Marvel’s Midnight Suns Friendship Levels play a significant role in the game, away from the combat side of things, and by improving the relationships you have with your superhero teammates you can earn cosmetics as well as passive improvements. There are various ways to do this, including taking those heroes on missions with you, sparring together at the Yard, and even just hanging out between assignments and having a good chat with them will help to improve your Friendship Level with a chosen hero.
You should engage in as many of the methods listed here as you can, to power level your friendships and get the best rewards and improvements as early as possible. Despite what you might think, this is not an aspect of Marvel’s Midnight Suns that should be ignored. Here's what you need to know about Friendship Levels, and how to increase them in Midnight Suns.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns Friendship guide
Friendship Levels are an XP-based system that allows you as the Hunter to improve your relationships with the rest of the characters in Marvel's Midnight Suns. It’s completely separate from a hero’s regular level and is represented by a little heart icon. If you want your team to be operating at its best, boosting Friendship Levels is crucial, as well as your team composition and card decks, so it’s good know exactly what you can do to earn Friendship XP. Here are all the ways we’ve found of earning XP and increasing your Friendship Level with your fellow Midnight Suns:
- Completing missions
- Hangouts
- Havens
- Giving gifts
- Conversations and Clubs
- Complimenting other heroes
- Sparring at the yard
- Fulfilling Hero Requests
- Petting Charlie
Friendship Levels start at zero and cap out at five, and you’ll unlock new things at each level, including unique cosmetics and outfits for your heroes and gameplay rewards. Once you’ve maxed out a level for a particular hero by earning enough Friendship XP, you’ll be invited to hang out with them through a private Superlink message. Accept this invitation and then you’ll level up your Friendship and get some rewards. You can also check Friendship Levels at any time under the Heroes menu. You can also see the rewards for hitting the next level for a specific hero whenever you're choosing someone to hangout with at night.
Increasing Midnight Suns Friendship Levels for individual heroes is good for getting cosmetics and specific improvements, but they also contribute to your Team Friendship Level, which gets you even greater rewards for general gameplay. These include powerful Hero Combo cards for combat, new features for the Abbey, such as the Gift Shop, and improved Friendship XP gains for Compliments. Even if you’re not interested in the cosmetics for each hero, it’s well worth increasing Friendship levels for the passive boosts and Team Friendship Level benefits you unlock.
Increase Midnight Suns Friendship Levels
Complete Midnight Suns missions
Taking Heroes on missions and completing them will get you two Friendship XP for your teammates. It’s not much but you should level up a few friendships just by playing through the story. Do note that Friendship XP is only earned from missions if the Hunter is on your team. This isn’t a problem for the main story missions as Hunter is a compulsory pick but for general missions, you’ll need to select the Hunter for your team if you want to earn some Friendship XP for your other heroes too.
Midnight Suns Hangouts
There are lots of useful Friendship Level tips here, but we've got more general Marvel's Midnight Suns tips in this guide
Hangouts are the most direct way of earning Friendship XP for a particular hero in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Immediately after a mission, you can go to the Abbey Common Room at night to find the Midnight Suns chilling out, and any heroes with a heart bubble above them can be joined for a Hangout. Heroes that you've just been on missions with are more likely to be available for Hangouts too.
You get to choose the Hangout activity from a list of options, but your choice is important as you’ll get slightly more Friendship XP based on how much the hero enjoys the activity. For example, we found that Doctor Strange enjoys engaging in some deep conversations, and Tony Stark likes stargazing, but Blade does not like playing cards and would prefer to train and exercise instead. At the end of a Hangout, you’ll get some Friendship XP for the enjoyment of the activity – more XP is granted if a hero ‘loves’ an activity rather than just liking it – the conversation you had during the Hangout, and for giving an appropriate gift.
Midnight Suns Havens
While you're exploring the Abbey for Havens, keep an eye out for the Elemental Rods in Midnight Suns too
Taking a hero to a Haven is like a special Hangout that can be initiated during the day by going up to a hero and choosing to invite them to a Haven – you’ll earn more Friendship XP than you would from a normal Hangout, but each Haven spot can only be used once, and each hero can visit just one Haven. For example, if you took Nico Minoru to the Shady Hill Haven, you wouldn’t be able to take Nico to any other Havens or any other heroes to the Shady Hill Haven.
Havens also need to be discovered out in the Abbey Grounds – look for glowing blue areas out and about and interact with them to unlock the Haven. As with regular Hangouts, you’ll can still gain more Friendship XP through conversation options and gifts, so don’t waste these opportunities to earn lots of XP.
Giving gifts
Giving heroes appropriate gifts during Hangouts and Havens is a great way to boost the total Friendship XP you earn from such an activity. The amount of Friendship XP gained from giving a gift is determined by the rarity of the gift, with common gifts awarding one XP and gifts of Rare, Epic, or Legendary rarity will award more.
However, you can’t just give any old gift to a hero, and it must be an appropriate item for the hero you’re hanging out with. For example, we gave Nico Minoru a skull and gave Doctor Strange a candle and they both seemed to enjoy their gifts, but Tony Stark or Spider-Man would likely not appreciate these. Consider the personalities and interests of the fellow Midnight Suns and use that to inform your gift ideas. Get to Team Friendship Level 2 and you’ll unlock the Gift Shop in the Abbey Common Room, giving you the opportunity to buy gift items using Gloss.
Conversations and Clubs
There are all sorts of dialogue options that will get you Friendship XP as you speak with your Midnight Suns companions, whether it’s during a normal conversation or as part of a Hangout or Club meeting – look for exclamation mark bubbles (!) above heroes or on the map as these signify that you can have a conversation with a hero. The XP gains are usually pretty small, but it’s obviously always useful to be earning Friendship XP wherever possible. Choosing a bad response, or one that you a hero disagrees with, can sometimes cause you to lose Friendship XP, so be careful with what you say.
We’ve found that opportunities for Friendship XP in conversations often coincide with Light and Dark conversation choices too. To gain XP from these dialogue choices, you’ll need to pick the choice that you think the hero you’re speaking to will appreciate most. We had a conversation with Magik that involved two of these choices and the Dark option gave Friendship XP for both, so it’s important to know that you might have to compromise your Light/Dark Balance if you want to purely focus on levelling Midnight Suns Friendships.
Compliments
Give out Compliments to other heroes and gain a bit of XP for your Marvel’s Midnight Suns Friendships. You have a chance to earn Compliments after completing a Research Project, completing a Hero Op, or increasing your Training Level at the Yard, and you can then give out these Compliments to heroes by approaching them and following the button prompt. The Hunter will say something nice to the Hero and you’ll earn some Friendship XP in return, although there are diminishing returns if you keep complimenting the same hero, so make sure you mix things up. You can check how many Compliments you have ready to give out in your inventory.
Sparring
You can spar at the Yard with one hero every day in Marvel’s Midnight Suns and doing so will get you three Friendship XP with that hero. Don’t forget to spar as it’s an easy way to gain small amounts of Friendship XP with a variety of heroes. Sparring is also a fairly reliable way of getting Marvel's Midnight Suns Arcane Keys as they can be offered as a reward for sparring. Although, be aware that once you spar with a hero, you won’t be able to spar with them again for another four in-game days.
Hero Requests
Hero Requests aren’t guaranteed to award Friendship XP for the Midnight Suns hero in need, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore these calls for help! Make sure you check your map for any heroes with question mark bubbles as it means they’ve got a Hero Request for you to complete and one of the two solutions to the request may award XP.
Petting Charlie
Don’t forget to pet Charlie the demon doggie once a day as this is the only way you can earn Friendship XP and level up with her. Doing so will enhance her abilities in combat, which you can use during Trials of the Elder Gods to unlock new areas of the Abbey grounds and reach more Words of Power.
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