XCOM’s Jake Solomon on his new studio and what went wrong with Midnight Suns

Jake Solomon is striking out on his own.

The Firaxis veteran worked on XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, establishing himself as a leader in the tactical genre.

VGC last spoke to Solomon in February 2023 to discuss Midnight Suns. One week later, he’d left the studio he’d been at for more than two decades.

“I wasn’t drunk for our call, but I probably could have been,” he laughs, as we sit down to talk about his new studio, Midsummer Games. “People ask me if I left of my own free will, and I did,” he reflects. “I left Firaxis of my own free will, even though I really love the place.”

Founded by Solomon and other Firaxis veterans, the new studio is working on a life sim game, stepping out of the genre that Solomon once called home.

His departure came as a shock to fans in the wake of Marvel’s Midnight Suns. The game, which received warm critical praise, was also met with muted sales. However, when Solomon announced suddenly that he was to leave the studio, it left many wondering what was next.

“It’s been weird,” he says. “Not being there was really strange. I worked there for 23 years.”

Solomon isn’t leaving Firaxis behind entirely, however. “My new studio, we’re all in-office. We have a floor of the old Firaxis office, and the first person we hired was Ryan Meier, Sid’s son. Firaxis is probably like ‘What the hell is this guy doing?’ I’ve hired a lot of Firaxis people too. It doesn’t feel like the old times are gone entirely.”

While one Meier may now work with Solomon, his father, seminal strategy game designer Sid Meier, remains at Firaxis, working on the next entry in the Civilization franchise. However, Solomon hasn’t lost touch with his old mentor. “I still get to see Sid, he still stops by once a month or so.”

“Firaxis is probably like ‘What the hell is this guy doing?’ I’ve hired a lot of Firaxis people too. It doesn’t feel like the old times are gone entirely.”

If Firaxis is so close to Solomon’s heart and so much of the new studio is made up of old Firaxis comrades, then, why did he leave? “I got this bug in my head about the next game I wanted to do, and I knew it wasn’t a Firaxis game,” he explains. “I had the idea for a while, especially when we were making Midnight Suns.”

We ask if he spoke to Firaxis or publisher Take-Two about the project. He laughs and asks if we’re trying to get him sued.

“There was a question of what I wanted to do next. I had this in my head, eating at me. I thought, I could make another Midnight Suns, I could make another XCOM, which I love, but those games weren’t as exciting for me as this.”

The as-yet-untitled life sim has been in development for some time, and Solomon recently completed a prototype that he says is playable. The hope is to be able to show off more to the public next year.

“I was very naive about opening a studio, then it was like ‘how are you going to get funding,’ and I thought ‘I’ll just say I’m Jake Solomon and I’ll get funding’,” he laughs. “It doesn’t fucking work like that.”

Solomon says he’s very fortunate to have found funding, as the current climate in games led to more than a few sleepless nights for the veteran. “I thought I might have to crawl back to Firaxis and ask if they needed a junior designer on the next Civilization.”

“I was very naive about opening a studio, then it was like ‘how are you going to get funding,’ and I thought ‘I’ll just say I’m Jake Solomon and I’ll get funding’. It doesn’t fucking work like that.”

Working on a life sim means entering a genre dominated entirely by one game, The Sims. Naturally, we asked Solomon what makes his new game different, and what Midsummer is bringing to the genre.

“We’re definitely a life sim, but we’re more focused on story, on the relationships in your world,” he explains. “You can’t play this game without writing a story. I view it at least as much as a toy as it is a game. I view it like narrative Minecraft.”

While Solomon concedes it’s a departure from the past, he says that his experience with the strategy and tactics genre has been influential on the direction of the game. “We’re using a lot of the same tricks we’ve always used. I know to players of our stuff it’s going to sound so different, but we’re just back in our groove.”

We spoke to Solomon the week that Microsoft announced the closure of several Xbox studios. This comes against a backdrop of studio closures and layoffs across the industry, so how is Solomon making sure that Midsummer has the best chance?

“We know we have this amount of money, we know how much each developer costs, and we know how much time we have,” he says. “We’re very transparent about that. It’s pretty tough out there. Two years before this, if you were a director at Riot and you sneezed, you’d get $10 million seed funding. It feels like there’s a reconfiguration in the industry.”

Solomon also called the current state of the industry the worst he’d ever seen. “It feels like there are so many layoffs that you can get away with another huge one now, because there are so many piled on top of each other. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And how does he feel about Midnight Suns, now that the dust has settled and the game has gone on to become something of a fondly regarded cult favourite?

“The most typical reaction when people play Midnight Suns is surprise, and that’s not the reaction you want,” he laughs. “That is not the reaction that lends itself to mass appeal.

“I think cards were a major problem. I think it was a good design solution, but I think I was naive about what people would think when they saw the mechanic was cards. Not everyone on my team was behind the idea, but they trusted me.”