Playing a game like Marvel’s Midnight Suns, you expect a lot of the in-game text and dialogue to be largely utilitarian - the minimum amount of screen space taken up to describe whatever tool, weapon or resource the player might select. In games like X-Com: Enemy Unknown, this seems to be largely the case. Yes, there are plenty of interesting tidbits to learn about the alien species, but they tend to come from the same cold, bureaucratic perspective of the military and scientific leaders that you rely on. In Midnight Suns, that whole concept is turned on its head.
Any given researchable component will come with a little blurb of copy from one of your super-powered teammates, full of Tony Stark’s zingers or Dr. Strange’s metaphysical mysto-babble. You, the hero (or villain?) of the story, will receive unsolicited commentary on the things you’ve by team members, and it will not always be positive. But would it feel real if it was all positive? If anyone has ever experienced a group living situation, probably not.
Positive is certainly not the mood I would use to characterize the hub world, the Abbey. The Avengers and the original members of the Midnight Suns do not get along, and with great power apparently does not come great maturity. To begin with, Stark and Strange are constantly at each other's throats, in a toxic codependent relationship with two equally infuriating parts. Tony is an arrogant blowhard, Strange is a self-righteous windbag. You might begin to wonder how the Avengers stayed together for more than five minutes.
There’s a lot of truth to their portrayal, however. Tony Stark is a playboy who is still learning to be a hero. He’s probably not the kind of guy you’d want to hang with. He’s a billionaire with a drinking problem and rage issues from a severely absent father in his past, so liking him as a teammate genuinely doesn’t come easy. When you do grow to like him, the journey that you took to understand the man behind the armor is all the more meaningful for it. Which is something to cherish in a game.
After all - these are games, and finding the meaning in something that is designed foremost as attention-grabbing entertainment can be a struggle. A rare few games have it in spades, but most prefer to layer it on top of the true hook, the gameplay, like icing on a cake. On the best cakes, I’m sure you, dear reader, know, the icing doesn’t just sit on the surface - the architect of that most fine dessert layers the icing within the cake, so that it is an integral part of the overall cake structure. The point of all this, besides making me hungry for cake at 10:21 AM, is that the undeniably best games layer meaning in every facet of the experience - from the most glamorous pre-rendered cutscenes to the most insignificant item description, every element should work together to attempt provide the player with that which is the ultimate goal of all games, digital or otherwise - immersion.
Does one feel immersed, playing Midnight Suns? Yes, but not in the way you would typically expect. It’s less of a visceral experience and more of a slow burn, and that is down to the slow, strategic format of the gameplay. The immersion comes in the form of finding yourself in the middle of a group who is constantly at each other's throats. There is always some interpersonal problem to deal with, and you may find yourself chuckling at how these mighty beings can find themselves tripped up by things like a communal fridge. You find yourself rolling your eyes along with the rest of the NPCs, thinking, “Of course Magik snapped at Spidey after he spent too long in the shower. She just got through having Strange lecture her all dinner on elemental spirits. Classic.” This familiarity is what gives the game such strong legs to stand on, and is a glowing example of maximizing the opportunity to identify with the characters.