When the Sony-published fighter Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls was announced in June of 2025, it spelled the coming of a few things. Developer Arc System Works was entering the ring once more with a new anime fighter based on beloved characters after a hot streak with Dragon Ball FighterZ and Guilty Gear Strive, Marvel superheroes who had never gotten to exist in the fighting game space, like Star-Lord and Peni Parker, were finally getting a chance to win a knockout, and it looked like the ill-fated 2XKO was going to have some competition at the next big tag fighter. But one question lingered: Was Marvel moving on from Marvel vs. Capcom after a decade of silence on the crossover tag fighting series?
The Disney-orchestrated fall of Marvel vs. Capcom
While the Marvel vs. Capcom series may never have reached the sales heights of games like Mortal Kombat or Tekken, its shift from oddball experiment of the ‘90s into FGC cultural touchstone is pretty undeniable. For over a decade, Capcom iterated on a winning formula of tag-team fights featuring anyone from the Nazi-smashing Captain America to the courtroom conqueror Phoenix Wright. As nonsensical as it all was, Capcom cranked up that absurdity into what some call one of the most “degenerate” fighting games in the scene.
© Marvel / CapcomBut all that changed when Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite came out in 2017, and it was very clear that Disney’s acquisition of Marvel and its desperate need to make every Marvel product a promotional opportunity for the Marvel Cinematic Universe was interfering with long-established traditions of the series. For instance, roster-stalwart X-Men characters who had become fan favorites after being featured in many games were suddenly absent. Producer Michael Evans initially claimed that the decision was made because developers reasoned that some people might not even be aware of certain characters from the X-Men comics, while the MCU staples that Infinite focuses on are familiar to most would-be players nowadays. Whatever the public-facing answer is, it hasn’t stopped speculation from running rampant that Disney may have vetoed the inclusion of those absent X-Men characters because it didn’t have the film rights to X-Men at the time, and thus Wolverine’s presence could have served as promotion for another company’s movies.
“[The X-Men are] foundational characters,” freelance writer and Skybox editor-in-chief Will Borger tells Kotaku. “You don’t make a Marvel game without Storm and Wolverine. Disney didn’t care. They also did their best to minimize the X-Men comics until they owned the film rights. They view games like this as marketing for other stuff, and the last thing they want to do is share that with Capcom, because Capcom owns part of MvC. Infinite flopping just makes the decision not to do another one easier.”
Whether it be because formative characters were missing from the roster or because the game was underwhelming overall, Infinite undersold, hitting only around one-million sales against its target of two million in the first few months. Since then, fans have kept the game and series alive after Capcom has moved on. Whether this be through grassroots tournaments or complete fanmade overhauls like the Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite & Beyond mod, fans have held Marvel vs. Capcom’s hand in the back of the ambulance as they hoped that Capcom might return to the series one day.
A new hero taking on the Marvel super-powered mantle
Given these hopes, when Marvel Tōkon was announced, some momentarily thought it might be a new Marvel vs. Capcom game, as it included the series’ tag team mechanics and obviously featured superheroes like Captain America and Iron Man. However, it quickly became clear that this was something else entirely.
“Tōkon’s announcement was a genuine shock, to be sure,” fighting game fan and “Akuma Enabler” Dylan Tierney says. “There was hype seeing Arc System Works take a crack at another type of ‘vs.’ game after Dragon Ball FighterZ had such a strong impact.”
© MarvelIndeed, once the shock that this was not a Capcom joint subsided, folks were excited, as the prospect of an Arc System Works Marvel game sounded like the stuff of fanfiction.
“When I first saw the announcement trailer for Tōkon I was blindsided by my own excitement,” MvC fan and competitive player XC said. “Most people had given up hope for another Marvel vs Capcom, but to see a strictly Marvel fighting game with the big Sony brand and money behind it had me stunned in the best way possible.”
At a glance, Tōkon appears to be reheating MvC’s nachos, but when you look under the hood, are the games that similar beyond the superheroes and tag team elements?
“They’re both definitely tag fighters, but they’re different breeds of tag fighters,” Special Cancel contributor Nabil “Neoxon” Mehari tells Kotaku. “Tōkon is more built from Granblue Versus’ foundation in tag form as opposed to just taking MvC & diverging from there. This game is an Arc System Works game through-and-through, with a completely different game feel compared to something Capcom would make. While I expect some overlap between the ASW & MvC/Capcom communities, it won’t be a full one-to-one transfer of the MvC fans to Tōkon. Or at least, I don’t think it will.”
© MarvelSome fans point out that at the very least, Tōkon doesn’t seem to be making any attempt to ignore the long history of Marvel tag fighters, with characters like Spider-Man, Captain America, and Wolverine having moves that seem to pay homage to MvC.
“Tōkon likely wouldn’t exist if MvC hadn’t done it first,” MvC fan Chris LaPack says. “ArcSys is obviously very aware of how drastically different Tōkon is to MvC, and how dedicated to their games ‘Mahvel’ fans are, so I think it only makes sense to drop a few breadcrumbs in there that would persuade them to at least try it out.”
Is Marvel Tōkon a bad sign for the future of MvC?
Jesse Fish, one of the leads on the Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite Beyond mod and current Netcode Warriors and Saturday AM Battle Manga developer, says that while Tōkon may catch the eyes of MvC fans simply by bringing Marvel characters into a new fighting game, he’s not worried about it “replacing” the series in the eyes of the fighting game community, even if Marvel and Disney devote their resources and money to it over a hypothetical Marvel vs. Capcom revival.
“I think it’s important to remember people can and do play multiple fighting games,” Fish says. “I have been playing Invincible VS, GG Strive, and 2XKO in the last month. There are a lot of people in the Marvel community who are very excited to play new versions of their favorite characters. I’m seeing a lot of positivity towards Tōkon in the MvCI tournament Discords. But, just like Melee vs. Ultimate in the Smash Bros. scene, there are people who are excited to play the new game, there are people who will play both games, and there are people who will only play the old game they love. MVCI has multiple weekly online tournaments. MVC3 has multiple communities that are dedicated to modded and unmodded versions of the game who play incredibly competitively with regular tournaments. The orgs that run those events are likely going to start hosting Tōkon events when it comes out, but they aren’t going to completely drop the old games that their communities were built on.”
Therein lies the big question, though: Does Tōkon spell the end of Disney investing in Marvel vs. Capcom, and if so, does it really matter? Most of the people I spoke to were divided on whether Tōkon’s success would be the end of Capcom’s crossover fighter, or if it could end up proving to Mickey Mouse that there’s still a desire for a Marvel fighting game.
“I think many MvC fans do have a legitimate fear for the future of the franchise after Tōkon. However I am in the minority, since a complete Marvel fighting game has only ever been a dream for me,” XC said. “Logically, I don’t think Sony would take kindly to the Marvel IP being concurrently present in a direct competitor’s fighting game. So the concern for MvC’s near future is beyond justified.”
For some, Tōkon isn’t even a factor in Marvel vs. Capcom’s hypothetical demise, with some saying its fate was already written when Infinite underperformed.
“Honestly, I hate to say it, but I don’t think MvC is ever coming back, and that’s the case regardless of Tōkon’s existence,” freelance writer Ashley Schofield said. “MvCI was such an unfathomable disaster, enough to kill the series from Capcom and Marvel’s perspective, and in no way could I ever blame Tōkon for that; I can only blame Disney, as is often the case. The X-Men and Doom being center stage in Tōkon is so important because of their Disney-led absence in Infinite, but even the return of the mutants and Fantastic Four characters to Disney probably isn’t going to be enough to make an MvC game seem like a worthwhile endeavour.”
Fish echoed the sentiment, saying Tōkon was just a confirmation of something fans had already feared.
“I don’t think I’m fearful about the future of MvC because for most of us the nail was already in the coffin,” Fish said. “After Capcom and Marvel pulled the plug on supporting Infinite within a year of its release, it felt like they were willing to let the series die. At this point, a future MvC game feels impossible. I don’t imagine Capcom will get another chance to make a fighting game with the Marvel IP as long as Arc System Works exists and is supporting or making new Marvel fighting games. It makes me sad because MvC is such a unique series and has such a rich history.”
© MarvelOthers say the MvC scene has been dealing with enough issues separate from Disney and Capcom’s lack of support, so Tōkon is merely another game that will split people’s time like any other new fighter would.
“I don’t see how [Tōkon] affects the dwindling legacy MvC communities in a way that’s bad,” Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite “lab monster” and modder Tony (.rainbows) tells Kotaku. “People are already quitting because they’re having kids or getting old or their hands are exploding. The new game won’t change anything other than how people split their time, and we can always go back and run sets. If it’s more fun, it’s more fun and if it does real good, then maybe someone makes an actual mainline MvC game.”
Some are less convinced that this could spell the end for Capcom’s series, and say that Tōkon makes them more hopeful for a possible MvC return.
“If Tōkon proves that a Marvel tag fighter can succeed in the current market, I think that’s more likely to be beneficial for MvC’s future prospects,” fighting game fan and high school esports coach Saoirse Stone says. “I don’t know how likely that is, but I think an MvC revival is more likely in that reality than in a reality where Tōkon doesn’t exist at all.“
On the most pessimistic end of things, fighting game fan Jonathan Holmes worries that if Tōkon doesn’t take off the way Sony and Marvel may be hoping, it might spell the end of Marvel fighting games for at least some time.
“I am really worried Marvel Tōkon Fighting Souls will fail, [and in so doing] doom the Marvel fighting series to another decade of nothingness,” Holmes says. “Being a PS5 and PC exclusive is trouble for Tōkon, as the PC market is way too crowded to make its release there a sure success, and unfortunately, this is just not the kind of game people shell out on a PS5 for. If it were coming to PS4 and Switch 2, I’d be much less worried. But I get that Sony is calling the shots, and is hoping this helps move PS5s, as these Marvel characters have a broad appeal. But anime fighters really, really don’t have a broad appeal, so it’s not going to work. Personally, I love the subgenre, but I have no illusions about the fact that your average person bounces right off it. Anime fighters are about as impenetrable as it gets, in terms of both difficulty and immediately punishing online communities.”
Despite the character overlap, Tōkon is a much different game than Marvel vs. Capcom
It’s true that anime fighters can be overwhelming and challenging, but MvC veterans who have played Tōkon say it is relatively “simple” for the subgenre, and definitely much easier to get into than high-level Marvel vs. Capcom. That might be appealing to some, but it means its systems are not a one-to-one recreation of MvC, for better or worse.
“The ‘game feel’ is pretty different,” Stone says. “[It’s] slower, maybe less complex. Though there’s always the chance somebody figures out some new tech, I think the improved accessibility might initially be a turn-off for some fans. Just look at the discourse around auto-combo. Overall, I’m still really excited, but I’m iffy on if the game will provide the kind of high skill ceiling that can make a fun game into an FGC phenomenon.”
Tōkon’s use of tag mechanics are also substantially different from those in Marvel vs. Capcom, as both players only manage one health bar, regardless of what fighter they’re controlling.
“Personally, I really enjoy the resource management aspect to Vs. games,” Fish says, “and part of that is health management. Tōkon seems to have removed that aspect of a Vs. game by having a single health bar. I also am not a huge fan of combo-meter-based combo systems which Tōkon is using. I am overall cautiously optimistic about the game, and will likely buy it, and give it a shot. The characters look incredible and I like the choices they have been making with the roster, but it doesn’t feel super fun to me.”
YouTuber Jon Martin says that mechanically, the game feels more like a “sequel” to Arc System Works’ Dragon Ball FighterZ than a Marvel vs. Capcom 4.
“Regardless of what some people may say, characters are characters, not functions,” he says. “Iron Man looks and plays completely different than any other iteration, Versus series or otherwise, but it still feels true to that character.”
© Marvel / CapcomSo if Tōkon cannot completely replicate the experience of MvC, what does the community stand to gain or lose by its existence? As we head into the game’s launch, its success or failure could mean multiple things. If it fails to take off, Tōkon could nudge Disney to reconsider going back to MvC, or it could get the company to step away from Marvel fighting games entirely. If it does well, it could become the new de facto Marvel fighting game, and thus kick a possible future MvC further down the line. But in the short term, fans aren’t convinced that the inclusion of Marvel characters in Tōkon is enough to pull MvC’s community away.
“I think how a fighting game plays is more important than what license it uses to most fighting game fans,” Borger says. “Slapping the Marvel license on Tōkon is not going to make it a game Marvel players will want to play or stick with if they decide to try it out. And the Capcom part of it matters. MvC fans want to play as Storm and Wolverine and Iron Man, but they also want to play as Akuma and Dante and Vergil and Mega Man and Zero and Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine and other Capcom characters, too. Capcom designs games differently than Arc Sys does. All of that stuff is important.”
Freelance writer Jason Fanelli agreed, saying that Tōkon isn’t going to satiate the folks who have been waiting for a return to Capcom’s brand of tag fighter, regardless of if it’s good.
“I think Tōkon partially fills the ‘Marvel tag fighter’ gap, and that has a lot of people excited, but that gap’s full name is ‘Marvel Vs. Capcom,’ and until the ‘Vs. Capcom’ happens again, I don’t think fighting game fans will stop asking for it, Tōkon or not,” he says.
Some think that MvC fans may try Tōkon and be turned off by how it plays, even if they’re a fan of the roster.
“When it comes to the FGC subsets, I’m not sure if they’ll draw from the same pool of fans,” fighting game fan Kevin tells Kotaku. “You could argue that MvC and Tōkon will attract people into more anime-themed fighters like Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, DBFZ, other ArcSys fighters, but their styles of play are pretty different. Even if Tōkon takes the world by storm, some people will remain turned off because of the strong anime influence.”
For others, it’s far more simple than that. Plenty of fighting games co-exist with each other in the scene because, even if there’s roster overlap, the fundamentals are different, and people will play whatever speaks to them. Tōkon may become another game in MvC players’ rotation, or they might find its mechanical differences off-putting, regardless of whether their old main is making an appearance.
“People who play fighting games play fighting games and people who play games play games,” Tony says. “I know a lot of people that play very outwardly ‘strange’ sets of games because the thing that they like is a pace of interaction or a level of technical complexity [those games offer. Meanwhile,] a lot of the FGC is infinitely more simple and will just play games that their friends talk about liking, including me.”
Fish says he’s a bit skeptical of how Tōkon will land when it launches, as he believes Arc System Works’ games often take time to reach a level of greatness after a rocky launch. Even so, he thinks the game will be worth keeping an eye on as it finds its place in the fighting game community.
“Arc doesn’t always release a great game, but they do make games that are eventually great,” Fish says. “They have a track record of supporting games for years and making strong efforts to continuously improve them. I don’t know if Tōkon is going to be a perfect or even great game at release, and I don’t know if it is going to be a game I stick with for more than a few weeks or months. But I do know it is a game I’m going to be keeping tabs on and I’ll be coming back to regularly to check in and see how fun it is and consider picking it back up again.”
© MarvelWhatever Disney and Marvel decide, the Marvel vs. Capcom community will persist
It remains to be seen what Sony, Disney, and Arc System Works consider “success” for Tōkon in order to merit long-term support. The game will be coming into a scene that can sometimes be fickle, with the next big hotness sometimes having a massive spike at launch, then quickly dwindling if it’s not getting constant updates and balance changes.
“Something happened with fighting games at some point, and now, a game can only hold players’ attention for a month or two before they start complaining about staleness just because nothing has changed or been added,” says fighting game player Roderick Hossack. “In part because it’s so much easier to exhaust the possibility space of any character these days between X clips and character Discords. But at the same time, there are some games that have been able to maintain enough people playing, largely by being either super legacy or actually being vocal and delivering changes fairly frequently. The next balance patch that might change things for the better seems to always be right around the corner.”
Whatever the case, pulling from a huge franchise like Marvel gives Tōkon the opportunity to bring more players into the FGC, which Tony says is a net positive, regardless of what it means for the future of Marvel fighting games.
“You always want the new fighting game to be the thing that breaks through to the ‘mainstream’ and gets big player numbers long term, and then it always gets hyped up, you love it, and then two weeks later you realize that you’re playing with the same group of people until the next game comes out,” Tony says. “I think that the only thing that injects players into a scene is new games. New games are good. There is not a modern Marvel to compete against. This means that as much as I dislike what the release of Tōkon is going to do to [Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite tournament play], I appreciate the FGC as a whole getting visibility.”
Stone says that thanks to Tōkon, she’s already seen a groundswell of younger players getting interested in the fighting game genre, in a similar way that Marvel Rivals got some of her students interested in hero shooters. “I hope Tōkon can be a similar gateway,” she says. “I think the best and most important thing about Tōkon is that it’s got young people excited about a fighting game, and a tag fighter at that. Despite the decline of the MCU, there’s still a lot of caché in Marvel, and if that brings new blood into fighting games, that’s a good thing.”
While Disney may not want to cannibalize one Marvel fighting game with another, the MvC community is not going to simply fall in line because Tōkon is the current product Marvel is promoting and supporting. Games like Super Smash Bros. Melee have withstood the test of time in spite of their developers’ lack of support for the scene, and though Marvel hasn’t been as hostile to Marvel vs. Capcom as Nintendo has to the Melee community, the series has still persisted without official support for nearly a decade. The fighting game community has always been built on the backs of fan-driven movements and local scenes, regardless of what big companies are pushing at any given time. People have room in their lives and hearts for more than one game, and if Disney tries to bury Marvel vs. Capcom after a decade of neglecting it, the series’ community isn’t simply going to vanish because Tōkon is the Marvel fighting game of the moment.
© Marvel / Capcom“Tōkon cannot touch [Marvel vs. Capcom’s] legacy, but it does not need to,” XC says. “This is a new game, in a new franchise, from different devs, who seem to be taking a much different approach than any previous games. I’m sure many MvC fans may find that Tōkon doesn’t satisfy their intense hunger for another entry in that franchise, but for myself and others like me, having a fully realized Marvel roster in a modern fighting game will undoubtedly bring to us a new palette, one that we could only have imagined before. […] I think MvC will always have a place in the FGC and the fans will always keep them alive in some shape or form, but Tōkon is not a new chapter to that story, it’s a new book entirely. It may benefit from the rich legacy of Marvel vs Capcom, but it will certainly strive to carve out a unique and lasting path of its own. A road that many of us big Marvel fans will be on, day one.”
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is coming to PC and PlayStation 5 on August 6.
English (US) ·