MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls Is Getting A New "Less Serious" Multiplayer Mode

Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls has one more unannounced mode launching with the game supposedly letting new players do online matches in a less serious environment, according to the game's developers. 

Speaking to us at Arc World Tour 2025-26, Game producer Takeshi Yamanaka and Game Director/Lead Battle Designer Kazuto Sekine teased the upcoming mode, though they were light on specifics outside of it still being PVP-focused. 

Adding A New Mode To Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls

"I do think the matches, the players playing versus other players is a really core part of fighting games as a genre", Yamanaka says. "We want to avoid that situation where you end up with a beginner player playing against a more veteran player and thinking 'this game is so hard there's no way I can win', So we incorporated a lot of elements into the game to avoid that kind of situation happening".

"For example we have the Start-Up Battle mode where players can start learning about fighting games even from zero experience. We haven't announced this yet, but we're working on a mode that has a more casual feel for players to jump into battles more easily. That's coming up in the works (sic)". 

Yamanaka did go on to describe the mode slightly later on, detailing the mode's direction: 

"[It] will be a mode for players that's easier to dive into for still playing against other players but it's not a very serious kind of battle mode".

It should be noted this isn't the first time Arc System Works has used this kind of language to describe an in-game feature: very similar phrases were used to describe Guilty Gear Strive's Duel Tower, which acted as a pseudo-ranked mode. 

"The Rank Tower will be renamed "Duel Tower" as an entry point for getting used to online battles for those who are not accustomed to fighting games or feel hesitant to play against random opponents without seeing them. The tutorial for the first-time play of the Network Mode will continue to guide players to the Tower as before", - Guilty Gear Strive Developer's Backyard 18

It should be noted similar phrasing isn't indicative of anything other than similar intent- we literally have no actual concrete information on what's coming outside of what Yamanaka has already said. 

On Making Changes To Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls

The duo also talked about the changes to Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls since its last beta. Since its last playable state the game has undergone massive gameplay changes, including a near-overhaul of the assist system and speeding up the gameplay by cutting down on screen freezes and stage transitions. 

While the changes were guided by player feedback, Sekine stressed they weren't rushing to implement every idea that gains upvotes on reddit or the like: they were using feedback to justify or re-examine ideas they already had. 

"It is very tough of course to make these kind of changes during development. But I would say that although we are making shifts and changes, the direction [overall] hasn't changed. Our intentions have remained the same", Sekine explains. "So far there is a lot of work to do. We already had in mind ways we could improve the game, and now we have the opportunity to communicate with the players and achieve that".

"To give a specific example we received a lot of feedback about the players wanting more freedom with assists and when they're able to call for them. We did, on our side, when we were playing the game also feel like it starts to feel visually similar at some point, like you're seeing the same kind of situations repeatedly", he says. 

"Once we heard that kind of feedback from the players we confirmed our own suspicions and were able to work on that to improve the flexibility of what you're able to call from your teammates. I think thanks to that communication [we were able to do it]", he says.

"Of course, we receive a diverse amount of different feedback and it's not that we would take in all of the feedback and try to make all of that happen. It's that we look at the feedback and we find what matches with our vision for the game and what can help create a more fun experience for all of the players. Our hope there is to Assemble with the players and keep the communication up so we can create a new form of fighting game that hasn't been seen before.

"I think that actually ties back to players wanting more freedom with what they can do with the assists in particular", Yamanaka says. "I think that was the most valued piece of feedback we received. Of course if you do give them freedom with the assists it creates more strategic decision making that they have to do throughout the match".

"However, I think it's more important to the players that they wanted to have the freedom to be able to have a lot of options and to be able to press buttons and call in their allies and see all of their characters, which did align with our vision for the game where we wanted to have simpler controls but also have all of these different team members coming on and off the screen and have that kind of chaotic team nature to it. It played in with that", he adds. "We were able to create that vision of all the characters kind of working together on the team".

When asked if any other big changes were down the line, Sekine said they were more focused on getting feedback on the ones they'd just implemented: 

"I think we have already covered all the major changes we're looking at. The next step for us is if anything to create opportunities for players to get their hands on the game and experience all the changes we've been making and see their thoughts from there", Sekine says. 

"We'll say one thing that we're constantly always looking to improve on is the responsiveness of how the game feels. We're kind of internally trying to improve that as much as we can".