Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Open Beta Runs July 24 to 26 With 15 Characters, No PS Plus Needed

If you have been curious about the anime-styled Marvel fighter since its reveal, next weekend is your chance to actually put hands on it. Sony has confirmed that the Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls open beta runs from July 24 at 12:00am PT through July 26 at 11:59pm PT on PS5, Steam and the Epic Games Store, and nobody needs a PlayStation Plus subscription to join. The full game follows shortly after, on August 6.

Video: PlayStation on YouTube

What is in the beta

This is a generous slice. Fifteen of the twenty launch characters are playable, grouped into the game's five teams: the Fighting Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther), the Unbreakable X-Men (Storm, Magik, Wolverine, Danger), the Amazing Guardians (Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, Peni Parker), the Samurai Outriders (Ghost Rider, Blade) and the Knights of Doom (Doctor Doom, Magneto).

You get six stages, including day and night versions of Marvel's New York, the Savage Land, the X-Mansion, Knowhere and Wakanda. On the modes side, both casual and ranked online matches are live, local Versus is in for couch play, and there is a Training mode plus a Start Up Battle tutorial for anyone new to the 4v4 tag format Arc System Works built here. The beta even includes the first three chapters of the Amazing Guardians story in Episode Mode, which is more single player content than most betas bother with.

How to get in

There is no sign-up, code or waitlist. The client goes up for pre-download two hours before the servers open, and then you just play. The one requirement worth flagging is a PlayStation account, which you need even on Steam and Epic. PS Plus is explicitly not required for the online modes during the beta.

Our take

Open betas this close to launch are usually stress tests, but 15 characters, ranked play and story chapters is closer to a free trial of the whole game. That is a confident move, and a smart one for a tag fighter that lives or dies on its netcode feeling good. If you are on the fence about the August 6 release, this weekend-long test is the cheapest possible way to find out whether Arc System Works' take on Marvel clicks for you. Our advice: grab the pre-download early, try the tutorial before jumping into ranked, and spend at least one evening in the lobby while it is packed.