STACK #262 August 2026

GAMING FEATURE

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ASSEMBLE! FORMAT: GENRE: Fighting MULTIPLAYER: Yes

Classic arcade-style biffo returns to the Marvel universe this month, in the all-new Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls . Developed by Japanese brawler legends Arc System Works, we find out more from the game’s producer,TakeshiYamanaka, and game director and lead battle designer, Kazuto Sekine. Words Amy Flower

were known by everyone and others because they had potential to bring something unique and interesting through their specific abilities. Some of them have never been featured in fighting games, and even more niche characters are not widely known by the general public. You’ve developed an exciting fighting system that sees more characters join the fray as a battle progresses. Please can you explain how this system plays out, and what inspired it? KS: One thing I really wanted to accomplish was recreating the sort of battle you’d see in Marvel comics or movies. They often start out with fewer characters fighting, and as the battle goes on, new allies join the fray to further up the intensity before the climax of the fight. I felt the 4v4 format was a must from the start to create that impact. When I brought up this suggestion within Arc to Yamanaka, as well as PlayStation Studios, I remember how wide their eyes went. If that was the sort of response it would get from the players, too, that only solidified my determination to make the game a 4v4. I was often asked, ‘Can this really work?’, but I felt it was up to my own abilities to make it happen! Also, when I set out to create a tag fighter, I went back and played different games in the genre again. It made me realise how consistent the game rules have been across titles. It’s

the Universe, a character always searching for strong opponents to fight, has set his sights on Earth. Earth’s heroes and villains alike have to make teams of four to defeat him. The Promoter, who accompanies the Champion, sends an invitation to Captain America, Storm, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, etc… so they can build teams and protect the Earth. How did you go about selecting the roster of (at launch) 20 Marvel characters from the huge array available to choose from? Did you have any specific suitability requirements that you looked for in a character? TY: Marvel having a lot of wonderful characters, it was honestly quite hard to narrow down our roster to 20 of them. The first criteria for the roster was to have variations in battle styles. Also, we of course couldn’t NOT include Marvel’s main faces, etc... By first defining these

Arc System Works has a reputation for amazing 2D and 2.5D arcade-styled fighting games, including the Guilty Gear and Blazblue series.This is your first Marvel game – how did you approach creating a brawler within such an established universe? TY: Marvel has a very long history, including within the world of fighting games. As such we did our best to uphold the cherished memories fans have with its characters and world building. Threading this line along with adding our own flair to the mix has been one of the main points of focus during this whole project. KS: Being an IP with a long history and

having been part of many people’s lives, many may have ideas of what each Marvel character should be like based on when they personally had their first or strongest impression of said character. So, what we tried to do is to keep

• Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is out Aug 7

certainly a well-refined genre in that sense, but I felt it would be challenging to really create something brand new within the existing rules, and that there’s room to make changes to them... which led to what you see in the game today. What’s your secret to keeping a classic 2.5D arcade fighter so fresh and playable? KS: I would say it’s ensuring

“must have” conditions for inclusion in the roster, we proposed lineups to PlayStation and Marvel one after the other and got their feedback, which ended up forging what was to become the roster as it is today. KS: Concerning the base roster, Arc System Works proposed a lineup that consisted both of characters chosen because they

the essential cues of their traditional design and put our own spins on top of that based on Arc System Works’ interpretation of these characters. The end result came from an exercise of balancing between both these things. Can you please quickly summarise the story that plays out in Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls ? TY: In the world of this game, the Champion of

A TOP TIP! Advises Sekine-san, “I’d recommend starting out by focusing on your favourite character, rather than trying to learn all four characters at once.”

22 AUGUST 2026

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