used per turn. You might choose

to have Captain America pummel a Hydra sniper with his shield, or perhaps get Doctor Strange to vapourise a demon hound with the Bolt of Balthakk. You can also pull off

environmental attacks, perhaps exploding a petrol drum to take out a few nearby thugs, or squishing them beneath a heavy crate handily suspended from the ceiling.It's the clever

combination of attacks, bluffs and defensive moves that make each battle so compelling. Working out just how and when to use skill cards takes several fights, but when you get it

right and the cards fall into place, the thrill of completely destroying a whole squad of soldiers by summoning a burning muscle car and then driving it over them is exquisite.At

the same time however, the introduction of collectible card-game dynamics will be wildly frustrating to veterans of XCOM, Advance Wars or the Total War series. The whole meta-game