Marvel Tōkon Fighting Souls beta broke Steam records, but its future in the FGC seems dire

If you thought the fighting game community was going to have a quiet, peaceful weekend during the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls open beta, you clearly do not know the FGC. Between massive regional controversies before the servers even opened, unprecedented player numbers, stuttering PC performance, and pros screaming at each other on social media over whether the game is a masterpiece or sluggish trash, the beta was absolute pure chaos.

And I was personally living for it. But you know me.

Even before anyone landed a single jab, Sony managed to ignite a minor firestorm by region-locking the game on Steam across over 100 countries due to mandatory PlayStation Network account requirements. But despite the geographical lockouts and internet outrage, players flooded the servers the second they went live.

When it comes to sheer interest, Marvel Tōkon proved that superhero tag-team fighters still reign supreme. The open beta rocketed to a peak concurrent player count of over 33,000 on Steam alone.

To put that into perspective, Street Fighter 6 peaked at around 32,000 during its open beta, and Tekken 8 clocked in at roughly 15,000. Garnering more concurrent beta testers on PC than two of the biggest titan franchises in fighting game history is a massive statement.

Arc System Works and Marvel clearly have a monster on their hands when it comes to raw hype. But that is unfortunately not the full story.

There is really no point in having tens of thousands of people in your beta if it doesn’t work. In fact, it only spreads the hate to even more corners of the FGC. This is an unforgiving group that rarely lets up once something rubs them the wrong way.

Optimization issues hit players like a rogue Hulk smash, leaving thousands of gamers dealing with stuttering frame rates, bizarre shader compilation delays at startup, and lag spikes during cross-play matches.

The backlash on social media was loud enough that Arc System Works had to jump on X to release an official statement acknowledging the mess. The devs promised day-one fixes for launch on August 6, including:

Despite the extensive apology, the FGC remained skeptical. One reply suggested that the developers run a second beta just to show PC players that it works. It’s not a bad idea, since the FGC is quite unforgiving.

Fighting game legend Christopher “NYChrisG” Gonzalez made this quite clear: STOP USING THE ‘IT’S JUST A BETA’ EXCUSE WHEN IT COMES TO PEOPLE’S GRIPES AND CONCERNS PLEASE!” He wasn’t about to forgive the game just because it’s a beta, which is very likely the mindset of other competitive fighting game players.

This was the first impression. And it was not a good one.

Technical glitches aside, the actual gameplay design divided high-level players into fierce opposing camps. As soon as the beta concluded, the FGC commentary machine exploded.

FGC veteran and commentator James Chen urged fans to stop trying to force Tōkon to be Marvel vs. Capcom 2. He argued that while movement and combo buffers currently feel a bit sluggish and need tuning, players should appreciate Arc System Works’ unique vision instead of constantly begging for a carbon copy of older tag fighters.

His positive review stated: “I think we have a very strong game at hand for now. I think there’s a LOT for us to learn about Marvel Tokon, and the game has the potential to get degenerate pretty heavily once we have actual time with it.”

This was not the general consensus, however. Most players, both pros and casuals, didn’t like it. When one player stood up during the game to point out that it’s a beta, it was not met with much agreement.

NYChrisG noted that switching between other fast-paced fighters and Tōkon at a local tournament felt like playing underwater. A handful of fighting game players agreed that the game just didn’t feel right. A lot of fighting games are getting too slow, and it seems Marvel Tōkon is one of them.

Smash and 2XKO pro William “Leffen” Hjelte weighed in with a detailed breakdown of the mechanics, arguing that while the movement system feels sluggish, the game itself is actually absurdly powerful and snowbally. He pointed out that assists and active tagging carry way too little risk, completely debunking the early internet myth that Tōkon is a slow, traditional, ground-based fighter.

According to Leffen, the neutral skips and mixup power levels in this game are utterly degenerate in the best and worst ways possible. He did add, however: “Despite all these big gameplay issues and a lot more less important stuff, I believe that the game has a lot of cool things in it and I will definitely be competing in it!”

I really don’t think Marvel Tōkon is horrible. That’s not really the point. When I played the demo at Evo, I loved it. From the gameplay to the design, I just felt it was very cohesive, polished, and exciting. I can’t wait to play it once I get a new fighting stick.

The actual point is that it made a horrible first impression on a community that’s very quick to hate. A community that already has plenty of other options. And this may give it a very slow start. This lack of momentum may kill the hype before it can reach its full potential. It’s going to be hard to gain the attention of the already small and spread-thin community, who are already invested in 2XKO, Avatar, and Street Fighter.

With August 6 right around the corner, Arc System Works has a very short window to fix the PC optimization and tweak the combo feel before the full game officially drops. But it may be too late.