I am playing Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Like any big modern game, it is a sloppy mess of systems, for which the balance and neatness of design doesn’t matter as the point is the joy of the complex systems smooshing together.

Many characters can take actions to add the “Lifesteal” modifier to attacks. Traditionally, Lifesteal (or Drain etc.) means a transfer of hit points to an attacker from the recipient of an attack. The game is aesthetically and narratively very vampiric/necromatic/goth themed, so this makes sense. So far so good.

In a recent mission, we had to stop a helicopter from taking off. Since our only verb is attack (there is nothing nuanced like sabotage or threaten), we need to attack the helicopter a bunch to stop it. In all games ever, the result of an attack is to remove hit points from the target of that attack. This means our current mission is the bring the helicopter’s hit points to zero. I had one character with very low life, and so instead of choosing a better attack, I instinctively switched to a card with Lifesteal. However, Sir, this is a helicopter.

In the preview of the attack on the helicopter, I saw no indication that the Lifesteal wouldn’t work as usual For a game studio with normally such excellent UI (Firaxis), I was taken aback. Either the Lifesteal would work on the helicopter (ridiculous, immersion breaking), or the UI was inconsistent and the Lifesteal would fail (offensive, unprofessional).

But then I noticed the character I controlled was Ghost Rider. I don’t know much about Ghost Rider at all, but I feel he is…somehow…part vehicle. I refuse to look this up. Sense feels restored now. All is well.

The Lifesteal worked, Ghost Rider damaging the helicopter somehow got him HP back. Many have written on the metaphor of what hit points are exactly; one possible model is simply “self esteem”. We did win the mission. Celebrations back at base. Perhaps Ghost Rider was deeply touched by the experience.

I have no information on whether other characters can Lifesteal from helicopters. Perhaps Iron Man.