Increasing your Midnight Suns friendship levels is what will ultimately put you over the edge, as it transforms your team into a family, and bonding with your Abbey-mates is the only way you’re able to unlock the most powerful cards in the game. As well as legendary abilities, you’ll also receive colour palettes, outfits, and eventually, the ability to perform combo moves while on a mission.
Picking your squad for a mission isn’t just about power, it’s about friendship bonds and who you synergise with – it’s not unusual to bring Midnight Suns characters along on a jaunt because they feel left out, or because you want some more one-on-one time. Increasing your friendship levels with your fellow superheroes not only grants you rewards but gives you a chance to find out about people underneath the flashy costumes in one of the best strategy games of the year.
How to increase your Midnight Suns friendship level
To increase your Midnight Suns friendship level, you need to earn friendship XP. When you first meet your team, you’ll be at the bottom of the ladder, level zero of five, and it’s only by interacting with these heroes that you’ll earn friendship XP.
The most common way of earning friendship XP is by talking. The art of conversation will grant you a little XP if you say something they like, or lose XP if you say something they don’t. The gains on this are minimal, but you’ll be talking a lot, so always try to make an effort with the people you enjoy spending time around
Hangouts are a way to earn large amounts of XP and are only available after completing a mission before you go to sleep for the day. Hangouts are more likely to appear on heroes who you ran a mission with that day and can consist of anything from taking a dip in the pool, to playing cards. After you’re done with your hangout, you’ll get the option of giving one of many Midnight Suns gifts, netting you even more XP.
There are also multiple Havens littered around the Abbey – single-use hangout spots that can give huge amounts of friendship XP. Each Haven needs to be physically interacted with to unlock. To take a Hero to a Haven, simply interact with them when the ‘Invite to Haven’ option is available. Havens can give you a huge boost to your friendship level, but note that each Hero can only be invited to a Haven hangout once, so pair their personality with the activities you think they’ll enjoy the most. The dourer Heroes, like Magik, will enjoy such activities as a picnic amongst the gravestones.
Running missions and sparring with heroes will also award you with friendship XP, so ensure that you’re rotating your roster when battling it out – or stick to the same few if you’re looking to befriend them first.
Midnight Suns friendship rewards
Increasing your friendship levels isn’t just about the wholesome togetherness of a team, as you’ll receive rewards whenever you level up, and ultimately gain access to that hero’s Midnight Sun ability. Each friendship level brings with it new outfits and colour palettes, and once you hit level five, you’ll be able to take on the Midnight Suns challenge to unlock a legendary ability and their Midnight Suns outfit.
Midnight Suns friendships add depth to what can sometimes be a bland roster of characters, and is one of the reasons that Midnight Suns is up there with the best PC games released this year, and potentially one of the best turn-based strategy games of all time. You aren’t always going to be choosing the most powerful characters at any one time, and taking along heroes you enjoy over ones that might be more effective speaks to how compelling these characters are. You won’t need that extra firepower if you’re using our best Midnight Suns Hunter build, anyway.