Upcoming Marvel game cancelled amidst myriad of buggy AAA releases

An upcoming Marvel game has been cancelled amidst a myriad of buggy AAA releases.

The game in question is a port of the criminally underrated Marvel’s Midnight Suns from publisher 2K Games and developed by Firaxis Games. Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a tactical role-playing game inspired by the likes of XCOM, a series also developed by Firaxis Games. However, rather than just being an XCOM clone making use of the Marvel licence, it also cleverly incorporates a card deck-building mechanic that helped it stand somewhat separate from other games in its genre.

Take a look at Marvel's Midnight Suns in action.

Despite being a fun game, it was considered to be a flop by its publisher. Back in February this year, Zelnick Strauss, the CEO of 2K parent company Take-Two, told Jason Schreier of Bloomberg that the December 2022 release window for Marvel’s Midnight Suns may have negatively impacted overall sales. This is a shame, because those that decided to buy the game seemed to have mostly enjoyed it. On Metacritic, Marvel’s Midnight Suns earned a respectable score of 83 on PC.

Furthermore, in our review of Marvel’s Midnight Suns, we described it as being “the best superhero game of 2022, and an adventure that no fan of costumed do-gooders should miss.”

Currently available for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, Marvel’s Midnight Suns was also supposed to release for PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in the coming months. Unfortunately, despite 2K announcing the 11 May 2023 release date for PS4 and Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch port has been outright cancelled. This news was also announced alongside the reveal that the final post-launch DLC for Marvel’s Midnight Suns is releasing next week with the legendary character Storm.

As reported by VGC, in a press release provided by 2K, it confirmed that the “Nintendo Switch version of Marvel’s Midnight Suns will no longer be offered as part of updated plans.” At this time, we can only speculate as to why the Nintendo Switch port was cancelled. The safe assumption to make is that it may have been released in a poor state. What’s more, to add salt into the wounds, given the fact that not only is XCOM 2 available on the Switch but with the likes of Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, it's proof that this genre does work on Nintendo’s hybrid machine.

For a game that had already struggled in the sales department, it’s a sad day that even fewer gamers will get to play Marvel’s Midnight Suns.