Marvel's Midnight Suns was revealed at Gamescom's Opening Night Live presentation today, a new tactics RPG from the developers of XCOM. While it will certainly build on the turn-based gameplay that made XCOM one of the most popular tactical RPGs in the world, it will also apparently be taking a page out of Fire Emblem's book with a focus on relationships.
According to Jake Solomon, creative director for Marvel's Midnight Suns at Firaxis Games, nurturing relationships between the Marvel heroes and the customizable player character, known as the Hunter, is a big part of Midnight Suns. Between missions, players will have the opportunity to return to a hub area called the Abbey — a wholly original location created by Firaxis and Marvel — and spend some time bonding with the heroes their most interested in. As Solomon describes it, the relationship-building aspects of the game will allow you gain favor with the heroes by choosing the right dialogue options while talking to them, participating in each hero's favorite activities, and giving them gifts.
While gameplay has yet to be shown, this style of "dating-sim" gameplay will sound familiar to Fire Emblem players. In particular, Fire Emblem: Three Houses features a hub area called the Garreg Mach Monastery where players can interact with different characters and build a relationship that will improve each fighters' performance on the battlefield. These interactions can also lead to romance options in Fire Emblem, but there's no information yet about whether or not the Hunter will be able to take these relationships to the next level.
Firaxis will debut a first look at gameplay on September 1, but the available information about that presentation indicate that it will focus on the tactical combat rather than the relationship-building side of the game. You can tune into the presentation at 11:30 AM pacific time on Wednesday, September 1.
Marvel's Midnight Suns is coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam and Epic Game Store in March 2022.