Skip to main content

1930s cartoons meet ‘Mega Man’ in new ‘Cuphead’ trailer

Cuphead Platforming Gameplay Reveal
If there were any lingering questions of what a 1930s Steamboat Willie-style video game would look like, it’s Cuphead. Studio MDHR has revealed the first platforming gameplay for its new game, and it looks like a Depression-era Mega Man.

Before this trailer, many were wondering if the gameplay would solely revolve around boss fights, as previous trailers had shown. Seeing actual Mega Man-style run-and-gun gameplay should put many worries to rest. Much like in Mega Man, enemies will follow patterns, and players must memorize those patterns and adapt accordingly. Your character also has some new never before seen moves, like a giant blast and a dash. Using this in conjunction with jumping on enemies should make Cuphead a speedrun-friendly game.

Cuphead has adopted an animation style most reminiscent of Fleischer Studios, which gave us Betty Boop and Popeye. Studio MDHR has painstakingly hand drawn and hand inked every frame of animation. It’s really the only way to get the desired effect the team is going for. That means that for every enemy you see bouncing around, each one of those frames was hand made. This, of course, has led to a prolonged development schedule. Cuphead was first announced at E3 2014, but development started as early as 2010.

The team is relatively small and is being headed by brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer. The team has steadily grown to 16 members, most of which are on the animation end.

When Studio MDHR first showed off Cuphead, the team stated that they would like to release it on the Sega Master System. It’s uncertain if that will still come to fruition, but Cuphead is set to launch sometime this year for Xbox One and PC via Steam.

Editors' Recommendations

Imad Khan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Imad has been a gamer all his life. He started blogging about games in college and quickly started moving up to various…
Microsoft Flight Simulator set for takeoff on Xbox Series X/S in 4K
An airplane flies over a city in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is on its way to the Xbox Series X/S very soon as revealed during Microsoft's E3 conference. The amateur flight simulator will be landing on the Xbox series X|S in just two days on July 27. It will also receive a Top Gun movie tie-in expansion that's coming in the fall of 2021.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is the latest entry in Microsoft's long-running series, which began in 1982. This new addition to the series was released in 2020 for Microsoft Windows and is finally making its way to console this year.

Read more
Microsoft shows off S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, sets April 2022 release date
stalker 2 release date gameplay

Microsoft showed off an extended gameplay trailer and revealed a release date for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. The game will release on April 28, 2022, for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and also will be a part of Xbox Game Pass.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl — Gameplay Trailer

Read more
Redfall, a new co-op shooter packed with vampires, set for summer 2022 release
redfall arkane release date reveal

A new game from Arkane Studios was revealed at Xbox's E3 presentation on Sunday. Titled Redfall, it's an open world, co-op survival shooter where players fight against swarms of vampires.

The trailer for Redfall shows various vampires fighting against a superpowered squad of humans. Each human has their own special abilities and weapons to take vampires out with, including a gun that shoots sunlight and another that fires stakes. According to a trailer for the game, players will be able to choose their hero "from a diverse roster, grouping up with others to create the perfect team of vampire slayers." The game is being developed by Arkane Austin, the same studio that made Prey.

Read more