PlayStation is Going Big or Going Home With Its Marvel Fighting Game

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is the latest in a long line of Marvel games releasing on modern consoles. Announced as the concluding game in Sony’s recent PlayStation State of Play showcase, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls brings 4v4 tag-team fighting gameplay along with a bevy of Marvel heroes and villains. With a fantastic development team in Arc System Works behind it and the varied lineup of characters afforded by the Marvel brand, this new title looks to be one of many excellent 2D fighting games in a market loaded with fantastic titles.

Sony clearly believes in Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls and the hype that it will bring to gamers across the board, especially considering that the publisher chose to save it for the end of the showcase as its “one last thing” moment. Currently set to release in 2026, this new game is one of the first major PlayStation-exclusive titles fans will have to look forward to next year. It feels like Sony has given Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls top billing, and is pushing it as a very unique game up against a lot of its fellow first-party titles.

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Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Is A Huge First-Party PlayStation Game

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Sees Sony Partner With Arc System Works

Across the board, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is a very big deal for gamers, but it’s also a huge deal for PlayStation. This is a first-party PlayStation title published by PlayStation Studios featuring the Marvel brand, another in a line of games that started with Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man titles on the PlayStation 4 (and more recently, the PlayStation 5). That lineup will continue to grow with the inevitable release of Insomniac’s next Marvel-based video game, Wolverine, which has notably been MIA since its reveal at the PlayStation Showcase back in 2021.

It’s also an incredibly notable collaboration for PlayStation, as it’s being developed by the team at Arc System Works. This developer has worked on several incredible and popular fighting games such as Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, and has even worked with a popular license before with 2018’s Dragon Ball FighterZ. Having such a talented and noteworthy studio creating a game exclusively for PlayStation platforms (at the moment) is a huge deal, and also gives PlayStation a fantastic standing in the fighting game genre, one it hasn’t often explored before.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Feels Tailor-Made For Marvel Vs. Capcom Fans

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is also an exciting prospect for gamers in general, as it serves as something of a revival of another popular Marvel fighting game franchise that has been out of the spotlight for a long time. With its tag-team battling concept, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls feels reminiscent of the wildly popular Marvel vs. Capcom fighting series. Of course, this new game comes without the crossover elements of that franchise, but it nevertheless feels like a modern incarnation of Capcom’s previous take on a Marvel fighting game.

While Marvel vs. Capcom was an incredibly popular franchise, it started to fall out of favor following the disappointing release of 2017’s Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. Since then, the franchise has largely stayed away from the public spotlight, only returning with the release of the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics last year. Even though Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls has its clear differences, it does fill the gap that’s been left since the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise’s last major entry back in 2017.

Sony Is Preparing A Fight Stick Controller Just In Time For Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls

Sony is also clearly preparing itself well for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, as the publisher is creating its own fight stick controller for the PlayStation 5. Announced during the State of Play showcase well before the reveal of this new Marvel fighter, the currently codenamed Project Defiant is touted as a wireless fight stick controller with extremely low latency. Much like Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, this controller is set to launch in 2026, and Sony may very well end up releasing it as a tie-in to the upcoming Marvel fighting game.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls was definitely one of the most exciting announcements to come out of the PlayStation State of Play show, and Sony has clearly established this game as one to look out for. Enlisting the help of one of the best fighting game developers in the game while also creating a fight stick controller just in time for its release, Sony looks committed to establishing this as a premier fighting game in a crowded market of titles. Here’s hoping Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls delivers on the hype and ends up as one of 2026’s best games.