Marvel’s Midnight Suns continues its insightful series of gameplay showcases this week, featuring the “Canadian Can Opener” as YouTuber Christopher Odd states. Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ gameplay showcases previously featured the iconic likes of Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Captain Marvel, who are all incredibly well known to modern Marvel fans. Wolverine is likely now the most notable X-Men character, at least from his myriad appearances in live-action movies, and it is fantastic to see iconic X-Men characters in Firaxis’ latest tactical RPG.
Having Wolverine in Marvel’s Midnight Suns could mean that the door is open to other X-Men characters or antagonists being featured, but that is still yet to be seen besides Magik and Sabertooth. Either way, Wolverine is now the latest character to receive their gameplay showcase in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Odd remarks upon the playstyle fans may anticipate for James ‘Logan’ Howlett, stating that while it may be predictable what abilities he will be oriented around, there are still incredibly interesting choices players must balance when it comes to Wolverine’s gameplay in Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ Wolverine is an ‘Angry Tank’
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The most notable feature of Wolverine besides his adamantium claws is his mutant healing factor. The Berserker is able to withstand massive amounts of physical damage due to his tissue replenishing almost instantaneously, making him nearly invincible. Marvel’s Midnight Suns implements this ability into its card system thoughtfully and meaningfully, while still having it abide by the game’s parameters. Wolverine’s healing factor is not a card but a passive ability that players can unlock and upgrade through Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ social simulation at the Abbey.
This passive ability activates every time players redraw a Wolverine card and recovers a certain amount of his health. The choice to make here, then, is when to discard a card of his in order to replenish health. This could be detrimental if Wolverine does not have many cards available in the player’s hand, or if his cards are too powerful to consider redrawing.
Odd takes the time to mention that players are able to revive their characters in a couple different ways, such as with particular items brought into a combat mission. However, Wolverine has his own innate revival ability with the Rapid Regeneration heroic card, which instantly appears in the player’s hand when he goes down, revives him with 50 percent health, and does not cost a card play. This is made into a conflicting choice as well, though, since it costs two heroism points and can only be used once per combat mission in Marvel's Midnight Suns.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ Wolverine Excels at Chain and Full Combos
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Wolverine’s Rapid Healing skill card restores a certain amount of his health and cures him of all negative status effects. The most enviable feature of this card is that it is playable when Wolverine is unable to act, which Odd states is not typically the case for most Marvel's Midnight Suns characters. Upon later upgrade, it can even generate a redraw and heroism. Therefore, Wolverine has many options for staying alive in the fight.
In addition to being able to take a ton of damage, however, Wolverine also dishes it out with some interesting decisions for players to make on exactly which foes to rend. Wolverine’s Lethal Pounce attack card has different applications based on what the player needs to prepare for on the battlefield. Lethal Pounce gives Wolverine two Chain, for instance, which allows the player to attack multiple targets or a single target multiple times. If ambushed, it may seem worthwhile to use Chain for damage across multiple enemies in Marvel's Midnight Suns. If Wolverine uses all of Chain on one target, this is called Full Combo. Full Combo activates different effects, and on Lethal Pounce it activates Strengthened, which increases offense by 50%. A later upgrade will make Lethal Pounce apply one Weak, which reduces enemy offense by 50%.
This determines that players can choose between optimal damage on a single enemy or an effect on all enemies for other party members to take advantage of. Other characters showcased so far, such as Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ Captain Marvel, prove to be better single-target characters than Wolverine, and players may want to take that into account if they are adamant about keeping the Weapon X experiment in their party.
Wolverine May Truly Be the Best at What He Does in Marvel’s Midnight Suns
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Wolverine would not be a burly bruiser without Marvel's Midnight Suns' Taunt effect, and one of Odd’s favorite skill cards makes Wolverine’s exchange of blows a fantastic representation of what he does best. Wolverine’s Stink of Fear skill card effectively Taunts each enemy in an area and grants Counter. This means that every enemy who subsequently attacks Wolverine receives a hit from him in return. Further, an upgrade for the skill card applies Weak to each enemy that was targeted, as well as an extra move that turn.
Like his fellow party members, Wolverine has a unique card that can be used once per combat mission. Wolverine’s unique heroic card is called Midnight Special, and is one of the more complex heroic cards that have been shown thus far in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. With it, Wolverine consumes all heroism to damage random enemies a number of times for each point of heroism players currently have. Moreover, that damage is increased with each subsequent attack. Heroism can then be refunded for each KO that is landed in Wolverine’s frenzied strikes upon upgrade, as well as applying Weak.
Many of Wolverine’s cards inflict Weak and thus make great use of his ability to chain hits on multiple enemies at once. Odd predicts that Wolverine will be a “fan-favorite” character even among other characters in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and it is difficult to argue that after seeing how dominant he is on the battlefield, capable of self-healing, reviving, taunting, chaining hits, applying Weak, and generating heroism.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
