While characters like Spider-Man will always be wildly popular and appear in every video game they can possibly be squeezed into, ensemble Marvel games like Marvel Cosmic Invasion, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and Marvel Rivals are special due to how many characters and corners of Marvel Comics source material they can represent. Indeed, Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s cosmos-faring beat-’em-up game celebrates the Marvel pantheon by including as diverse a roster as it can.
Characters like Phyla-Vell, Beta Ray Bill, and Cosmic Ghost Rider are incredible in Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s playable roster, and yet Cosmic Invasion is not immune to including classic, well-known characters, either, such as Captain America and Iron Man. Cosmic Invasion previously had no Fantastic Four characters, and only three X-Men characters (Phoenix, Storm, and Wolverine), though fans of these high-profile Marvel affiliations suddenly have a great reason to revisit the game.
Shadow-dropped earlier today, Cosmic Invasion has added the X-Men’s Cyclops and The Fantastic Four’s Thing to its playable character roster. This duo’s debut as the first post-launch DLC characters in Cosmic Invasion makes sense in every way imaginable, including how popular Cyclops (clad in his beloved jacket, no less) has become following the premiere of the Disney+ animated show X-Men ’97, and how Thing balances the roster as another large “bruiser” character, like She-Hulk.
This spontaneous DLC update retails for $3.99, and is available on all platforms. If nothing else, Cyclops and Thing are a wonderful treat for X-Men and Fantastic Four fans who were praying that they would appear in Cosmic Invasion someday.
Cosmic Invasion is certainly the kind of game that could continue to grow and rise in popularity with more characters added, and there is always hope that new levels and villains will be added, too. Thankfully, Cosmic Invasion is not launching Cyclops and Thing and vanishing, and fans now have a lot to look forward to later this year.
Alongside this shadow drop, it was announced that Cosmic Invasion will have a second paid DLC update arriving this fall. Boasting a “new game mode” and “new playable characters,” it is neat to hear that Marvel’s 2D, side-scrolling brawler will receive even more new content, with gamers able to enjoy Cyclops and Thing in the meantime.
An all-new game mode offering fresh challenges for Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s Super Heroes (and Villains!) will be revealed later this year alongside even more playable characters ready to join the battle against Annihilus.
It is unknown how many more playable, post-launch characters are planned for Cosmic Invasion, though it would be safe to assume that two more will be released in this fall’s second paid 2026 DLC update.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is available now on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
