Nobody remembers the Marvel game that quietly revealed the MCU’s next era

While the MCU has flirted with its more spooky side with Disney Plus projects like Ironheart and Werewolf by Night, Blade getting stuck in development hell means the MCU won’t go there again until Ghost Rider comes out in 2028. Still, I think that an MCU take on Ghost Rider and the long-rumored Midnight Sons project can work because I’ve already seen the concept successfully pulled off in video game form: Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

Developed by longtime XCOM stewards at Firaxis Games, Marvel’s Midnight Suns (which changed the Midnight Sons name to be more gender-neutral) was a 2022 strategy game that defined genre boundaries. Though initially expected to be XCOM with a Marvel skin, it turned out to be a shockingly deep RPG with Fire Emblem levels of camaraderie and team-building between rich tactical missions. Midnight Suns didn’t exactly shatter sales records, but it was a critical hit, and proved that the supernatural side of Marvel could work in a mainstream release.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns not only offered amazing interpretations of some of Marvel’s more paranormal characters like Ghost Rider, Blade, Magik, and Nico Minoru, but also showed they could mesh well in a blockbuster adventure with the likes of marquee heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man. Play Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and you’ll be very excited about where the MCU could go if its movies are okay with getting a bit scarier after Secret Wars.

Like the comics, the titular team of Marvel’s Midnight Suns forms to take on a supernatural threat. They are fighting the forces of Lilith, the mother of demons, as she’s trying to awaken Chthon, a Lovecraftian-like elder god connected to the Darkhold you might remember from WandaVision or Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. The player’s POV is that of The Hunter, Lilith’s child, who is awakened by and must work with the Midnight Suns to take their mother down.

In one part of the game, players explore the grounds of The Abbey, the Midnight Suns’ base of operations. There, you can uncover a lot of lore about The Hunter and Lilith and get to know all of the heroes that join the Midnight Suns. There’s no romance in the game, unfortunately, but by exploring the Abbey you will get a robust crash course on this side of the Marvel universe and start to yearn for characters like Blade and Ghost Rider to show up in the MCU proper.

The other half of Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a turn-based strategy game. While its tiny levels and use of cards for hero abilities were controversial at release, in retrospect its systems hide a whole lot of depth and do make you feel quite powerful as you command these superheroes. Most impressively, Midnight Suns sells that characters like Ghost Rider and Blade have no problem working alongside and teaming up with more mainstream Marvel characters.

If those pairings work without this game going into full-on horror territory, they could also work in a more traditional MCU blockbuster. That said, it also makes a decent case for why we need more supernatural movies featuring characters like Ghost Rider. If those projects do eventually come to fruition, playing this game can preemptively give you a good primer on the heroes and villains involved in that side of the Marvel universe.

There are some caveats to that, though. For example, the game mostly focuses on the Robbie Reyes version of Ghost Rider. Ryan Gosling probably won’t be playing that rendition of the character, as Reyes is a Hispanic character and already appeared on Agents of Shield.

That said, Johnny Blaze does play a smaller but important non-playable role in Midnight Suns, and it’s a lot more likely Gosling will be portraying that version of the character. Hopefully, Gosling’s Ghost Rider can eventually team up with Mahershala Ali’s Blade in a proper Midnight Suns movie, even if Marvel isn’t confirming that yet.

Image: Firaxis Games via Polygon

Even if the MCU keeps the Ghost Rider movie more focused on that character’s rogues gallery, I could definitely see the likes of Lilith and Cthohn eventually making their way into the movies. If you don’t want to be completely out of the loop when they show up, Midnight Suns is worth playing. It might not have created a big splash at launch, but this is an entertaining strategy game with an even better story.

This game proves that Marvel’s occult side remains rife with untapped potential for adaptation. I can’t wait to see what the Ghost Rider movie taps into, and will certainly be replaying Midnight Suns again to tide myself over in the meantime.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is available for PS4, PS5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It’s actually on sale for $10.49 on consoles currently, so now’s a great time to pick it up.