Marvel Cosmic Invasion

Written by Joseph Moorer on 12/9/2025 for PC  

Double Dragon. Golden Axe. Final Fight. Ninja Gaiden (Arcade). Captain Commando. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Turtles In Time. Hyperstone Heist. Shredder’s Revenge. The Simpsons. Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 4. Sunset Riders. X-Men. 8 Man. Battletoads. Knights of the Round. Absolum. In no specific order, these are the multiplayer games that shaped the side scrolling beat 'em up genre for me. These are the games I will forever recommend to anyone who wants to play multiplayer and have the most fun they could possibly have. Most of these started as couch co-op, but now through various means, we can all play them together as if we were in the same room. The latest and greatest is now Dot Emu’s new Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Because if it ain’t broke, then add Marvel Characters to it. 

Marvel is having a video game prom as of late. Capcom’s Marvel VS Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics released late last year. Net Ease Games’ Marvel Rivals was released shortly after. The upcoming Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls by Arc System Works will be released sometime next year, and has already had two betas. Marvel has lent out their superheroes to practically anyone who makes video games, and hardly any of them have missed the mark. 

Marvel Cosmic Invasion follows the Cosmic universe, which is complicated all in itself, but matters not. It just gives us more superheroes to play. The big bad here is named Annihilus, former super adversary to the Fantastic Four, who are not in the game. Annihilus has been released from the negative zone, and will use the cosmic rod to lead the cosmic invasion across the universe. Nova and The Watcher explain all this in the beginning, and you get more story arcs with different characters after each level with comic book-esque panels, and full voice acting. 

While there are usually four to six characters in beat 'em ups to choose from, Marvel Cosmic Invasion gives you a whopping 11 characters from the start. This roster spans comic book history. It includes Nova, She-Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Black Panther, Iron Man, Captain America, Rocket Raccoon, Storm, Cosmic Ghost Rider, and Beta Ray Bill. As you’ve seen, Venom, Phoenix, Silver Surfer, and Phyla Vell are also in the game, but must be unlocked during the campaign. 

The campaign is fairly simple, as are most beat 'em ups. Go through the stage. Beat up everything and everyone, fight the boss, move on. I won’t bore you with those details, but I will point out some things you definitely should know going into this game. As you go through the campaign, it will sometimes split in two directions. Don’t worry too much if you choose one branch over the other. You can easily go back and complete the stage you didn’t go to. I don’t believe the game lets you proceed without completing both stages. 

I had quite the time going through the different characters. I enjoyed playing with the majority of them, and they weren’t overwhelming to choose from. When choosing your characters, you get to choose two, and they all have their own move set, even though the controls are the same for all the characters. During gameplay you get to switch between them with very little cooldown. You can bring them in to do a move, or even use a special. They both have their own life bars, and their own special meters. The life bars even recharge the red damage taken as they sit out. 

My first tip is to choose a flying character, and a grounded character. Always. For all time. The reason is twofold. During the campaign, there are challenges. They are specific to the characters you choose, and the game alerts you to this in the character select screen by highlighting them. You can also view the challenges on the same screen as the level select. Keep in mind that during multiplayer, only the player who chooses the specified characters can complete these challenges, and no one else gets credit for them. You know, because replay value. 

The second reason you want to always choose a flying character and a grounded character is because there are small but annoying platforming sections. They’re only annoying because I’m not used to them in beat 'em ups. It’s my own personal hurt box. Dropping in pits on this game doesn't cause that much damage. I’m complaining for nothing. Choosing a flying character is for that convenience, and smacking flying enemies out the air. With She-Hulk, you can just jump and snatch them out of the air like Jax from Mortal Kombat. Another thing to note is that some of the challenges will make you choose two grounded characters, unless you count Spider Man, Silver Surfer, or Venom as hybrids.

That last sentence explains the beauty of this game. I said earlier that they all have their own move sets, and they do. Some characters have throws. Some characters can snatch enemies from across the room. Everyone has an overpowered special that uses a meter. You can build that meter back up by smacking people around and using combos, which are super simple to pull off. Everything you do just works, with no button delay. Anything you want to do, you can do in this game. 

With these moves also come projectiles that they can use, and these also vary per character. While with Nova, you can shoot two or three projectiles before a recharge, Captain America can throw his shield once, an unlimited amount of times. They’re all different, and this is why the game has more closeness to a Streets of Rage move set than anything else. Calling the other characters at will can also use these projectiles too, so if you ever find yourself in trouble, tag in. You can take over the characters you tag in too. This felt comfortable, and not the burden based on my own self-invoked skepticism. 

Adding a little something more to this excellent game, is elemental damage. Storm’s electric attacks can do more damage to sentinels. Phoenix’s fire attacks do more damage to bugs and living creatures. The combos you can do in this game are a work of art. You also have to give credit to the audio and voiceover team. Not only do the characters have their own comic book quips for their moves, but they talk to each other as they’re tagged in. These additional details are what will keep this game going for a while. 

I’m sure they’ll patch out the juggling, but my party was having tons of fun beating down an enemy or boss, only to continue  juggling them across the screen long after their demise. Some of the levels lead to unlocks, so I won’t spoil that for you. The bosses here are bosses you would not expect in a beat 'em up. It’s like Tribute, and Dot Emu just kept asking Marvel for things, and Marvel just kept saying yes. All the bosses have their own moves and phases, and even have armor. The Beetle even gets some love here. Speaking of, seeing all these cameos and characters in this game is a real visual treat. 

The game has full crossplay, no matter the system. In our party, Wolfen Films and I were on Steam, Black Retro Gamer was on the Xbox, and Q The Gift was on the PlayStation 5. All of this worked seamlessly. We ran voice chat through discord, and I’m sure with the right implementation, all systems will go that route, except for the Nintendo Switch. They always do their own thing. You can drop in and out at any time, and you can lock your room to a code, or let anyone in. You can also join other people's playthrough whenever you want, and pause in game to check challenges while the action is still going on. It is limited to four players, unlike Shredder’s Revenge’s 6, but at least you can choose two characters. At some point, you can have all eight characters on screen with no slowdown if you time it right. 

As you’re completing the game, keep in mind that you can go back at any time and complete the challenges you missed, or you can go through the entire game and then do the challenges. As you already know there are things you can pick up, like food or special attack refreshers. If you eat a huge piece of food, you and your partner get life refilled even if they have been defeated. At every stage completion, your characters level up, which means more HP and permanent upgrades. You can even acquire passive skills. She Hulk gets extra damage after throws, for example. Again, more replay value.

Hidden in the stages are Cosmic Cubes. These are used in the Vault on the main menu. Within the vault is the cosmic matrix. It looks like a skill tree, but it isn’t a skill tree. Using the cosmic cubes lets you unlock color pallets, music, arcade modifiers, and corps files. There are 101 of these to unlock, and I believe you get  four cosmic cubes per find. I also think you get cosmic cubes from defeating bosses and stages, but don’t quote me on any of that. I just know that when I opened the vault, I had 40 cosmic cubes to spend as my leisure. Corps files are just background info on all 41 characters and enemies in the game. You can figure out what unlocks what if you look at your unlocks correctly. Color is the key. 

Arcade modifiers are for the arcade mode, and once you unlock those, you can play a straight forward campaign with very little fluff. You can toggle modifiers like difficulty, and strength of enemies. My favorite modifier is to change the number of enemies, regardless of how many players. This means with one player, the game sends out enemies like there are four players. I did hard difficulty, with extra strength, and the four-player enemies. Got wrecked. There is also a modifier for everyone to choose the same character. Four Wolverines on the screen seems pretty cool.

So, I immediately gave Shredder’s revenge a 10. I based it on the nostalgia the game brought back. I based it on the fact that I was beating up Shredder in New York City with a Wu-Tang song in the background. While there are many stages here, I don’t know if they’re as fun as Shredder’s Revenge, and even Digital Eclipse’s Power Rangers rail stages. They got everything right here. Crossplay. Characters. Comic book visuals. Unlockables. It's all here. It feels complete. 

This is the entire package. I don’t have any real complaints about it. I just haven’t played it since we beat it. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the fault of the game. I feel like I was handed all the things to keep me from pointing out that I was handed all the things. It was kind of easy, honestly. They gave me everything. The DLC will probably give more, like a boss rush, or a survival mode. Will I want that? Where are my friends? Let’s beat the game again. And again.