Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls dev apologises for PC "gameplay and performance issues"

"For PC ports this bad, this will be eternally relevant: This demo performs like a retired stripper."

The open beta for Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is finally here, and it seems PC players are struggling with a host of issues unique to the PC port, prompting developer Arc System Works to issue an apology and troubleshooting guidelines over the weekend.

As spotted by Kotaku, PC players have taken to social media and Reddit to report their performance issues, with some suggesting the port will "hammer a single CPU thread because of anti-cheats and PS5 architecture" and identifying "five Sony sub services running at all times with the game".

"The game isn't optimised enough, given that only some of the settings work and people are relying on them," said one. "My PC goes from running this game like it's a 2000's game to running this game on a 2000's PC. Even running it with low spec w/ upscalers."

"This is so shit," said another, appending a sorry screenshot of their Task Manager.

"After a bit of playing and testing, I've found out that the input buffering in this game is virtually nonexistent," posited one fan. "Not even for buttons, but for motions too. Trying to combo a normal into a special with a DP motion more often than not just gives me a special with a QCF motion. It seems like if u don't input the forward motion in the cancelable window with the rest of the D+DF motion(or QCF as I often do), the game will simply disregard the forward motion and read what was input within the cancel window."

Others have complained about the PlayStation Network connection requirement, with one player writing: "Why does it require me to press sign in every time I close the game? This extra layer is an awful requirement and adds annoying layers to even get into the game".

Of course, the whole point of a beta test is to identify game and performance issues before the full release, but the 6th August release date is just around the corner. The good news, at least, is that the team is aware of the issues.

"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," the team confirmed over the weekend.

"Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we sincerely apologise for the impact this has had on your experience."

There are some temporary fixes making the rounds – check the "execute shader warmup" setting under graphic settings is just one of them – but even with the workarounds, many players are still struggling. Further troubleshooting tips have been offered up by the development team itself, albeit with the caveat "these are not officially confirmed fixes". You can find out more in the thread below:

Guilty Gear developer Arc System Works unveiled new tag team fighter Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls last year. The full launch roster has now been confirmed: Storm, Magik, Wolverine, Danger, Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, Peni Parker, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Hulk, Doctor Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, Carnage, Ghost Rider, Blade, Deadpool, and Loki.

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is currently blocked in over 100 countries, once again due to Sony's controversial PSN linking requirement, but is expected to release on PC and PS5 on 6th August, 2026.