Garth Deangelis, the franchise lead behind Marvel's Midnight Suns and the XCOM franchise, said farewell to Firaxis Games in a recent statement after working at the company for 14 years. Deangelis brought to life fans' heroes in Marvel's Midnight Suns with the game style of the older but cult classic XCOM series. When working on Midnight Suns at Firaxis Games, Deangelis made sure not to just recreate XCOM with Marvel skins but to keep the gameplay's integrity while adding new elements.Firaxis Games was founded in 1996 and made a name for itself developing strategy games like the Civilization series. Deangelis began work with Firaxis in 2009 as a producer, and, in 2012, launched XCOM: Enemy Unknown.XCOM changed the turn-based strategy genre with its perma-death and high-stakes situations. After commercial success, XCOM 2 was released in 2016.Deangelis tweeted on January 9 that he's leaving Firaxis after 14 years of working with the company and the dedicated teams behind XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns. Deangelis changed RTS combat with XCOM's movement and targeting, forcing players to take advantage of the terrain or be overrun. He quit after the release of Midnight Suns, a new game that changes the standard formula. Midnight Suns' unique card-based combat differentiates the series from XCOM, though it has a similar structure. It was Deangelis' final project with Firaxis, as he said in his post to the players, "All of this was for you."
Deangelis clearly had a vision for turn-based strategy games that manifested itself into challenging combat and tough decision-making. The fact that Midnight Suns recently released is not related to his leaving; Deangelis left Firaxis on good terms after a long and successful career. He could profit from developing his own projects, but it's also possible he’d find work with another company rather than just quit the industry altogether.
Firaxis Games will miss Deangelis, but it could carry on creating fresh strategy games and developing new heroes for Midnight Suns. However, Firaxis hasn’t made a comment on Deangelis leaving and hasn’t announced who will take his role at the studio yet. Deangelis' farewell tweet received many replies from others in the industry thanking him and wishing him luck. There's no word yet on what games Firaxis is working on now. But whatever it chooses to work on first, players can likely expect more exciting things from Firaxis in the coming months.