Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Drops Its Launch Trailer, With Deadpool, Hulk and Loki Rounding Out the Roster

The wait is almost over for the anime-styled Marvel fighter. Arc System Works published the launch trailer for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls on July 31, and the game itself arrives this Thursday, August 6, on PS5, Steam and the Epic Games Store. In New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Korea the store date reads August 7 because of time zones, but it is the same global launch.

If you played the open beta that ran July 24 to 26, you already know most of what this game is. The beta gave everyone 15 characters, ranked matches and the first three story chapters, which was closer to a free trial than a stress test. The launch trailer answers the one question the beta left open: who fills the last five slots.

Video: Arc System Works on YouTube

The last five fighters complete the roster

Joining the 15 fighters from the beta are Hulk, Loki, Deadpool, Carnage and Green Goblin, which brings the day-one roster to the promised twenty. It is a villain-heavy finish, and a smart one. The beta lineup leaned hard on heroes, with the Fighting Avengers, the Unbreakable X-Men and the Amazing Guardians filling most of the select screen, so a closing wave built around chaos characters like Carnage and Deadpool gives the roster the edge it was missing.

The roster will not stop at twenty either. Sony has already confirmed Phoenix Cyclops as the first Year 1 DLC character, and the Year 1 pass covers four fighters plus a stage in total. Marvel fans who also spend time in the mobile fighting scene can meanwhile grab freebies from our Marvel Contest of Champions codes page while they wait for Thursday.

Editions, prices and what you get at launch

The Standard Edition costs 59.99 dollars, which is worth noting in a year when 69.99 has become the default for big releases. The Digital Deluxe Edition at 84.99 dollars bundles in the Year 1 Characters and Stage Pass, and the 99.99 dollar Ultimate Edition adds costumes for Storm, Captain America, Doctor Doom, Iron Man and Spider-Man plus an animated chromatic color unlock for all twenty launch characters.

Beyond versus play, the full game ships with ranked and casual online matches, local play for couch sessions, and an Episode Mode that tells five original stories with motion comic cutscenes and full voice acting in ten languages. That is a lot more single player structure than tag fighters usually bother with, and it was already one of the beta's pleasant surprises.

Our honest read after the beta weekend: the 4v4 tag format clicks faster than it sounds like it should, the netcode held up, and at 59.99 this is one of the easier day-one recommendations of the summer for fighting game fans. If you are still unsure, the trailer above is ninety seconds well spent.