The Nostalgia Factor in Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Marvel Cosmic Invasion has quickly become a fan favorite, with over 1.5 million players diving into its retro-inspired beat 'em up action. As a parent, I've found myself enjoying the game alongside my eight-year-old son, who loves the local co-op feature that lets us both jump into the action. This cross-generational experience is exactly what Marvel Games aimed for with the title. As Eric Monacelli, Marvel Games executive producer, explains, the goal was to spark conversations between older and younger gamers, using the nostalgia of '90s beat 'em ups to bring families together.
A Game Designed for All Ages
IGN: I’ve had a huge amount of fun playing Marvel Cosmic Invasion with my son. Is that what you’re seeing as a typical experience of people playing this game, where for parents it’s nostalgia but they can play with their kids because it has local co-op?
Eric Monacelli: Yeah. That's the goal we set out to, right? We want to preserve some of that history and some of that zeitgeist. I grew up with a lot of the old Marvel beat ‘em ups that were in Marvel MaXimum Collection and played those. But that sort of cross-generational appeal, appealing to the nostalgia and the retro feel, and then getting parents to be able to play that with their kids, and then you can debate about, who likes their version of the game better? Is the old Spider-Man beat ‘em up up better than the new one? I love that sort of conversation happening and making games that really linger and last and create generational debates and conversations, and just stir up a whole new set of opportunities for the younger generation to become Marvel fans, and also for the older generations to revitalize their love of Marvel or have a new fresh take on it from a different perspective. That's what we've been striving for and that's awesome to hear that you're playing with your kids.
IGN: My son has lots of questions about the various characters that are in it. He knows the big ticket Marvel characters, the ones that have been in the MCU, for example. But you've got some obscure ones in there. He didn’t know Beta Ray Bill for example. How do you decide on the lineup? How does Beta Ray Bill happen rather than Thor?
Brian Marquez: We wanted to have characters that people recognized and that people were familiar with because we wanted people to grasp onto somebody that they immediately could resonate with. But we also wanted to have characters that were fresh and new, that people could become new fans of, or to ask questions about like your son had. But when it came to choosing somebody like Beta Ray Bill over Thor, we really wanted to work with our dev collaborators to come up with characters that had unique movesets. So with Beta Ray Bill specifically to your question, we wanted to have somebody with a different weapon. Yeah, Thor had the Mjolnir, but Beta Ray Bill had the Stormbreaker. So how could we make the Stormbreaker different and more appealing and more interesting in that gameplay comparatively to a Thor, and how can he be different and more bombastic in this title?
Eric Monacelli: And from a high level too, just like you said, your son was interested about Beta Ray Bill and we want that conversation. You probably had to explain who Beta Ray Bill was to him, I assume, right?
IGN: Absolutely!
Eric Monacelli: So that's exactly what we're going for. If you're a casual fan and you just know Thor is Thor, or you're a hardcore Marvel fan and you know who Beta Ray Bill is, we want those conversations to happen between generations, and having those educational moments. That was a very important thing, and I think it’s great for not only our IP, but just for story continuity and really good storytelling and continuing these characters' legacies.
The Beat 'Em Up Genre and Its Appeal
IGN: It’s a beat ‘em up. Is there something about beat ‘em ups that really lend themselves to what you're trying to do here? Is that the perfect genre for the nostalgia play, but also to try and get that cross-generational play together, as opposed to say more traditional AAA action games that might have more to them but might be more complex, or even fighting games, which might be more complex still?
Brian Marquez: What's great about beat ‘em up games is that they're so easy to pick up and play. They are difficult, yes, but they're just easy to pick up a controller and just hop on in either by yourself or with a group of people. And as we've all experienced here with the older generation of games, the ones that we see in the MaXimum Collection or with Marvel Cosmic Invasion — Eric mentioned that he grew up with some of the games. I still have my childhood cartridge of Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage, literally in the other room — those games are super great because you can literally just turn it on and hop into the game with very little barrier to entry. And with these, we really wanted to have that same experience for people. You just turn on the game, you jump in, and you're immediately in the fun. And Tribute, the developers for this one, and Dotemu,
