Exis Interactive has entered into a publishing deal with Reverb to bring its side-scrolling action title, Majestic-12, to “digital platforms” on Xbox 360 and PC. The co-op shooter will be on display throughout PAX East in Boston from April 6—8. Ted Lange, executive producer of Reverb Publishing, described Majestic-12 as a retro game “in the vein of old-school shooters like Contra.” Exis previously did some work on F.E.A.R. 3 and XCOM.

The game is a classic story of a friendship gone awry: man and alien were once the best of buds, but no longer. Mankind, being the slimy backstabbing race it is, decided they’d had enough of that whole buddy-buddy routine and cooked up some diabolical plot or another to cross the aliens. Trouble is, the aliens found out; and they’re not exactly taking it in stride. Players will be thrown into bullet hell scenarios that Reverb seems to be attempting to coin a new term to describe — “core-casual.” It essentially breaks down to the old easy to learn, hard to master approach to gameplay.

Exis’ game is just slightly different from the actual Majestic-12, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation identifies as a clandestine committee that was purportedly “created to exploit a recovery of an extra-terrestrial aircraft and cover-up this work from public examination.” The Air Force investigated and found it to be fake. Bummer.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from creating a lengthy Wikipedia entry about the committee and linking it to the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico Area 51 incident. Skip on over if obvious UFO cover-ups; committees comprised of the world’s greatest scientists, soldiers and politicians; and that guy who won WWII are your thing. For more light-hearted fare, gamers will have to wait for the Majestic-12, which currently has no release date.