I’m probably not alone as one of many people who were caught completely off guard by the announcement of Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls, a new Marvel fighting game by Arc System Works and PlayStation. Given that the game is not affiliated with previous Marvel fighting games like Marvel vs Capcom or Contest of Champions, there’s always the question: how do you set yourself apart while also appealing to that fanbase hankering for something new?

_{From left to right: Kazuto Sekine, Takeshi Yamanaka and Reed Baird}

Well, it turns out it’s by flooring the gas. At Tokyo Game Show, I caught up with Takeshi Yamanaka, producer at Arc System Works as well as Kazuto Sekine, Game Director and Lead Battle Designer and Reed Baird, Senior Producer at Playstation’s XDev Studios to talk about just how you push the envelope in the already-crazy tag fighter genre.

The Tag Fighter Legacy In Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls

Look, choosing to make a tag fighter is like a social contract. Fighting games are already pretty complex, deciding to let each player control more than one character is pretty much the barely-sealed lid on a Pandoras Box of nonsense. During our time with Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls, I got to see plenty of that too- attacking from multiple sides, extending via the active tag mechanics, everything feels like it’s just built to overwhelm you.

While the intent with the game was indeed to get new players in, Sekine shared that that didn’t mean they would be limiting any particular kind of offense. The goal was legibility, not necessarily simplicity.

“I think that our approach is not so much that there’s specific difficult elements that we want to avoid, it’s more that we want to focus on making the game easy to understand with what’s happening [on the screen]”, Sekine says.

“We wouldn’t want to say there aren’t any ambiguous crossups or unblockables, it’s more that there are definitely things that can be a crossup, but it’s still easy to understand what’s happening for the players. Even unblockables, they can still be there but it’s easy to understand and digest what’s happening”, he says.

Part of this was also getting players used to tag game fundamentals. If you’re used to 1v1 fighters, having to remember to call in your assists might be a challenge- so Sekine says they wanted to make sure to remind you that even if you’re sharing one life bar, you’ve still got up to three more heroes at your beck and call.

“That led us to the conclusion of this mechanic where your allies will come in automatically as part of the autocombo, and also that it’s very easy to see how much power you gain when you receive new allies on your team”, he explains.

“It helped us really get a sense that you’re playing as a team instead of a single character, which led to us thinking of that mechanic with the link attacks and the assists. Also to note is that we’re brushing up and refining the Link attacks as well”, he says.

It’s not just about the genre, either. Of note is that unlike Arc System Works last two major “beginner friendly” entries, Guilty Gear Strive and Granblue Fantasy Versus, Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls still has a good amount of air combos. Characters like Doctor Doom and Iron Man all have flight modes, and every character has jump cancellable normals and universal launchers giving you the exact kind of offensive pressure you’d want when you’re thinking of tag fighters.

“First I would say that when we were working on the mechanics of this game we weren’t comparing it to Guilty Gear Strive with the more grounded neutral aspects of the game”, Sekine explains.

“For us our biggest priority was to express the IP’s world and story, and for Marvel Heroes it was very important to us that they were always flying around in the sky. It’s very iconic to the world there. It would also be a good place to fit them in that Arc Style and air combat would work well to express that aspect of the Marvel world”.

“As far as whether that air based combat can become more challenging for new players or not, I think we took a similar approach with Dragon Ball FighterZ for air based combat and also the system where you could press one button repeatedly to perform a combo and not worry about making the game too intimidating for players”, he adds.

As a result, though, it looks like the game’s packing a lot more sauce under the hood. During the beta, players found a way around the game’s Combo Assist mechanic- letting you do the command assists to set up much flashier and utility-based combos instead of just tagging in to extend the number of hits.

“I saw that and I thought ‘They’re really quick to pick up on that’ “, Sekine notes.

“For the last couple of years we’ve been working on the game we assume how something’s gonna work or how players are gonna use it and in such a short amount of time”, Reed adds. “[And yet,] People have found ways that we didn’t even think of how to do combos and put things together. That’s really exciting to see the fans finding their own unique things for themselves in gameplay”.

Reed also cleverly spot-dodged out of my own attempts to know how big the roster would specifically be. While he didn’t share a specific number, he assured fans that they’d get a roster of characters that feel like they run the playstyle gamut:

“So we can’t speak to the number of playable characters in the roster at this time. But we’re looking at a variety of playstyles and characters silhouettes, things that give variety in a fighting game”, he says. “Even though it’s 4v4, Just look at the variety and playstyles, I think there’s plenty there”.

Giving Marvel Characters The Arc System Works Treatment

One of the biggest points of praise when it comes to Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls is the takes of the iconic characters themselves. Rather than go for brand synergy, we’ve instead got some pretty big swings on character designs- be it the more mecha-like Iron Man suits that appear in the game or the inspired idea to give Captain America a sick jacket.

It wasn’t just about remaking them for the sake of remaking them, however. The three really hammered home the point that the Marvel Tokon FIghting Souls designs were about what’s coolest about these characters through the lens of Arc System Works.

“I would say from my perspective, we have a lot of respect for the Marvel characters in the world and everything that’s come before now. What we wanted to do was take the Arc System Works interpretation to make the coolest version of that character that we could possibly imagine”, Sekine says.

“I think for all of the characters in the cast we take that approach, so we’re presenting to you: ‘This is our version of Captain America, what do you think?’ ‘What about Ms Marvel, she’s very cool but also very cute’. So I can’t really pick just one character, they all took that same passion and love for the Marvel IP but also that dedication to try to put our own spin on it and create something we think will be the coolest it can possibly be”.

Yamanaka was very quick to shoot down one particular rumor that the project involved the work of fellow superhero enthusiast Kohei Horikoshi of My Hero Academia fame.

“We have definitely heard the comments that the style is reminiscent of Horikoshi’s work”, he says.

“It’s not limited for us to follow one specific artist or style, it’s more that the artists on our team received a lot of influence from Japanese art in general”, he continues. “I think you can see a lot of that reflected especially in the concepts that we have from Japan to the world for this title where we want to take a lot of influence from Japanese artists. It’s not limited to one style in particular. Going forward with the other characters, you’ll definitely see a lot of influences from [different] Japanese art styles”

He said a big chunk of the design work was about having those smaller details that make a character feel right.

“With each character and stage as well, we’ve taken a lot of care into including those fine details that express that identity there. I hope that the Marvel fans in general enjoy taking a close look and discovering those fun details for themselves”, he says.

“If I had to choose a character, Spider-Man definitely embodies that where you can see he embodies the characterization of all the past iterations of Spider-Man, but you can also see the Arc System Works style and take on it and I hope that everyone really enjoys.”

He also shot down a slightly sillier rumor about Spider-Man- that the version in Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls was actually Toei Spider-Man Takuya Namashiro:

“Our Spider-Man is Peter Parker”, he says giving out a good chuckle.

It wasn’t just about visuals, either. Reed said part of this design process was also about expressing the characters in their kit. Despite being one of the best characters in the Marvel Vs Capcom series, rather than just copy and paste that template Reed said they wanted to make Arc System Works’ Storm.

“As we go through the process of designing the characters and working on the gameplay of the characters, leaning into what Arc is really good at, their anime aesthetic and their gameplay obviously”, he says. “So how do we interpret these Marvel characters and their abilities in unique ways that haven’t been done in other Marvel games previously in a way only Arc can do has been really fun”.

“I think Storm has a history of being in multiple games for many decades now. How do you find new and unique ways to have her power set do things that are very Arc System Works, has been a lot of fun to do with the team”, Reed notes.

Given my own love for that specific brand of Arc System Works-flavored chaos, I’m incredibly excited for Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls. The team’s plan seems to be pretty consistent: Low skill floor, but a sky-high skill ceiling. I mean, just looking at how characters like Storm or Ghost Rider work, it’s very clear that they want this game to be as expressive as possible with its playstyles.

The result? One of my most anticipated titles for 2026. Seriously, it can’t come soon enough