Space Jam: A New Legacy is getting a video game tie-in that recalls the greatest arcade sports games of the 16-bit era. It’s a 2D, pixel art, side-scrolling beat-em-up in the vein of Shaq-Fu and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City.
Space Jam: A New Legacy: The Game was developed by Digital Eclipse. DE is the studio behind a number of updated retro classics. This includes the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, the Disney Classic Games doubleheader, and the recent Blizzard Arcade Collection. Clearly, these are people who know their way around a retro game.
The game is a three-player co-op brawler starring LeBron James, and Bugs and Lola Bunny. The trio must fight to save the Looney Tunes universe amid an all-out pop-culture war. Last year, Xbox ran a social media competition that asked entrants for design ideas. The winning ideas came from Ricky in the US and Narayan in India. The pair suggested “a classic beat ’em up game with a storyline that focused on the intersection of pop culture and game mechanics.” That’s a broad canvas on which to paint, but DE hasn’t let that dissuade them.
But we know what you’re asking. Will the game include any actual basketball? Time’s gonna tell on that one.
Space Jam: A New Legacy: The Game will launch exclusively on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Perks from July 1. This is a little different than the standard launch. Ultimate Perks is a free benefit program tied to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers that let players pick up perks, small bits of DLC, discounts and offers as part of their monthly sub. It will be more widely avaialble after that, across platforms, on July 15.
