A New Era of Marvel Fighting Games
It was in early June during a PlayStation State of Play when the world got its first glimpse of MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls, a new fighting game IP featuring some of the biggest names in Marvel Comics. Marvel and Sony had already grown close from their collaboration on Insomniac’s Spider-Man series, but with Fighting Souls, they’re taking a bold step into a whole new genre.
For decades, Marvel and Capcom were intertwined in the fighting space with their Marvel vs. Capcom series, which led to some of the finest fighting games of ’90s and 2000s, specifically when it came to tagging or switching out characters mid-battle. It appears that the MvC era has officially come to an close with this latest announcement, but now begins a new era with Marvel teaming up with Arc Systems Works.
If you’re unfamiliar with ArcSys, they’re the creative minds behind the 2D fighting games Guilty Gear and BlazBlue. In the last decade plus, they’ve also gotten very good at adapting popular IP like Dragon Ball, Granblue, and Persona to the fighting genre. While their signature series are known for their flashy, roguish, but gorgeous 2D art styles, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls feels just as stylish, only with a more optimistic, comic book style tone.
I was hyped about the game following its announcement, but didn’t have immediate expectations because I assumed the world’s first 4v4 tag-out fighter would be years away from release. So, you can understand my excitement when I woke up on Saturday, September 6, with a beta key in my email. (For context, the beta lasted 36 hours, beginning September 5 at 9pm PST and ending on September 7 at 8am PST.)
A 36-hour window is fast, even for a closed beta. I’m not going to get into the drama of Sony underestimating the number of people interested or how they had to rush to send out more keys after the initial September 5 beta window, but it was a blunder. Regardless, I was only free that Sunday morning, so it all worked out. In classic weekend morning fashion, I grabbed a bowl of cereal and locked in.
The Thrill of Combat
The nice thing about testing a new fighting game is that the developers tend to throw you into the action immediately. There’s something iconic about seeing characters duke it out for the first time. That initial view of how characters stand and move (even in place) will tell you a lot about what you can expect, and even more so when it’s an iconic superhero like Captain America.
The world’s first Avenger has a pretty versatile skill set of short- and long-ranged attacks (shout-out to that shield), which make him a perfect starter character. While the tutorial was decently long, it does a good job going over the fundamentals without being too boring. MARVEL Tōkon’s combat system offers sophisticated fun that consists of fast combos, deadly team combinations, and lots of transitions.
The basics start with a light attack, a medium attack, and a heavy attack, all of which can be used separately or in combination. Holding directional down and inputting a heavy attack is a launcher for each character, where opponents can be juggled sky-high and slammed into the ground. Meanwhile, holding the back button blocks incoming damage (this also works while crouching), and a jump button allows you to jockey for positioning and avoid attacks. Move sets change in mid-air as well, opening up new combos and skills.
All characters have unique moves you can active once the skill meter on the bottom of your side of the screen builds up and you input the correct combo sequence. There wasn’t a combo list to be found during the beta, so you had to feel out each character’s moves. With enough meter built up, you can hit the quick-skill button in combination with a directional button to turn normal skills into harder-hitting variations. These use up more of the skill meter, but result in increased damage. Additionally, each character has an ultimate attack they can unleash with enough meter stored.
Avengers, Assemble
Transitions are essential to MARVEL Tōkon. You start off with two accessible characters (out of four total) in each match and earn more by knocking characters off screen with light attack combos, throws, or team combination attacks. Characters also become available when a new round starts.
Once a character is available, you can tag them in for an attack and immediately start attacking with the newly tagged character. There’s a short window where you can switch characters or cancel the switch and keep your current one, which is something I haven’t seen in other fighting games. Often, fighters will have separate commands for tagging out and tag attacking, so this timed window does well to eliminate confusion and keep the gameplay quick.
The tutorial is straightforward and is nicely paced, so you don’t get bored learning the controls. However, there was a moment when I was asked to execute an attack combo and the NPC stood there auto-blocking it. Not one to waste time (I had 90 minutes until the servers closed), I had to bypass the last bit of the tutorial entirely. I wish there had been a “skip section” or “next/previous” option for the tutorial. Maybe in the final version.
Matchmaking Time!
At this point, it was time to get to the Good Stuff. Entering the matchmaking lobby, I was pleasantly surprised to enter a hub world instead of a traditional matchmaking screen, not unlike in Street Fighter 6. It was cool to customize my avatar, who could be changed to one of the six playable characters: Captain America, Doctor Doom, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, and Storm. Each had two unique color palettes, so I ran around as blue Iron Man (which gave me Mega Man vibes).
To actually get into a matchmaking room close to your location, however, required nothing short of a miracle. When I started, there were no East Coast rooms open, so I opted for the first Central Time room I could find. Ironically, I ran into a friend of mine, so we had to duke it out (shout-out to him winning two of our three bouts; I got you next time). Of the four games in that server, luckily only one of them had a horrible connection.
To be clear, even though you’re shown the opponent’s connection beforehand, I couldn’t tell what was good versus bad initially. I also noticed there were two different connection visuals used, so hopefully ArcSys will clarify this for the final version.
Nevertheless, even the laggy game I played wasn’t that bad, and character combos continued without being interrupted, albeit in slow motion at times. I prefer this over frames being skipped, so it was far from the worst video game lag I’ve played through.
The Soul of a New Fighter
MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls delivers absurdly fun team fighting. The matches are fast and favor offense heavily, at least based on my limited 90 minutes of play. Switching between characters is lightning quick, and what’s awesome is being able to continue combo chains as that character, with the option of tagging in someone else always within reach. With this in mind, the additional characters can really accelerate combat or drag things out if neither player is gaining momentum.
Zoning, or keeping your opponent at a particular distance, is going to be big in this game, especially in these slower moments. Often, I found myself figuring out how to close gaps across from an opponent and get in close. It’s instances like these where your team setup makes a big difference, as understanding character move sets becomes critical to exploiting openings or launching an effective counterattack.
Ultimately, this is a fighting game where knowing your team and building around their strengths/weaknesses will demonstrate your skills the most and determine how far you’ll go. Being able to chain combos between characters and sequence into big-hit attacks as you switch makes a huge difference in the outcome of a match. Likewise, covering long distances and knowing the timing of attacks to counter or dodge is critical to winning.
Each character has different combo sequences that lead to signature moves, which use some of your ability bars at the bottom of the screen. Using this tactfully can shift the momentum of fights greatly. Still, I do wish there was a defensive employ of this, since there’s not really anything you can do to break a 20-hit combo.
Some of my favorite moments involved characters clashing and canceling each other’s attacks, which made me feel like I was participating in an actual comic book battle. With attacks classified as light, medium, and heavy, striking first isn’t necessarily as great as knocking someone off balance or sending them flying.
Final Thoughts
Unequivocally, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls will be one of the hottest fighting games when it releases in 2026. If the final game is anything like what I experienced in my preview hours, it may go down as one of the all-time greats.
I’m eager to see what the full roster will be given the popularity of Marvel Rivals. I would love to see more X-Men characters, as a character like Bishop or Rogue could really switch up the pace of combat. In any case, we’ll learn what Marvel and ArcSys have in store soon enough.
As much as I enjoyed the MARVEL Tōkon beta, the game’s pacing could use a few tweaks to get just right. Here are some things I’d love to see:
- A faster throw. The current throw is a little slow and easy to avoid. Even with great timing, it’s hard to be effective.
- More efficient matchmaking. I’m sure the lobby setup using arcade machines was designed to make it feel interactive, much like Tekken 8. Hopefully the full game will include a menu-based option as well.
- A counterattack option. I would love the ability to perform a team counterattack or block given the innovation with the offensive options. Offensive momentum is heavy in the current version of Fighting Souls, so I’d love an incentive for more defensive-minded combat.
All in all, I’m looking forward to the full release and to terrorizing more of my opponents with Doctor Doom*, who has firmly turned out to be my favorite character thus far.
*As an aside, my condolences to the family of voice actor Takaya Hashi, who passed last month. He voices Doctor Doom in this game and made a career voicing iconic characters like Owl in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Toki from Fist of the North Star.
Are you excited about MARVEL Tōkon: FIghting Souls? Let us know in the comments!
Vaughn Hunt is writer who has loved video games since he picked up a controller. His parents wouldn't let him buy swords as a child (he wanted the real ones) so he started writing, reading, and playing video games about them. A historian at heart, you'll often find him deep into a rabbit hole of culture, comics, or music.
