Marvel’s Midnight Suns is less than a few months away from launch, and in the past months Firaxis and 2K have been sharing intermittent marketing updates with lore for Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ playable characters. Knowing how many characters will be playable makes its final three gameplay showcase subjects obvious for any fans keeping track of who has been shown so far. Recently, YouTuber Christopher Odd celebrated October with Blade as Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ next featured character.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ roster has thus far included many comprehensive characters with different strategies and approaches to consider. It is unclear what role each of these characters will play in the game’s main narrative, though it seems some have more importance than others, while the rest are simply interesting to have around as part of the team. Blade is a character who Odd describes as more serious and broody, but that should hopefully not deter fans from wanting to level up his passive ability in Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ Abbey.
Blade is All About Bleed in Marvel’s Midnight Suns
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Eric Brooks’ playstyle in Marvel’s Midnight Suns revolves around his nature as a dhampir. A known vampire hunter, Blade dresses tactically in black, wielding a katana and dual automatic handguns.
Blade fits in well with Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ mystical and supernatural atmosphere, introducing the Bleed status effect with a complete dependence upon it. Bleed behaves as fans may expect, gradually carving away at inflicted enemies’ health. Bleed deals damage at the end of each turn, and also ignores Block and Resist for some potentially crucial chip damage. For example, Blade’s “Make ’em Bleed” skill card draws one Blade card and allows Blade’s next two damage cards to apply Bleed.
Upon upgrade, “Make ’em Bleed” draws another Blade card and applies Bleed to a third Blade damage card, as well as giving Blade extra Block on redraw. Bleed is embellished further through Blade’s learned passive ability, which gives him a percentage chance to apply Bleed on any attack he dishes out.
This seems either exceptionally powerful or redundant, since most of Blade’s damage-dealing cards seem to apply Bleed anyhow. But once Bleed has been dealt in droves on the battlefield, Blade seems like just a relatively useful character to have around.
Blade Benefits from Chain Attacks and Generates Card Plays
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Thankfully, Blade’s The Hunger skill card is essential, as it takes advantage of all the Bleed he has been applying. The Hunger applies two Marked effects to every enemy with Bleed, which lets Blade or another party member in Marvel’s Midnight Suns make quick work of affected enemies.
Odd reiterates that card plays are refunded when a Marked enemy is KO’d, making The Hunger effective if enough preparation has gone into setting it up. Upon upgrade, The Hunger also recovers health for each enemy with Bleed and grants one heroism point on redraw.
It is ultimately Blade’s goal to apply Bleed to each enemy on the battlefield and then let status effects and other characters whittle them down. This is where Blade’s emphasis on Chain attacks comes in. Blade’s Strike attack card, for instance, chains an attack along a number of enemies or a single target multiple times.
Blade’s Daywalker heroic card behaves similarly as it has Marvel's Midnight Suns' Chain effect, and upon upgrade a card play can be refunded for each enemy KO’d in the chain. Therefore, if players want an optimal Blade build, he will first need to have a bunch of his cards upgraded to take full advantage of his Bleed, Marked, and Chain effects. In the meantime, he may fall to the back of the pack in terms of how effective he can be in combat.
Blade’s unique and exhaustible Marvel’s Midnight Suns ability, called Glaive, is more of what fans would expect. Glaive’s Bleed application is applied to each enemy in an area, and upon upgrade, if a target has been hit with Bleed, they will take increased damage. A late-game mod can also grant one Resist on redraw.
Blade Relies on Other Characters in Marvel’s Midnight Suns
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Overall, Blade seems simplistic. Odd admits that Blade may do well on teams that have other characters who can support him, which seems important if players still want to make Bleed a priority in Marvel's Midnight Suns' tactical RPG strategy.
Other characters will need to manipulate the environment around Blade as he applies Bleed, which could make him much more of a high-maintenance than it would seem on paper. The decision of which characters are on the player’s three-character party is up to each one, but it is also undetermined when certain characters will be made accessible in Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Players may be holding out for Marvel's Midnight Suns' Spider-Man or Scarlet Witch, but in the meantime they will need to occupy their party. Based on the gameplay footage shown with cutscenes in-and-around the Abbey, it seems like Blade will not be available from the beginning, but perhaps relatively soon thereafter. If so, players may have an opportunity to level him up earlier and upgrade his cards to take full effect of Bleed later on.
Players will need to play the hand they are dealt, both literally and figuratively, to explore which characters they enjoy and what permutations of gameplay effects they can coordinate. Once Blade has been seen in different combinations of characters on the battlefield, it will be up to players to decide whether they think a mass application of Bleed is worth the omission of characters like Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, or Iron Man.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns launches December 2 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S with PS4, Switch, and Xbox One versions coming later.
