Marvel’s Midnight Suns delayed until late 2022 to add more content

Marvel’s Midnight Suns – no longer an Easter release (pic: 2K)

The first major delay of 2022 has been announced as rumours suggest 2K’s ‘Cthulhu meets Saints Row’ game has been cancelled.

One look at the relatively empty Christmas release schedules makes it clear just how many delays there have been this year, as the problems brought on by the pandemic continue to have a major effect on the games industry.

Although the issues will hopefully lessen next year, they’re not going to suddenly stop and so the inevitable first delay of the year has been announced as Marvel’s Midnight Suns – which was due out in March and now will not be out until the second half of 2022.

Midnight Suns is a card-based combat game from XCOM creators Firaxis, who explained on Twitter that they, ‘need more time to make this the best game possible’.

‘We believe in our creative vision for Marvel’s Midnight Suns and want to do justice in delivering an unforgettable adventure set in the supernatural side of Marvel’, adds the statement, in what has become familiar phrasing over the last several months.

Their final comment is interesting though, as they add that, ‘These extra months will be used to add more story, cinematics, and overall polish and will be essential in helping us make our vision a reality.’

So they don’t just need more time to finish the game, they want to add more to it than originally planned. To get the budget for that suggests that Marvel and publisher 2K are pleased with what they see so far, which is obviously very encouraging.

Midnight Suns was first revealed as part of a leak just before E3 this year, which also revealed Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and spoke about a new game by Mafia developer Hangar 13 that’s an ‘open world sci-fi title with supernatural elements’.

Supposedly codenamed Volt, and described as ‘Cthulhu meets Saints Row’ the game sounded intriguing, but unfortunately it’s apparently been cancelled.

The news comes via a Bloomberg report, which also claims that rumours Hangar 13 is working on Mafia 4 ‘were always false’, apart from long abandoned attempts in 2016-2017.

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Unusually for a rumour there’s also some direct evidence that it’s true, in that part of 2K’s latest earnings report mentions a $53 million (£39m) impairment charge ‘related to the company’s decision not to proceed with further development of an unannounced title’.

That not only adds some strong evidence to the idea that Volt has been cancelled but given the enormous amount of money involved gives a clear example of why publishers are always so reticent about creating new IP.

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