Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls was first revealed to the world eight months ago with no new character reveals since, but it looks like that’s finally about to change.
PlayStation’s big incoming State of Play stream airing tomorrow, February 12, certainly appears to be shaping up to be the place to get some new Marvel Tokon fighter announcements when coupled up with another happening this week.
The Steam store page for Fighting Souls was seemingly updated ahead of schedule by accident before being reverted back, which also points to news coming for the title.
This new information stated that Marvel Tokon would be launching with 20 characters in total, and while that number is a bit smaller than many fans were probably hoping for in a 4v4 fighting game, we at least have a solid number to look at now.
Since there were 8 initial fighters revealed with the game between Captain America, Iron Man, Storm, Doctor Doom, Star-Lord, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man and Ghost Rider, that means there’s still 12 more to be announced this year.
With that in mind, I teamed up with our resident comic book man Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor to put together our top dozen picks to fill out Tokon’s remaining roster.
The Marvel pantheon obviously has no shortage of choices on the table, so we didn’t manage to squeeze in everyone we’d want including some big names like Magneto, Cyclops, Venom, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Scarlet Witch, Thanos, Loki, Black Panther and many others.
We could have gone the safe route of only featuring characters we expect to show up, but instead, we thought it would be more fun and interesting to split the 12 evenly between expected picks and those we really want to see that would fit into the game / fill roles that currently aren’t part of the roster.
Everyone should be finding out soon enough more about what the roster of Marvel Tokon is going to look like upon release, but let’s dig in to who we think are the best and most likely cast members who could show up to the battle.
MajinTenshinhan’s 1st choice
The trinity of Marvel’s Avengers has long been Captain America, Iron Man and Thor and with the other two already present, the God of Thunder seems like pretty much a foregone conclusion.
While his lightning abilities may already overlap somewhat with Storm, he also brings a very different type of fighting style to the table being more of a heavyweight brawler as compared to her swift flight-based fighting, coupled of course with the fact that the vast majority of Thor’s attacks involve wielding his mighty hammer Mjolnir, so I think that him and Storm could easily avoid stepping on each other’s feet (and they already did as much in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as well).
Adding to this, Thor is the most enduring character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, staying around even after Avengers: Endgame and is set to take center stage once again for Avengers: Doomsday later this year. Thor is both a staple of Avengers as a whole but also Marvel’s marketing plans for their movies, so I’d be very surprised to see my #1 favorite Marvel character sit this one out.
DarkHorse’s 1st choice
Wolverine’s exclusion from the initial reveal roster for Marvel Tokon was probably the most shocking considering he’s essentially the face of the X-Men to many fans and already has a long history in fighting games through the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
Obviously, Logan would presumably be a fairly straightforward rushdown character with his slashing claws and acrobatics allowing him to get in and pressure the opponent while using his assists and tags for mixups.
It’s also hard to imagine him being left out of the starting cast considering PlayStation is currently producing Marvel’s Wolverine as well, which is probably going to make an appearance at the State of Play stream too.
MajinTenshinhan’s 2nd choice
Daredevil is one of the most long-lasting characters in Marvel Comics’ publication and I already wrote a piece last year lamenting his exclusion from the Marvel vs. Capcom series, so this would be a perfect opportunity for Arc System Works to right that wrong and bring old horn-head into the fray.
His profile has gotten bigger than ever in recent years after a highly successful Netflix TV show which ran for three seasons and had a recent revival/sequel on Disney+ as Daredevil: Born Again which is about to hit its second season. Suffice to say, Marvel are very much interested in expanding the reach of the Daredevil brand.
As a character, Daredevil’s acrobatics and enhanced senses could make him a very fluid fighter with high speed and evasive abilities. If you lean extra hard into him being a skilled fighter and center him around having to land counter hit confirms or similar technical abilities to unlock his true potential, that’d make it an even more perfect representation.
Daredevil has missed his chance in fighting games for far too long and now we’re finally at a point where the timing seems to be adding up for The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. To me, he seems like a no-brainer.
DarkHorse’s 2nd choice
Another fighting game staple archetype currently missing from Marvel Tokon’s stable is the big-bodied brawler, so who would be a better fit than The Incredible Hulk himself?
Bruce Banner’s raging alter ego could be a fairly simple “punch you in the face with big fist” type of fighter here, but we could see Arc System Works get creative with Hulk’s moveset compared to the Marvel vs. Capcom titles.
Plus, it would feel weird to include Iron-Man’s Hulkbuster armor as a Super and not also have the big man there himself.
MajinTenshinhan’s 3rd choice
One of the most charismatic and popular X-Men, a group who are seeing a massive resurgence lately with the success of X-Men ’97 and the promise from Marvel that they’re incorporating them in the Multiverse events of their current movies, Gambit is quite familiar to most fans of Marvel comics.
He was in Capcom’s early Marvel-based fighting games, so even the fighting game community are definitely no stranger to this raging Cajun, and while his popularity speaks for itself, what about his gameplay? How could he be a good fit for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls?
Well, one of Gambit’s most unique aspects is definitely his mutant ability which lets him enhance objects with kinetic energy. He primarily uses this with a bo staff he carries around and playing cards to use as projectiles. This combined with his hand-to-hand combat abilities make him a great character to design around switching up his ranges on the fly.
Having long-ranged projectiles coupled with mid-range staff attacks and close range physical moves could make for a playstyle where you’re constantly switching up what range to play at in order to optimally use the character which would be an exciting way to incorporate proper decision-making in his kit.
Since we already saw him get brought to the big screen portrayed by Channing Tatum in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine and have confirmation he’ll be in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, it’s clear Marvel are banking more on Gambit again as well, so he feels like a very likely pick.
DarkHorse’s 3rd choice
We’re still waiting to see a magic user on Marvel Tokon’s roster as well, and while Scarlet Witch is high on my list, I still have to give my spot to the sorcerer supreme.
I’m very excited to see what types of reality and time-warping abilities ArcSys would come up with for Doctor Strange after some of the whacky stuff they pulled off with Asuka in Guilty Gear Strive.
He could also end up something of a zoner or support character, however, I certainly wouldn’t be mad to see his spot go to Wanda or maybe even Enchantress.
MajinTenshinhan’s 1st choice
Black Cat has always been my favorite female character from Marvel Comics and although she largely appears as a supporting character in Spider-Man comics, I’ve always felt that she has more than enough to shine on her own as well (which we’ve seen a bit of lately, with her getting some of her own comic books in recent years).
An agile thief with sharp claws at the ready, Black Cat typically shies away from fighting since her modus operandi relies on stealth more so than brute force which could make for a fun move set of agile mixup moves where she overwhelms her opponent with sneaky surprise attacks rather than outright offense.
Since Spider-Man is easily the most popular intellectual property for Marvel Comics, I’m really hoping that we’ll see more characters related to the wall-crawler this time around and as far as allies go, even though she can stand on her own two feet to an extent now, Black Cat is probably the most iconic ally of Spider-Man’s who isn’t that well-established in their own right like Daredevil or the Fantastic Four are.
Another thing is that in comic book-based games, there’s often so many more men than women to choose from and Black Cat would be a great candidate to balance the gender scales as well. I’ve always wanted to have her playable in more games since she’s almost never an option and hopefully Arc System Works can deliver it for me this time.
DarkHorse’s 1st choice
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was my first true introduction to Deadpool as a character (besides X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but we don’t talk about that), and I quickly fell in love with his playstyle and absurdity.
Wade’s use of swords, guns and random tech would make him stand out among the current cast besides arguably Star-Lord, though, I don’t see them being very similar in Tokon with what they’ve done for Peter Quill.
And of course I want to see what sorts of comical hijinks and fourth-wall breaking shenanigans a different Japanese developer could think up after all this time.
MajinTenshinhan’s 2nd choice
Now, ideally, I’d want the entire Fantastic Four in Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. I wrote a big piece last year about their unfortunate absence from fighting games and later in the summer, I even explicitly highlighted them for Marvel Tokon due to the 4v4 nature of the game, so this should come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed my writings.
But, since we now know that the roster size of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls will be sitting at 20 characters at launch, expecting a whole 20% of that to be dedicated to the Fantastic Four seems extremely unrealistic. So if I have to choose just one of the members of Marvel’s first family, I’d have to go with Susan Storm.
The Invisible Woman actually has many more abilities than just turning invisible, with her power-set being more focused on her force field projection which she uses primarily for defense, but also in offensive ways as well as for maneuverability purposes, so you could easily craft a move set which encompasses all of this for her and lets her manipulate the areas around her to inconvenience her foes.
To be honest, she’s another character who is in my top 10 Marvel characters (as are all of the others above her), but in the Fantastic Four specifically I actually prefer The Human Torch… but I feel like Invisible Woman would make for a much more exciting moveset, so if we’re looking at only one, I feel like she’s the best pick… and then we can add her family members as DLC later, yeah?
DarkHorse’s 2nd choice
Growing up as a big Spider-Man fan, I was always kinda bummed that his villains were never really represented in the major fighting games besides Venom.
So of course I’d love to see one of THE big Spidey baddies finally get his time to shine with the Green Goblin (though I’d also settle for Hobgoblin too).
Norman would fill the hole of a tech and trap character in Tokon where he could keep opponents locked down with things like bombs and nets.
Plus, I want to see how the developers could incorporate Green Goblin’s glider into a fighting game. Would it be limited to just a regular Super? an Install Super? Or maybe something he can call in for support and temporarily fly with?
MajinTenshinhan’s 3rd choice
Speaking of Spider-Man characters, something that’s been sorely missing from many a Marvel crossover games are some of the highly dynamic members of Spidey’s rogues’ gallery and for a fighting game, my top pick would be Mysterio (incidentally, this is also something I raised in the aforementioned quartet article for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls’ roster).
A master of illusions, Mysterio is a former special effects artist who uses his know-how and gadgets to puzzle his opponents and make them believe that they’re seeing things that aren’t actually there, which is a very exciting prospect for a fighting game character. Given his trade, the visual spectacle of his moves alone make a great case for why he should be included.
In my mind, he’d have a lot of sneaky attacks similar to Basara from Samurai Shodown who can do fake-out moves to bewilder the opponent, coupled with things like teleports and dirty mixup attacks, while being fairly weak on defense and not having overly high damage.
Seeing something like this put to the test would be very cool and even though I’m not overly fond of the anime-inspired aesthetic for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls so far, I would love to see how they’d make Mysterio in that style. He’s already a very distinctive guy, so seeing what they’d cook up visually would be quite exciting.
DarkHorse’s 3rd choice
Finally, I came to the conclusion that one of the last main fighter archetypes that Marvel Tokon is missing is of course the grappler.
The obvious pick would be to include X-Men’s Colossus as a simple choice, but I can’t say he’s one of my absolute favorites — and I wanted to think about something a bit different.
My first idea was to combine Groot and Rocket Raccoon riding on his back where the expressive tree could shoot his roots through the ground or air to snag people, however, I ended up going back to the X-Men.
Instead, my final choice for Marvel Tokon’s launch roster is Rogue.
I can envision ArcSys coming up with a version of Rogue who could be similar to Dragon Ball FighterZ’s Android 21 or Street Fighter 5’s Seth where she steals the moves or abilities of enemies that she grabs.
Or perhaps something like Street Fighter 6’s Manon and also Android 21 where she could buff herself and/or debuff the opponent by landing consecutive throws.
Or maybe a combination of the two if they’re feeling extra zesty and enjoy making those who have to fight Rogue extra mad.
MajinTenshinhan also suggested a deep cut for a potential grappler that no one would see coming in Trapster (or as he was originally known, Paste-Pot Pete), which would at least be unexpected and fun.
So there you have our top 12 choices for Marvel Tokon’s launch roster, though we’d be pleased to see plenty of other characters show up too. Let us know in the comments which fighters you agree with, who you want to see, and what you’d hope their playstyles could be like below.