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Marvel's Midnight Suns director believes cards were reason behind commercial flop

The game did very well critically, but it will be strategy legend Jake Solomon's last game at Firaxis.
Alex Hopley Editor UK 15 May 2024

Student of Sid Meier and strategy legend in his own right Jake Solomon is looking to spread his wings. After a 23-year stint at Firaxis, the developer is moving on to found Midsummer Studios, which is going to focus on life sim games.

Speaking about his future and his recent past, Solomon told VGC about the last project he worked on at Firaxis, Marvel's Midnight Suns, which was a critical success that didn't manage to attract that many players.

"I think cards were a major problem," he explained. "It was a good design solution, but I was naive about what people would think when they saw the mechanic was cards. Not everyone on my team was behind the idea, but they trusted me."

It did sound strange at first, the idea that a Marvel strategy game would revolve around card-based combat, but the idea clearly worked, it just didn't sound very good to sell the game to people. Oh well, onwards and upwards it seems for Solomon.

Editor UK Alex Hopley covered the video game industry for Gamereactor, from new announcements and launches to the business behind them. He also wrote on tech, film and entertainment, and his coverage wasn't tied to any one region.
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