When I started playing Marvel’s Midnight Suns, I expected a few things from it. Coming from Firaxis, I expected that it would have great tactical combat. I knew that it would let me hang out with iconic comic book heroes like Wolverine and Blade. And I knew that it’ story would focus on a lesser known hero team and their fight against the evil sorceress Lilith. I did not expect that it would be a great replacement to Hogwarts Legacy that I could play to avoid lining the pockets of the world’s most famous transphobe.
I know that — aside from being two of the biggest franchises in the world — Harry Potter and Marvel don’t have much in common. But while playing I’ve been surprised how many of the reasons I like Midnight Suns overlap with the reasons I fell in love with the Wizarding World as a kid.
In Midnight Suns, you and all your super friends spend the game hanging out in a castle. In context, it's not strictly a castle, and is actually a medieval abbey where your character, The Hunter, lived centuries ago with her mother, Lilith, her aunt The Caretaker, and the powerful witch Agatha Harkness. That arrangement ended when Lilith turned against them and the Hunter was killed fighting her. Now, the Hunter has been resurrected hundreds of years later and the Abbey is a hideout for the titular super team and a group of runaway Avengers who have teamed up to fight Lilith. So, you live in a castle, hang out with friends with strange powers, and work together to fight a powerful sorcerer who was long thought vanquished. It may take place in the Marvel universe, but that set-up is straight out of Harry Potter.
Most importantly, it captures the cozy vibe that was a key part of what made Hogwarts an appealing setting. The Harry Potter movies became holiday favorites because they worked for basically any time of year between Halloween and Christmas. The magic and pumpkins and butterbeer and monsters were good fall accompaniment, while the snow, heavy cloaks, roaring fires, and holiday decorations were a good fit for Christmas. The Abbey has a similarly autumnal aesthetic going on, with candles burning in every room, a warm orange glow cast on the walls, mahogany and leather furniture, and an overcast sky above if you venture outside.
The Abbey is also, in some ways, a school. Each hero has a dorm room, there are authority figures (like The Caretaker and the Avengers) and younger heroes who feel the need to prove themselves (like Nico and Magik), and many of the upgrades you unlock are focused on self-improvement and training. When I see Peter Parker hanging out on a couch or a barstool, he could really be any college guy hanging out in a common area, avoiding all the studying he needs to do.
I skipped Hogwarts Legacy but, as a lapsed Harry Potter fan, I couldn't help feeling a pang of nostalgia when I saw clips of players walking around the wizarding school I spent so much time thinking about growing up. Turns out, there was another game, free of any association with the global face of transphobia, that would scratch that itch just as well.