Marvel's "Midnight Suns" (opens in new tab) was released last Friday, but one fan got it more than a year before we did: a GI.biz report (opens in new tab) tells the story of British terminal cancer patient Luke Wilshire and how, before he passed away, he was able to get a working build of " It describes the hard work Firaxis went through to get a working build of "Midnight Suns".

Diagnosed with neuroblastoma (a type of cancer that develops in nerve cells and primarily affects children) at the age of 14, Wilshire battled the disease for nine years until treatment options ran out last year. Knowing that the end was near, Wilshere made a bucket list of things he wanted to do with the time he had left. Chief among them was to play Marvel's "Midnight Sands."

For Wiltshire, a lifelong Marvel fan and video game player, Firaxis' social and tactical hybrid was a dream come true.

Fortunately, the charity that supported Wiltshire and his family (Solving Kids' Cancer) launched a social media campaign to get Firaxis' attention. It worked, and the studio's developers bowed out of the project to put together a build of the game that would not be released for over a year.

They pulled it off in one day, creating a working build of the game's first act for Wiltshire, which was handed to him on a gaming laptop by 2K social media manager Asim Tanvir. During the session, he had the opportunity to share his comic designs with Bill Roseman, Creative Director of Marvel Games.

In a blog post about the experience (opens in new tab), Solving Kids' Cancer CEO Gail Jackson wrote that 2K, Firaxis, and Marvel "did this purely from the purest of hearts, the best driving force of humanity."

"Heroes come in many forms, and at this most important time, they came in the form of the wonderful people at Firaxis, Marvel, and 2K."

Luke Wilshire died on November 12, 2021, just weeks after picking up the game; he was 23. Firaxis paid tribute to him by naming him as a game design consultant in the credits and carving "Luke W Was Here" on the monastery tree in the game; when Firaxis showed him the tribute, Wilsher said he had been "immortalized forever at Marvel."