Retro-style superhero beat ’em up Marvel Cosmic Invasion releasing this year

Among the announcements from the most recent Nintendo Direct was Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Developed by Tribute Games Inc. and published by Dotemu, the developer and publisher behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge,  Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a similar 90’s style 2D beat ’em up where 1-4 players can play as a selection of famous Marvel characters as they combat an otherworldly threat led by the supervillain Annihilus.

According to the game’s Steam store page, Marvel Cosmic Invasion will include 15 playable characters. These include a mixture of prominent heroes from the Marvel universe, including Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine and Storm, as well as some lesser-known characters such as Nova and Phyla-Vell. It will remain to be seen who else will be joining the roster, but it is not unlikely that we may see other popular Marvel heroes, such as Iron Man or Black Widow, making an appearance. Players can choose two members of the cast to play as at the beginning of each level and switch between them at the press of a button using the Cosmic Swap tag-team system.

The game is heavily inspired by the Marvel-themed sidescrolling arcade beat ’em ups of the 90s, such as 1991’s Captain America and the Avengers or the X-Men game from 1992. Similarly to its work on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, Dotemu appears to have done an admirable job capturing the look and sound of the beat ’em ups from that era, with the performance and online capabilities afforded by modern PCs and consoles.

We don’t yet have an official release date for Marvel Cosmic Invasion. However, we are assured based on this announcement that that game will be releasing later this year, on  PC, Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4 and Xbox.