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Warhammer v Marvel
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We recently contrasted the promotional strategies employed by games Warhammer 40K: Darktide and Marvel's Midnight Suns. A light tickle versus saturation bombing.

Today launch trailers dropped for both titles (Darktide, Suns) so we'll play the comparison game again.

Watching Darktide's first, our first thought was tone - that'll be a major point of difference.

Warhammer 40K is a dark and grim universe and Marvel typically shows something akin to our world under threat by dark and grim forces.

Then we watched the Midnight Suns trailer and see New York and other major locations on Earth devastated by Lilith.

Making Midnight Suns near or possibly even post apocalyptic and bringing it closer to Darktide.

Perhaps the only holiday cheer in sci-fi gaming this month will be found in High on Life.

Quality wise Darktide is clearly superior to Midnight Suns.

Fextralife - operator of one of the main gaming wiki websites and also gaming reviewer / commentator - in trying to put a positive spin on their preview of the Marvel title describes it as between double and triple A.

For the benefit of non-gamers, triple A applies to big budget, high polish titles which usually but not always come from major developers.

Double or single A aren't terms you actually hear.

There's triple A, indie (independent / often small) and an unspecified in between.

You can see this game's double A qualification in both the dialog, which is a bit B grade, and also voice-acting.

Especially Doctor Strange at the beginning.

Marvel has long dominated the superhero movie scene because of their reliable, exceptional quality.

Prior to phase 4.

With a few high quality games they could have cemented themselves as an unbeatable brand.

Oh well.

Newly appointed co-CEO / chairman James Gunn seems to understand the increasing importance of gaming and has said that going forward, DC films, tv series and games will be part of the same universe.

With a few exceptions.

Unification is smart but in itself no guarantee of quality.

Marvel's Midnight Suns launches on December 2 on PC, Xbox One and X|S, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Nintendo Switch.

Warhammer 40K: Darktide launches on PC and Xbox X|S on November 30. Xbox users should already be able to play but PC users will have to wait until early tomorrow morning.

High on Life is scheduled to release on December 13 on PC and Xbox.

[ Main Image: Marvel's Midnight Suns launch trailer. Credit: Marvel via YouTube. ]

References

Fatshark (November 30, 2022). Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Launch Trailer. YouTube.

Fextralife (November 18, 2022). Midnight Suns Gameplay Impressions - Not What I Expected At All!! YouTube.

Marvel's Midnight Suns (November 30, 2022). Marvel's Midnight Suns - Official Launch Trailer. YouTube.

Sharf, Zack (November 28, 2022). James Gunn: ‘Some’ Standalone DC Projects Will Still Exist Outside of a DC Universe That Connects Film, TV, Animation and Games. Variety.