Who said fighting games were dead? Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls posted a peak concurrent player count of over 33,000 on Steam during its open beta last weekend. For context, these surpass the benchmarks set previously by Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6 (as well as their own betas). The numbers confirm that the appetite for a superhero tag-team fighter is very, very real, despite what the critics say. We’re hungry.
The beta ran across the weekend of July 25–27, 2026, and the numbers were striking from the moment servers opened:
| Game | Peak Steam beta players |
|---|---|
| Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls | 33,000+ |
| Street Fighter 6 | ~32,000 |
| Tekken 8 | ~15,000 |
Issue is, PC performance did sour things a tad.
Before a single match was played, the region-locking drama had already started
Even before the beta went live, Sony managed to annoy everyone by region-locking the game on Steam across more than 100 countries. According to Rock Paper Shotgun, this was due to mandatory PlayStation Network account requirements. At its widest, the restriction covered 132 countries according to Steam's backend data, a situation RPS noted was directly comparable to the Helldivers 2 PSN controversy from 2024. The parallels to the Helldivers 2 situation weren’t lost on players who felt burned by that episode, which lives long in the memory.
Then, PC performance made a bad situation worse
Eventually, the servers opened globally. Yay! One snag — the experience for PC players was rough. Let’s run through the issues: Shader compilation freezes on startup, cross-play lag spikes, frame rate drops mid-match and streaming instability through software like Discord and OBS. What’s more, they all surfaced within hours of launch, putting a bit of a dampener on things.
Arc System Works was at least aware of the mess, with the studio posting publicly: "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. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we sincerely apologise for the impact this has had on your experience."
The studio followed that statement with a six-part troubleshooting thread, though it was careful to note the community-sourced suggestions were "not officially confirmed fixes" and that "results may vary depending on your PC configuration."
As of today (July 31), Arc System Works has committed to day-one fixes targeting:
- CPU load reduction
- Startup shader compilation
- Rollback netcode stability
- Improvements to cross-play connections
The FGC isn't ready to forgive
The fighting game community has a short memory for apologies and a long memory for bad first impressions. If anyone holds a grudge, it’s the FCG. Veteran competitor Christopher 'NYChrisG' Gonzalez made this clear on X, writing: "STOP USING THE 'IT'S JUST A BETA' EXCUSE WHEN IT COMES TO PEOPLE'S GRIPES AND CONCERNS PLEASE!!!!!!.” Quite.
On the real.
— Chris G (@NYChrisG) July 27, 2026
CAN WE STOP USING THE "ITS JUST A BETA" EXCUSE WHEN IT COMES TO PEOPLES GRIPES AND CONCERNS PLEASE!!!!!! EVERY SINGLE TIME!?!?!? YALL SOUND DUMB AF
The gameplay itself also split the community. Commentator and FGC veteran James 'jchensor' Chen offered a more measured response to the situation than Gonzalez, arguing that players should stop trying to force Tōkon into a Capcom 2 vs. Marvel mold, but he also knows that combo and movement buffering felt a tad sluggish in places. Chen said: "I think we have a very strong game at hand for now. I think there's a LOT for us to learn about Marvel Tokon, and the game has the potential to get degenerate pretty heavily once we have actual time with it."
The path to August 6
The numbers prove that the demand for a game like this is real. A superhero tag-team fighter from Arc System Works (well, technical woes aside). The roster content is already expanding too, with Phoenix Cyclops confirmed as a post-launch DLC fighter and an Iron Man character guide trailer now circulating ahead of release.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls launches August 6.
