I played the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls demo at Evo 2025 and I personally loved it. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
You know when you date a dude and they start saying on the second date that they can picture marrying you and even start yapping about random child names and honeymoon locations. And you’re like, “Bro, you don’t even know my Smash main yet. What the hell are you talking about?”
When that happens — RUN!
Future faking is exactly what it sounds like— talking about the future. The key word here is faking. Toxic love bombers you just met can easily say whatever they want, especially things they know you want to hear. They can easily talk about marriage but that doesn’t mean they’ll marry you. In fact, they probably won’t even take you on a third date unless you agree to go 50/50 at the Wendy’s that’s suspiciously down the street from his house. Future faking is dangerous because it builds up ideals in your mind without the other person actually having to take any actions towards getting there.
Well, the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls developers just did that to the FGC. In a recent announcement from Arc System Works Producer Takeshi Yamanaka, he admitted the game is still in development and needs “everyone’s help,” yet “for the next 10 years, we plan to keep making this game the best experience ever.”
This may sound exciting at first, envisioning a massive roster of like 80-plus Marvel heroes and villains, a super balanced game that keeps getting updates, and developers who actually put money into the esports scene (*cough* Nintendo *cough*)… But that’s what devs want you to do! That’s future faking! He just admitted the game isn’t even fully developed yet! The demo at Evo 2025 only had Captain America, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, Doctor Doom, and Storm — the same squad that will be in the closed beta on September 5th as well. Yet here we are, talking about a decade from now and the roster has six characters for a 4v4 format.
So let me just say this: I loved the demo. The game truly does have potential. The look and feel of the game was so satisfying. It was easy to learn the playstyle and movesets yet you felt so powerful pulling off a combo. The comic book feel was so clean and fun. The characters look badass. I actually think this game could last a long time in the FGC.
However, let’s just take it a step at a time, alright? Let’s get some more characters, let’s keep balancing the game, let’s get the title past its first beta. Alright?
The FGC Doesn’t Even Want a 10-Year Fighting Game
The gaming community can remember other times they heard lofty promises. Plenty of games promised plenty of stuff, only to fail miserably. Destiny is still around, as promised, but it’ll bankrupt you to keep playing. I think even Marvel Rivals kept blabbing about how it plans to be around for 10-plus years but that game is already getting really boring and repetitive (how many identical female characters do we need? At least they’re in a bathing suit).
Most gamers don’t want a fighting game — or any game — that’s around for 10 years. Ten years of buying DLC characters? No thanks. This moreso sounds like a plan to suck the FGC dry rather than celebrate us. It’d probably be better to just make a Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls 2 in five years.
Either way, I think developers should just be focusing on the present day. Let’s add new characters to avoid the abysmal roster that 2XKO has been relying on for the past three years. Let’s make the game as balanced and competitive as we can while still making it fun for casuals. I don’t really care about the DLC villain you add in nine years right now. I just want to see the game succeed because I need something else to play now that Soul Caliber is dead.
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