One Of Marvel’s Most Exciting Games Right Now Isn’t A Hero Shooter Or Fighting Game

Marvel has had some big wins and painful losses in the video game space over the past few years. Marvel Rivals took the hero shooter community by storm, and Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is primed to be a fighting game powerhouse. On the other hand, Cliffhanger Games was shuttered while working on a Black Panther game we never even got to see in motion, and let’s not forget the tragedy of errors that was 2020’s Marvel’s Avengers. For every Spider-Man success story, there’s an unfortunate fumble in the Marvel video game sphere. It’s a universe primed for big-budget swings after the superhero franchise has become such a cultural phenomenon in the wake of the MCU, but after years of big, unpredictable projects, it’s nice to go back to something that feels more like the old-school classics of the pre-MCU days than something that’s trying to bring heaps of glossy, prestige gravitas to a console near you. That vibrant, old-school appeal is exactly what I got when I played Marvel Cosmic Invasion at Summer Game Fest.

Cosmic Invasion is a cooperative beat-em-up made by Tribute Games, the studio behind some great retro throwback games like TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, and that’s currently also working on the upcoming Scott Pilgrim EX. Marvel beat-em-ups definitely had a moment in the ‘90s, with standouts like the X-Men arcade game. It’s been a while since we got one as modern as Cosmic Invasion feels, though it draws more heavily from the classic aesthetics of old Marvel comics than from anything you’ll see on a theater screen. Given the team’s pedigree, it’s no surprise that its take on Marvel is as stylish and satisfying as it is. Cosmic Invasion has you and a friend each pick two heroes to swap between on the fly as you knock around alien forces invading Earth. In the roughly 30 minutes I played, I chose to fight as Captain America and Wolverine. The two heroes specialize primarily in close-quarters combat, but America’s Ass could also perform some ranged attacks by throwing his shield. Wolfie’s attacks were far more vicious. I could latch onto enemies and gut them with my claws, almost like a grappler character in a fighting game. Those distinct differences, even between characters you’d guess would have similar playstyles, are what keep Cosmic Invasion from becoming a monotonous chore.

The beat-em-up genre is always toeing the line between mindless brawling and cathartic mayhem, and in my limited time with it, Cosmic Invasion kept me on my toes. Its waves of enemies are varied enough that a simple one-button combo wasn’t always going to do the trick, and each time I played as a different character, my strategies changed up pretty substantially. When I played as Spider-Man in a second run, the hero’s webswinging helped me get across the battlefield more quickly and deliver a devastating blow to enemies on the other side of the screen. Playing as flying characters like the weather-manipulating Storm made taking down airborne enemies a breeze, where land-locked heroes might have struggled with those pests.

Playing alongside a competent teammate also kept things interesting, as my player two and I would often juggle enemies back and forth between us like we were hackeysacking them, sometimes into environmental hazards like holes in the floor. Every so often, I would find myself falling into a rhythm of the same combos and strategies, but then a cool, unscripted moment like this would bring me back. Swapping between heroes at any time also kept me alert. If I started to get too comfortable with Captain America, I could switch to Wolverine and do something a little different. I enjoy beat-em-ups, but the genre has a lot of repetitive pitfalls that games in it can easily fall into. Thankfully, Cosmic Invasion has a lot of systems in place to try and alleviate those as much as possible.

While yes, I’m looking forward to the big stuff Marvel is putting out in the video game space, it’s also nice to play something a bit more simple and evocative of classic comic-book stories, and which employs a vibrant aesthetic that sometimes feels like it’s missing from most modern Marvel. Tribute Games is great at capturing a moment in time, and Cosmic Invasion is the kind of palate-cleansing throwback that reminds you that Marvel wasn’t always the biggest-budget entertainment property on the planet; once upon a time, you were more likely to see Captain America beating up some baddies as you fought alongside a friend at an arcade cabinet than to see him onscreen at your local multiplex. I’m looking forward to seeing if the game holds up over several hours when it launches on PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox later this year.