During last night’s PlayStation State of Play, the show concluded with Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. A superhero tag-team fighter from Arc System Works, the community of die-hard fighting game lovers celebrated the announcement, with some making comparisons to Riot Games’ upcoming release: 2XKO
2XKO, itself a tag fighter that has been in development since Radiant Entertainment was acquired by Riot back in 2016 had largely had the tag-fighter space to itself for the foreseeable future, with the exception of the endearing but budget title HunterxHunter NenxImpact.
However, with this announcement, it looks like Riot Games has a real Marvel rival to contend with. Social media was abuzz with excitement for Marvel Tokon. Justin Wong, perhaps North America’s most prominent Marvel vs Capcom player, wrote: “Holy shit MARVEL FIGHTING GAME IS BACK?!”.
Yipes, himself a beloved figure in the professional fighting game scene and a legendary Marvel vs Capcom 2 player, was lost for words. He posted, “!??!?!?!??!?!?!”, an apt measure of the overall feeling following the State of Play.
This reveal brought with it immediate comparisons to 2XKO, due to the unavoidable rivalry between the two games. Former pro player Alioune summed it up with “If « fuck you 2xko » was a game”, whereas one fighting game fan on Twitter reacted by stating: “Game already has a bigger roster than 2xko”.