Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game was a 2010 downloadable movie tie-in that turned out to be an incredible beat ’em up, helping to lead an arcade gaming revival on console. Scott Pilgrim Ex is a spiritual successor to that project that’s getting the band back together for another River City Ransom-esque smash-fest down memory lane when it comes to PC and consoles in 2026.
The pitch is simple: run around the streets of Toronto as Scott, Ramona, and company beating up bad guys, completing quests, getting stronger, and trying to pick up every nearby object to see if it can be used as a lethal weapon against three rival factions consisting of Vegans, Robots, and Demons. There’s up to four-player co-op online, and it sounds like a somewhat nonlinear story will allow players to explore a segmented map consisting of various streets, stores, and alleyways with a high degree of non-linear freedom.
There will be seven playable characters, each with their full move lists unlocked from the start of the game, with an emphasis on combos and chucking everything from turnips to other enemies. The debut trailer at Summer Game Fest Live showed off a colorful urban playground full of slick combat animations. The backgrounds aren’t bursting with quite the same level of detail and depth as those in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, though that may come closer to launch. You can judge for yourself:
The original game was an incredible mashup of old-school inspirations, from exuberant pixel art to chip tune rock medleys, that paid tribute to a series of graphic novels about post-school slackers navigating social drama and paranormal supervillains using video game logic. It was also made by Ubisoft and remained trapped on old consoles until 2021 when the French publisher and Universal managed to untangle the licensing rights and port it to modern platforms.
Some of the people who made the original Scott Pilgrim game, including its game play designer Jonathan Lavigne, left Ubisoft to found the indie retro powerhouse Tribute Games, best known for Mercenary Kings and, more recently, making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge with Dotemu. In addition to Scott Pilgrim EX, it’s also working on the Marvel arcade brawler Cosmic Invasion, coming out later this year.
“Scott Pilgrim EX is the culmination of years of experience working on brawlers combined with our intimate knowledge of Scott Pilgrim,” Lavigne said in a press release. “It’s a full-circle moment for us. The original founders of Tribute Games all worked on the first video game incarnation of Scott Pilgrim before launching the studio in 2011. Coming back to this world feels like the most natural thing ever. This game is about friendship, our love of video games, music, and hitting robots in the face with a volleyball. It’s full of lore, references, easter eggs and passion. It’s the Scott Pilgrim game fans have been waiting for.”
In addition to retaining some of the talent from the first game, Tribute is reuniting with renowned pixel artist Paul Robertson and the 8-bit band Anamanaguchi. Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley will consult on a new original story in that universe along with Scott Pilgrim Takes Off showruner Ben David Grabinski (the Netflix series sadly didn’t get renewed for a second season).
That’s what I mean about getting the band back together, and I can’t wait.
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