Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls[b] is an upcoming fighting game developed by Arc System Works and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Featuring characters appearing in Marvel Comics publications, the game is premised on a tag team system that entails beginning matches with a single fighter and an assist character, and gradually unlocking a full lineup of four characters by fulfilling mid-match conditions such as damage accumulation and "Wall Breaks" that transition fights across multiple arenas in a stage, culminating in 4v4 gameplay that alternates between assist-based combat with singular characters and an active tag mechanic that enables players to control other fighters in their lineup.
SIE's interest in creating a new first-party fighting game led them to approach Marvel Games following their successful collaboration on the Marvel's Spider-Man series. Sony courted Arc System Works to develop the title with Marvel's approval. Production began with the goal of incorporating a system that was approachable for newcomers to the genre, but with a depth that satisfied the game's potential for competitive play. The game's roster accommodates Arc System Works' variety of gameplay archetypes, comprising major Marvel characters and obscure selections that have not appeared in previous Marvel fighting games. The game was officially announced in June 2025.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5 and Windows in 2026.
Gameplay
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is a 2.5D fighting game in which players compete against each other in tag team combat using an ensemble of Marvel Comics characters.[1] Players must knock out all opponents on the opposing team through repeated attacks which drain a health bar.[2] Iterating on other tag fighters and previous Marvel-based fighting games such as the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise, Fighting Souls employs a 4v4 system which allows the player to alternate between a setup of one primary character and three assist fighters who can be called in for additional offense, or an active tag system enabling the "leader" to be swapped out for other fighters during the match and individually controlled.[3] When matches begin, players will be restricted to only using their primary character and a single assist fighter, gradually enabling access to their full team as they fulfill certain mid-match conditions such as "Wall Breaks", a returning mechanic from the Arc System Works title Guilty Gear Strive (2021), that is triggered when a combo or high-damaging move is performed in the corner of the arena.[4][5][6]
Contrasting other tag-based fighters and previous Marvel titles, teams in Fighting Souls all share a single health bar, known as a Vital Gauge, that extends over the course of a round as more of a player's team is made accessible.[7] Assist mechanics are represented by an "Assemble Gauge", with each character's move being dictated by the type of attack mode they are designated by the player during character selection. Forward Assist types are relegated to using projectile attacks for disrupting other fighters as an example, while Downward Assists are more effective for anti-air interruptions. The assist characters can then be tagged in and controlled either right before, or immediately after landing an attack, which is known in-game as a "Crossover".[8] Like Granblue Fantasy Versus and Versus Rising, the control schemes of Fighting Souls features Light, Medium and Heavy Normal Attacks, and a Unique Attack that draws on a particular ability associated with the character such as Captain America throwing his shield, or Iron Man firing a series of repulsor blasts.[9][10] A third "Skill Gauge" allows fighters to consume some meter for performing higher-damage EX attacks or a cinematic Ultimate Skill when completely filled, and can be used in conjunction with the Assemble Gauge to chain multiple Ultimate Skills across a whole team together, similar to the Delayed Hyper Combo mechanic (DHC) in Marvel vs. Capcom games.[11]
Like previous Arc System Works titles such as Strive and Dragon Ball FighterZ (2018), Fighting Souls features stages that encompass multiple distinct areas with visual iconography drawn from the Marvel Universe, and are cycled through mid-match when initiating Wall Breaks.[12]
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) had expressed interest in developing a first-party fighting game for its PlayStation library, having already made efforts to support the genre in other capacities through their co-ownership of Evolution Championship Series (EVO) and promotion of third-party titles on their consoles such as Street Fighter 6 (2023) and Tekken 8 (2024).[13][14] This prompted producer Reed Baird from SIE's XDev team to pitch a such a project to Marvel Games.[15] SIE proposed a tag team fighting game, aware that Marvel held a prior reputation as a major presence in the subgenre due to their past partnership with Capcom on the Marvel vs. Capcom series.[16][17] Marvel had similarly fostered a successful working relationship with SIE due to their collaboration on the Marvel's Spider-Man series developed by Insomniac Games, which led them to reciprocate enthusiastically towards the idea according to Marvel Games' senior Product Development Manager Michael Francisco Jr.[18]
A representative from SIE met with Arc System Works producer Takeshi Yamanaka to present the concept and entice them to develop the game, a decision Marvel similarly approved due to their prior experience in tag-based fighting games such as BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and Dragon Ball FighterZ (both 2018).[19] Despite initial hesitations regarding Arc System Works' capability of handling the property, the urging of president/CEO Minoru Kidooka convinced Yamanaka to take on the project.[20] Kidooka previously spoke during Evo 2022 about motivating the studio towards being less passive with pursuing opportunities to collaborate with external license holders following their work on FighterZ and Cross Tag Battle,[21] specifically wishing to produce projects involving franchises with broader Western appeal, and being a proponent of using third-party IP such as Marvel to expand the reach of the fighting game community.[22]
Arc System Works began production with the goal of making a fighting game that was more accessible to a wider audience, including accommodations for simplified and traditional inputs, as well as character skills that are common amongst the whole roster.[23] Game director Kazuto Sekine explained that despite internal deliberations about making a traditional 1v1 fighter or adhering to the 3v3 format of other tag-based games, they opted for a 4v4 system out of a desire to capture the intensity of multiple on-screen characters in combat, emphasizing the unique team-ups and crossing over of Marvel characters.[24] With regards to the roster, Yamanaka stated that the team developed a criteria around fighter selection, wishing to include characters considered the 'faces of Marvel' while also leaving room for more obscure picks that had never appeared in prior Marvel-based fighting games.[9]
Presentation
According to Baird, the development of Fighting Souls was motivated by the PlayStation Studios XDev team's mantra of "From Japan to the World", alluding to a desire of bringing the work and inspirations of Japanese developers to a global platform.[18] Yamanaka stated that while their original intention was for the aesthetics of the game to evoke the look of a Western comic book, they were encouraged by Marvel to lean further into a style distinct to their previous titles such as the Guilty Gear series, leading to an art direction more rooted in anime.[25] This was reflected in creative decisions that emphasized the immersion of Marvel characters in a Japanese pop cultural backdrop, such as Iron Man's armor drawing inspiration from mecha anime, and Captain America's voice lines being directed to sound triumphant and expressive, akin to a shōnen protagonist.[26] The game serves as a posthumous credit for Takaya Hashi, the Japanese voice actor of Doctor Doom, who passed away from heart attack on August 27, 2025.[27][28]
Release
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls was announced during a State of Play presentation on June 4, 2025,[29] accompanied by a developer documentary featuring interviews from various staff at SIE's XDev team, Arc System Works and Marvel Games.[30] The game made its public debut at Evolution Championship Series (EVO) 2025, including a playable demo available to the public with a portion of the game's roster, and a "Developer Combat Panel" hosted by its developers to detail the game's core mechanics.[31][32] A closed beta began on September 5 and ran through September 7, 2025 for PlayStation 5. Participating players were able to try six characters from the roster—Iron Man, Captain America, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, Storm and Doctor Doom—in online multiplayer with support for rollback netcode and spectator mode, as well as a tutorial mode upon startup for learning the game's controls and mechanics.[33][34] The game is set to appear at Tokyo Game Show 2025 later that month with a new playable build, adding Spider-Man and Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider to the roster available to the public, and featuring new stages.[35]Fighting Souls is the first Marvel-based fighting game since Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (2017).[36]
Multiple comparisons were favorably drawn between Capcom's games and Fighting Souls, with particular attention drawn towards the presence of launchers, assist characters and aerial combos, as well as the involvement of 4v4 fights, considered a direct iteration of the 3v3 setup popularized by the Marvel vs. Capcom games.[39][40] Commentators also highlighted the game's resemblance to Arc System Works' prior licensed game Dragon Ball FighterZ (2018).[41][42]
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