You can punch a tank in retro beat 'em up G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra

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Shouldn't have brought a tank to a fist fight.

It's a good time to be into retro beat 'em ups based on classic toys and cartoons. We had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge in 2022, and developers Maple Powered Games just revealed a new trailer for G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra at IGN Fan Fest.

It's a side-scroller in the tradition of arcade classics like Konami's X-Men, Ninja Turtles, and Simpsons games, only in this one you can play as Duke, Scarlett, Roadblock, Snake-Eyes, Gung-Ho, and either Grunt or Ripcord, I can't actually tell who the generic-looking last guy is. Everyone has a limited-use special attack, like Snake Eyes summoning his pet wolf Timber or Roadblock whipping out a huge gun, but it seems like we'll spend a lot of time punching and kicking Cobra dudes.

Which is why it's a good thing the punch is able to take out an armored vehicle, with Duke socking a HISS Tank at the 25-second mark. Makes sense to me, given that Cobra's resident ninja badass Storm Shadow once took out a tank with his bare hands in the cartoon.

G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra will have local and online multiplayer, and a soundtrack of "classic G.I. JOE themes, reimagined by industry veterans at Kid Katana Records". It also promises "extensive post-launch support, bringing more G.I. JOE heroes into the fray, adding new game modes, levels, and more". It's currently scheduled for a 2024 release, and will be out on Steam, GOG, and Epic. 

Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.