5 Tips Before You Jump Into Marvel’s XCOM-Flavored Midnight Suns - Kotaku

Though made by Firaxis Games, developers behind treasured turn-based strategy franchise XCOM, Midnight Suns is its own ridiculous neon thing, with role-playing elements intricately entwined with its turn-based, card-driven combat.

All that said, don’t feel like you need to turn Midnight Suns into a grocery store checklist.

Though it offers many ways to do it, the game doesn’t seem to take leveling too seriously—your heroes will automatically level up as you repeat certain moves in combat, and any character who falls too far behind will automatically level up.

In combat, you get a random set of cards that pull from all your heroes’ abilities.

They can be finicky, with restrictive areas of impact, but since environmental attacks don’t drain your three total combat moves (not counting two card reshuffles), you should keep them in mind for speeding encounters along when the stars align.

I was surprised to find out that a tricky Hydra Specialist had a shock shield that harmed my heroes during some melee attacks, or that an innocuous Hydra Officer would release a random “frenzy” attack after two cards instead of the typical three.

The hover tool also tells you which one of your heroes an enemy plans to attack on their next turn, though this is also shown by hero-related symbols that float above their heads.

You can again use this combat feature to your advantage, letting it help you determine which characters need immediate healing, or which enemies you shouldn’t hesitate to annihilate.