Marvel’s gaming division, alongside Sony Interactive Entertainment, has recently announced a brand-new 4v4 fighting game developed by Arc System Works.

Known for its work on Dragon Ball FighterZ, the Japanese developers have now taken on the challenge of a Marvel-licensed fighting game.

Revealed during PlayStation’s State of Play announcement, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls offers easy-to-pick-up but hard-to-master gameplay with established Marvel characters, each with their own unique fighting styles and abilities.

If this looks and sounds familiar, you’re not the only one. Marvel Tōkon is set to be a major rival to Riot Games’ 2XKO.

In the latest collaboration between Marvel Games and Sony Interactive Entertainment, Marvel Tōkon is a 4v4 tag hero fighter, featuring famous characters from the Marvel universe.

Players will be able to select four characters from the roster, using one as the main fighter and three others to assist.

As is typical with tag fighters, the main fighter can be swapped out with another character during the fight, leading to some interesting opportunities to counter the opposing player.

Each fighter will have Normal, Special and Unique attacks, alongside an Ultimate Skill that comes with its own unique animation.

The game’s visuals are anime-esque, mixed with Western comic book style, making for a blend of bright colours with highly exaggerated animations.

Marvel Tōkon is being developed by Arc System Works, who are known for titles such as Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, the Persona 4 Arena games, and Dragon Ball FighterZ.

In the announcement trailer, they teased a 2026 release, with the roster of Marvel characters so far being:

Fans of the fighting game genre will notice one glaring issue: Marvel already has a popular fighting game series.

For decades, the premier Marvel fighting game has been the Marvel vs. Capcom series, which dates back to 1996 with X-Men vs. Street Fighter.

The series featured Marvel characters fighting alongside or against beloved Capcom characters, across four main titles and five offshoots.

However, the last main game in the series came out in 2017: the poorly received Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.

With the critical and financial failure of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, it appears that the series has been unceremoniously retired in favour of something new.

In addition, the Marvel Tōkon trailer seems to have completely omitted their previous work with Capcom.

Ironically titled, ‘From Japan to the World’, the promotional video doubles down on incorporating Japanese designs into the game, despite Capcom also being based in Japan.

Sunsetting the Marvel vs. Capcom series may have been for the best; however, the door also closes for Marvel characters to feature in other fighting games.

Looking at the trailer, it’s easy to draw comparisons to Riot Games’ upcoming fighting game 2XKO.

The 2v2 tag fighter was first announced in Riot Games’ 10th anniversary video and is set to release this year after being in development for some time.

Although the similarities are there, it’s not clear whether one side drew inspiration from the other or if it was simply a coincidence.

Either way, should 2XKO be worried about a major competitor in Marvel Tōkon?

While it would be within the genre to imagine these two games fighting it out in competition, the truth is that they have different audiences to appeal to.

The success of Arcane spawned a whole new audience that became drawn to the characters of that world.

Meanwhile, Marvel has had an established list of characters which fans have adored for decades.

Each game is likely to have the support of its existing fans, ensuring that both maintain a consistent player base at launch.

The key factor for these games is the release date.

2XKO will release this year, while Marvel Tōkon will come out the following year.

It’s possible that the 2XKO hype fades, with players jumping to Marvel Tōkon, or the opposite may be true.

However, it’s more likely that the reality will lie somewhere in between.

In the same way that Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Kombat each have their core audiences despite being in the same genre, both 2XKO and Marvel Tōkon can co-exist successfully.