Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Is The Best Fighting Game Of 2026

It Took Me Some Time To Get Onboard, But Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Is The Best Marvel Fighter Yet

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls should have been one of the easiest slam dunks in the world for me. I’m a lifelong Marvel fan who vastly prefers the world of the comics to the MCU, Arc System Works is arguably the best in the business who made one of my favourite games in the genre, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Tokon’s clear love for the source material looked set to rival even Marvel vs. Capcom.

All of those positives drew me to Marvel Tokon, but its trademark four-versus-four setup quickly started ringing some alarm bells. Most three-team tag fighters are already manic enough, so adding a fourth character to the mix seemed like a recipe for chaotic disaster instead of thoughtful, skill-based battling. My time with the earlier betas didn’t change my mind much, and I was sure that Tokon just wasn’t for me.

I’m very glad to say that definitely isn’t the case anymore. After more than 15 hours with Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls and more than enough time getting used to its four-person teams and everything it has to offer, I can confidently say that this is yet another example of why Arc Sys has the best-in-class reputation that it does.

Tokon Adapts The Marvel Universe Beautifully

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls focuses on an original character, The Champion, a skilled fighter who sets up a tournament alongside The Promoter (great names, I know) to decide the fate of the world. Teams across the Marvel universe, including expected groupings like the X-Men and The Avengers as well as more surprising crews like the Ghost Rider-led Samurai Outriders and Spidey’s Amazing Guardian, all set out to fight for the chance to represent the Earth.

This setup is told through Marvel Tokon’s story mode, which consists of five fairly lengthy episodes focusing on each of the game’s teams and is told through a mixture of comic panels and fights. While Tokon’s story isn’t the most surprising since all five episodes play out in a similar format with each team meeting, doing battle, and bonding, they do make it clear just how much love Arc Sys has for the Marvel universe.

Marvel Tokon’s characters are all incredibly well written and feel like they’ve been ripped right out of the pages of a comic book. Even if none of the story beats are particularly new - Spider-Man struggles with his work-life balance, Ghost Rider’s rage takes him over, and the X-Men face mutant prejudice - it’s told very well and with a ton of passion and respect for the source material, all while looking and sounding jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Once You Get Used To The Mechanics, Tokon Is An Incredible Tag Fighter

Even though Marvel Tokon feels like a new peak for Arc Sys when it comes to adapting a beloved property, I’d be lying if I said that surprised me at all. I knew going in that the studio would knock all of that out of the park like it always has, so it was really just how Tokon played that was stopping me from falling in love.

Early on, I really struggled to get a handle on Tokon and play with any measure of skill. The core mechanics are similar enough to Dragon Ball FighterZ and most 2D fighters with a mix of light, medium, heavy, specials, grabs, ultimates, and the like that all feel as masterfully fluid and satisfying as you’d expect. The real difficulty curve comes with the tag mechanics, which all hinge on four-person teams that need to be built up over the course of a battle.

The sheer chaos of having four whole movesets at your disposal, being able to summon them for assists at any time, and learning all of the unique team-up moves and ultimates can be more than a bit overwhelming, especially when combined with all the other skills at your disposal. Once you get used to it, though, it feels surprisingly natural, and Tokon’s depth of strategy and variety comes to life. Four-person teams no longer feel like a gimmick, and the way that Tokon handles assists and each team sharing health and meter ensures that there’s a fast flow to fights.

Of course, battles can still be a bit much at times, especially when both teams are fully assembled and you’ve got assists flying out left, right, and centre, but Tokon feels so incredible to play once you’ve come to grips with its well-thought-out mechanics that the occasional chaos becomes a big part of the charm. You just have to give it enough time for all of that to shine through.

Perhaps the biggest strength of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is its incredible launch roster, which isn’t as basic as the initial reveals suggested. Sure, you’ve got mainstays like Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Doom, and Wolverine, but you’ve also got some truly surprising picks like Carnage, Green Goblin, Loki, Peni Parker, and, the biggest wild card of them all, Danger.

It would have been easy for Tokon to chuck in Venom, Thor, and T’Challa as Black Panther, but Arc System Works has given us an incredible lineup that makes Marvel Tokon stand out. Each fighter is also incredibly well-developed and unique, with moves that feel true to their character, and even skills, like Spidey’s web-swinging and Cap’s shield throw, that give them an extra layer of depth to figure out.

My absolute favourite of the bunch was Deadpool, whose referential moveset made up of nods to pretty much every fighting game ever feels like the character that Arc Sys has been dreaming of making for a long time now. Deadpool is certainly the poster merc for Marvel Tokon’s effort, passion, and care, but every single hero and villain is like this, perhaps to the fullest extent I’ve ever seen in a fighting game.

I may have started a little colder on Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls than I thought I’d be considering its legacy, but that very quickly faded after I spent more time with it and understood what it was trying to do. Its gorgeous style, incredible roster, and genuine evolution of the tag-fighting genre make me confident in finally being able to crown 2026's best fighting game.