Marvel’s Midnight Suns Switch version scrapped

Marvel’s Midnight Suns, the superhero strategy game from Firaxis and 2K Games, is no longer coming to Nintendo Switch. But the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions are still part of 2K’s plan, and will arrive on last-gen consoles on May 11 — a little later than expected.

Firaxis and 2K did not illuminate the reasons behind the game’s cancellation on a previously promised platform, merely acknowledging “that a Nintendo Switch version of Marvel’s Midnight Suns is no longer planned” in an announcement on Tuesday.

It’s likely that the commercial performance of Midnight Suns and the challenge of porting games to the underpowered Switch are factors behind that decision. Marvel’s Midnight Suns wasn’t a hit for 2K parent company Take-Two Interactive, CEO Strauss Zelnick said earlier this year. Zelnick placed some of the blame on a “release window [that] wasn’t perfect”; the game debuted on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in early December.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns will make it to PS4 and Xbox One the same day that the game’s fourth add-on, Blood Storm, which adds X-Men leader Storm, arrives on all other platforms. The three preceding DLC expansions (The Good, the Bad, and the Undead; Redemption; and The Hunger) will also be available on PS4 and Xbox One at launch.

Developed by XCOM studio Firaxis and designed by outgoing creative director Jake Solomon, Marvel’s Midnight Suns blends Marvel’s roster of superheroes, antiheroes, and supervillains with card-based battle strategy. In Polygon’s review of the game, we said Midnight Suns was “full of rich texture” and “tactically sophisticated card play.”

“Midnight Suns is not XCOM — but that’s ultimately its greatest strength,” our reviewer said. “It’s something completely distinct and entirely exceptional.”