Cosmic Hero 2 Prologue

THE STORY

In the 31st century, Earth's civilization is fully self-sustaining —powered by Lazium, a rare energy source extracted from distant planets. Massive autonomous facilities known as AXONs (Autonomous Extraction & Optimization Nodes) mine and refine this energy, sustaining humanity’s ever-growing needs.

Until one day, the transports of Lazium stop and communication with the AXONs is lost. Now it's only a matter of time before energy reserves run out and civilization collapses.

Your mission: reach the nearest AXON, recover as much Lazium as possible, and delay the forthcoming catastrophe.

The task is not trivial. AXON is damaged, and its interiors are in disarray, with Lazons (liquid Lazium units) and various pieces of facility equipment scattered throughout. Security systems are malfunctioning, and the wiring that controls barriers granting access to subsequent sectors is incomplete.

THE GAME

Cosmic Hero 2 is a retro sci-fi puzzle/arcade game for 8-bit Atari XL/XE machines (but you can run it on Windows too), inspired by classic Polish titles from the late 1980s and early 1990s —Lasermania, Robbo, and Captain Gather—which themselves drew from the legendary Sokoban. Cosmic Hero 2 builds on these foundations and introduces a variety of novel mechanics, delivering rich and varied gameplay never before seen on 8-bit machines.

It's a spiritual sequel to the original Cosmic Hero, created in 1993—now revived by the same team, just 30 years older and a whole lot more experienced.

Cosmic Hero 2: Prologue is a preview of the upcoming full release of Cosmic Hero 2. Rather than a typical demo, it’s a self-contained mini-game featuring 8 maps, 3 possible endings, and approximately 1–1.5 hours of gameplay on the first run.

Cosmic Hero 2: Prologue is a winner of 8th ATARI Homebrew Awards (2026) in following ATARI 8bit/5200 categories: best game graphics (original), best game music & sound (original) and best game (original).

OBJECTIVES

PRIMARY

• Collect all Lazons (liquid Lazium units) to activate the power source block.

• Connect the power source to the exit barrier using Lazium-conducting blocks scattered throughout each sector. There are six types: horizontal, vertical, and four directional turns.
• Transmit energy through the completed connection to destroy the barrier and unlock passage to the next sector.

OPTIONAL

• The cause of the AXON facility malfunctions remains unknown. Explore each sector thoroughly—you may find secrets and uncover something unexpected, and possibly more valuable than the Lazium itself.
  

CONTROLS

• Joystick Port 1 (arrow keys on emulator) / WSAD - move player.
• Fire (Ctrl on emulator) / Shift - activate energy flow (when standing still next to the energy container object such as power source block or a battery).
• Esc / hold Fire (Ctrl on emulator) for 3s. - restart map. Note that for Fire hold to work you cannot stand in a place in which other Fire action gets triggered.
• Return - back to the title screen.

When you run the game via Altirra emulator you have a few extra shortcuts:

• Shift + F5 - restart the entire game,
• F9 - pause/resume the game,
• Alt + Enter - toggle fullscreen mode on/off,
• Alt + F4 - exit the game.

FEATURES

• Custom high performance game engine,
• large maps (up to 63x63 cells) with horizontal and vertical scrolling,
• full screen game window (no HUDS taking away screen space),
• colorful, detailed graphics,
• parallax effects,
• avant garde, unique in style soundtrack,
• intricate game mechanics with interactions complexity never seen before on 8-bit machines,
• player-friendly: no score, no lives, restart a map at any point,
• smooth 50fps at all times.

NEED A HINT?

We've got the official speed run video (spoilers!) showing all the solutions in under 17 minutes. Perhaps you can do it faster?

Download and installation

Atari XL/XE
Download the cartridge .car file and run it on a real hardware or under an emulator.

Windows
We have a prepackaged version of the game that you can run on Windows with just a few steps. See instructions in the CosmicHero2PrologueWinInstall.pdf file.

System requirements

Atari XL/XE PAL for playing on a real machine.
Emulator to play on Windows or Mac. 

When playing the game under Altirra emulator the Altirra 3.20 PAL color palette preset in View/Adjust Colors panel is recommended (looks best on a modern screen).

Credits

Game design, graphics, level design: Łukasz Pazera
Coding: Krzysztof Święcicki
Music: Krzysztof Bryła
Lead tester: Tomasz Boksa
Playtesting:  Jerzy Dukaj, Piotr Król, Grzegorz Ajchler

Cosmic Hero 2: Prologue is free to play. If you like what you see please consider supporting the development of the full game.