Ever since 2018, Marvel Games has been on a hot streak with releases based on the iconic IP, from last years incredibly popular hero-shooter Marvel Rivals, to the tactics based Midnight Suns release from Fireaxis Games to everything in between. While Cosmic Invasion is indeed a wonderful addition to the current renaissance of beat-em-up games, in some aspects the game falls short of Tribute’s last shot at the genre in TMNT Shredder’s Revenge.

PREPARE FOR ANNIHILATION!

The premise of the story for Cosmic Invasion is simple; Annihilus is released from the Negative Zone, and starts his plan to conquer the universe under his control, and our heroes must band together to put a stop to it. The game features 15 playable heroes, with 11 being available right from the start. These include fan favorites, such as Captain America, Wolverine and Black Panther. Other less known heroes such as Silver Surfer, Cosmic Ghost Rider, and Beta Ray Bill help make this problem feel grander in scale, making Annihilus feel like a large threat in the story. Throughout the 15 levels included in the game you’ll travel to various Marvel locations, including the Shield Helicarrier, Wakanda and Asgard, as well as some other surprises in the later levels.

Having tried all 15 characters, I’m happy to say that each character feels unique in every sense, from unique animations, attacks and combo chains, and voice lines. While each character has a basic attack, a move unique to each of them, and a block or parry, they each feel uniquely suited to their character and how they work within the game. Captain America is able to block incoming projectiles with his shield, as well as throw it at enemies for a long range attack.

Beta Ray Bill and Silver Surfer were the 2 standout characters for me, with Beta Ray being a heavy character who could throw his hammer in place, and then combo enemies into the hammer for additional hits and damage. Silver Surfer on the other hand had the best kit available. He’s able to parry, have a long range attack that deals damage over time, and his attack chain combo can even hit flying enemies, making him the character I’d use to replay missions to work on challenges.

The major game changer here is the ability to select 2 characters to play as, swapping in whenever you want or even just coming in as an assist on a attack. This feature feels very familiar if you’ve played Marvel VS Capcom at all, and functions very much the same way. Being able to pick 2 different heroes to pair up and compliment each other really opens up the game to different team comps and various ways to play the game, and I hope this gets implemented in future games in this genre.

I’m happy to say that the game features 4 player drop-in drop-out co-op up to 4 players both locally and online with crossplay, meaning you and up to 3 friends can drop in together and ride the whole game together or just a quick 15 minute level here and there. In terms of modes, there’s 2 options based on how you want the game to play, Campaign mode and Arcade mode. Arcade is your classic brawler you played back in the day, certain amount of lives, no stat boosts, and no saves. If you ever went to the arcade back in the day and had 1 too many quarters spent, you’ll know what you’re in for here.

Classic Beat-Em-Up Campaign

When you make your way to the campaign, you’re introduced to the premise of the story by the Watcher. The game setup is simple, you’re allowed to bring whichever 2 characters you want to play as into the level, and that’s who you’re stuck with for the remainder of the level. At the end both characters will be rewarded XP based on amount of enemies defeated and combo chains, and will unlock new passive abilities and health and focus upgrades on level up. Sticking with your favorite characters is encouraged due to these upgrades that will help buff up your hero. If you’re just looking to run through the game without worrying about challenges or unlocking different color options for your heroes, you’re looking at a roughly 4-6 hour campaign here for you to dive into.

Thankfully, there’s plenty of reasons to keep playing, whether that’s completing challenges, finding a hidden cosmic cube in every level, or trying to unlock points for the giant cosmic matrix that grants new colors for heroes, more files for the database for the characters in the game, or even music to listen to in the gallery. Much like Shredder’s Revenge, Tribute and Dotemu have given players reasons to keep playing the game, outside of just having a outstanding and fun game to play.

There is one thing here that was not in Shredder’s Revenge that slightly soured the campaign for me. Each levels mini quest is based around 2 certain heroes, who will be outlined with a white box on the character select screen. You’re not forced into playing these characters, however each level has 3 challenges associated to it, and 2 of the 3 generally are centered around doing certain moves or killing a certain amount of enemies with said characters.

I don’t think the basing levels around certain characters is a bad idea, but it definitely starts to feel unbalanced the further into the game you get. Once you get to some of the later levels you get to harder enemy variety and larger numbers of enemies to deal with at once, and having levels balanced around characters who have not been leveled up at that point can make the level more frustrating than it needs to be. For example, Rocket Racoon doesn’t show up until level 10 unless you select him, leaving you to play through with a level 1 character.

Another example is a level where you have to fight a boss 3 times throughout the level while having to deal with environmental hazards, and neither character can fly. I had to replay the level a few times just to figure out a team comp that worked best to deal with not only the boss and their attacks but also being able to avoid the hazards. Thankfully most levels don’t have this issue, but for the few that did it made me scratch my head wondering if anyone had tried those out.

Nostalgia of a Bygone Era

When you load up Marvel Cosmic Invasion for the first time, you’re instantly transported back to Saturday mornings with a bowl of cereal watching the newest episode of your favorite Marvel cartoon. The pixel art is gorgeous, the characters look amazing in their classic costumes.

Tribute definitely wears their inspirations on their sleeve, there’s nods to everything Marvel related in this game. Between getting the voice actors for Storm and Wolverine to reprise their roles from the X-Men animated series (Cal Dodd as Wolverine and Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, respectively) or Captain America touting his “I can do this all day” line that the MCU character has made famous, to everyone’s new favorite land shark even showing up in one screen. Each level you can tell was handcrafted with care and love for the source material. You can instantly point out iconic locations and characters from Marvel’s long history, and there were a few times where I would just stop to take in the simple, but lovely environment that these characters are shaped in.

One main critique that I have here is the music. While all the level tracks here are fine and work for what they are, nothing stands out and really sets the mood for any of the levels. Maybe I didn’t catch any during all the chaos on screen, but I didn’t catch any parts of any classic Marvel themes either, which I thought for sure was going to be a shoe-in. I know music is just one aspect of what makes a game great, but a wonderful and well-placed score can do wonders on how a player interprets and see’s the finished project, and the score here didn’t do that for me, unfortunately.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a great addition to the beat-em-up genre. While not quite reaching the heights of other recent greats like Streets of Rage 4 or TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, Tribute Games still developed a wonderful game that will keep you and your friends entertained for hours. I’m excited for the future of the game, and if Shredder’s Revenge post-game support is anything to go by, we’re in for plenty of treats regarding future character additions and updates. Marvel Cosmic Invasion is insanely fun to play and definitely worthy of your time.

Reviewed on Xbox Series X. A thank you to Dotemu for providing a review code.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion launches on December 1st 2025 for Playstation 4/5, Steam, Nintendo Switch 1/2, Xbox Series and Gamepass Ultimate.