Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls peaked at more than 33,000 concurrent players on Steam during its open beta over the weekend of July 25-27, Dot Esports reported. The figure surpasses the Steam beta benchmarks previously set by Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6.
PC performance problems surfaced within hours of the servers opening. Dot Esports listed shader compilation freezes on startup, cross-play lag spikes, frame rate drops mid-match, and streaming instability through software such as Discord and OBS.
Day-one fixes committed
Arc System Works acknowledged the problems publicly during the test.
We're aware of the gameplay and performance issues currently affecting the PC version of MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls. Our team is actively investigating these issues and working on a fix. We'll share an update as soon as we have more information.
The studio followed that statement with a six-part troubleshooting thread, noting that the community-sourced suggestions were "not officially confirmed fixes" and that "results may vary depending on your PC configuration." As of July 31, Dot Esports reported, Arc System Works has committed to day-one fixes covering CPU load reduction, startup shader compilation, rollback netcode stability and improvements to cross-play connections.
A split reception
Response among competitors was divided. Veteran competitor Christopher "NYChrisG" Gonzalez objected on X to players dismissing complaints on the grounds that the test was only a beta. Commentator James "jchensor" Chen was more measured, arguing that players should stop trying to force Tōkon into a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 mold while acknowledging that combo and movement buffering felt sluggish in places. Chen said the game had "the potential to get degenerate pretty heavily" once the community has real time with it.
The beta was also preceded by a region-locking dispute. Dot Esports reported, citing Rock Paper Shotgun, that the game was listed as unavailable in as many as 132 countries on Steam because of mandatory PlayStation Network account requirements, and drew comparisons to the 2024 Helldivers 2 PSN controversy.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls launches August 6. Dot Esports reported that Phoenix Cyclops has been confirmed as a post-launch DLC fighter and that an Iron Man character guide trailer is circulating ahead of release.
Join the conversation — sign in to comment.
Sign in