Are Marvel Tōkon, Invincible VS, and 2XKO a threat to SF6 and Tekken 8?

Right now, the fighting game genre is cleanly defined by two super heavyweights: Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8. Both have sprawling, exciting pro tours, record-breaking numbers of player registrations at Evo, and both are the Esports World Cup headline games.

Mortal Kombat 1 failed to live up to its top billing, and while games like Guilty Gear -STRIVE- (GGST) and Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (GBVSR) are doing relatively well, they’re also either getting old or simply don’t have the chops to challenge the top two.

This is the ecosystem in which three new tag fighters, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, Invincible VS, and 2XKO, are looking to enter with ambitions to become the next big thing. The FGC will hype anything with a life bar and rollback, so the question is simple: Is there actual substance here, or are we just in the honeymoon phase again?

Marvel Tōkon: ArcSys x Marvel x Sony is destined for greatness

Developer and game background

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls sounds almost too good to be true on paper. It’s a 4v4 Marvel tag fighter developed by Arc System Works and published by Sony, with Marvel Games deeply involved.

ArcSys is coming off Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, some of the most respected modern fighters in terms of systems design, visuals, and the competitive scene.

The company is a thoroughbred fighting game developer that has made lots of different gaming IPs work, and now they’re given the holy grail: Marvel.

Combat and gameplay

Gameplay-wise, Tōkon is trying to push tag systems forward instead of just copying Marvel vs. Capcom. It runs on a shared team health bar and a 4-character lineup that starts as 1+assist and gradually unlocks the full squad mid-match via conditions like wall breaks or losing rounds. This is quite disappointing for some hardcore MvC2 fans, but at the same time, it solves lots of issues more casual players have with tag fighters in general.

This lowers the requirement of the player needing to learn multiple characters immediately to be even remotely competitive. They’re also no longer punished extremely harshly by losing a character early due to a blunder or a missed input.

Finally, the rounds won’t drag out until someone successfully sets up a Touch of Death (ToD – a fighting game term referring to a combo that brings the opponent’s health from 100% to 0 in one sequence) combo.

The other side of the coin is just how much of the tag fighter essence is in the team dynamics and how losing a character changes them.

Still, early hands-on at Evo 2025 praised how chaotic but legible the 4v4 structure feels and how much it synthesizes ArcSys’ recent work rather than reinventing the wheel for the sake of it. Tōkon has lots of GGST heritage, and quite understandably so: it’s the company’s biggest success to date.

Who is Marvel Tokon’s target audience?

The audience for this game is obvious and massive. Marvel heads who still dream of the day of MvC’s glorious comeback, general Marvel fans, anime fighter players, and general FGC audience that will try the tag fighter that “fixes” the tag fighter issues.

The concern is whether 4v4 complexity and a likely big roster creep will make it harder for more casual Marvel fans to keep up, and whether ArcSys can balance a game this ambitious over the years.

But it’s almost impossible for Tōkon not to be a runaway success. The foundational groundwork is too solid, the names attached to it are too competent, and there’s a distinct niche in the genre and in the people’s hearts where it will fit quite snugly.

One big blemish, however, is the game’s unavailability on Steam in regions without PSN. It’s still incomprehensible why Sony is still doing this.

Upsides and Challenges

Upsides:

• Highly accomplished developer who knows how to make a top-tier game.
• Support from Sony and Marvel, giving the dev team direct access and the ability to iterate.
• Systems that make the tag fighter genre more accessible.
• Incredible visual presentation and reimagined Marvel heroes.

Challenges:

• The game will require a huge cast for 4v4 gameplay not feel stale quickly.
• Sony’s insistence on gating who can access their games on PC will draw noticeable ire.

Invincible VS: Maximum gore is both an upside and a downside

Developer and game background

Invincible VS reminds us of the time when Mortal Kombat first appeared to challenge the glossy and polished Japanese fighting games with gore and visceral excitement. It’s Mortal Kombat to Tōkon’s Street Fighter. It’s grit to Tōkon’s flow. It’s Invincible to Tōkon’s Marvel…

The game is developed by Quarter Up and published by Skybound. It’s a 3v3 tag fighter based on the Invincible comic and Amazon show, leaning hard into brutal and gory presentation that hasn’t really been present in the MvC era.

Quarter Up isn’t a known studio yet, but it’s not composed of nonames either: it’s produced by Mike Willette of the Killer Instinct fame, Reepal “Rip” Parbhoo is the senior combat designer, and the team is full of other tag-fighter veterans. They have been quite explicit about chasing “tournament-grade” fighter with their gameplay.

Combat and gameplay

Invincible VS is a more traditional take on the tag fighter formula. All three characters have their own health bars, and you also don’t need to do anything special to get access to them. Team dynamics and composition play a bigger role than in Tōkon, as some rounds in that could end without you even having your whole team available to you.

Light, medium, heavy, and special buttons are used for attacks, while directional inputs allow you to choose the moves. Autocombos are executed by repeatedly pressing buttons and should help the newcomers get acclimatized.

To prevent players from mashing, there’s also a Killer Instinct-style combo meter. Some cool additions are the snapback moves that force the character change, and the multidimensionality of the stages that sometimes even blocks some assists.

But the game also retreads some of the old ground, too. One of the impressions from the closed alpha was just how easy it was to set up a Touch of Death combo. Still, alphas are alphas for a reason, and the team seems deeply committed to creating a flashy, gory, but technical fighter.

Who is Invincible VS’ target audience?

Audience-wise, there are fans of the show, older MvC players who want that exact flavor back, and people who want something more violent than what Marvel or Riot will ever consider. Many Mortal Kombat players would feel right at home here, especially considering the state Mortal Kombat 1 is left in.

The downside will be shared with Mortal Kombat as well: this level of gore can and will make broadcast partners twitchy, which means fewer sponsorships, more age-gated and demonetized YouTube videos, and generally less reach.

Gameplay depth looks promising, but the usual caveat applies: until the game survives a year of Evo/Combo Breaker/CEO and a balance cycle, we don’t know if it’s actually the second coming of MvC or just a really fun pub fighter.

Upsides and Challenges

Upsides:

• A dev team that isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, focusing mainly on making the formula work.
• Supremely refreshing presentation without any holds barred.
• A game made for those who want to feel that distinct tag fighter soul.

Challenges:

• Doesn’t really bring anything new to the table
• Touch of Death combos that don’t allow for player agency
• Ultra-violence will make it challenging to be primarily an Invincible VS-focused content creator

2XKO: An upwards climb from the “early access” launch

Developer and game background

Talking about 2XKO in hypotheticals feels weird because it’s already in early access. It’s also not a game from a traditional fighting game publisher, with all the upsides, downsides, and quirks that come with it. 2XKO is Riot’s League of Legends universe tag fighter, live on PC as a free-to-play 2v2 game with a focus on duo play and a long-term live service model.

You hear Riot, you think of League and Valorant, not anything FGC related. But the game actually has pedigree. It’s made by the Cannon brothers and the Rising Thunder team that Riot bought out entirely to make this happen.

Combat and gameplay

The big talking point for 2XKO has always been the control scheme. It ditches the motion inputs for the direction+special button approach, something it clearly inherited from Rising Thunder.

This has predictably split the FGC: many feared that there wouldn’t be any depth, but it turned out to be demonstrably untrue.

Ever since the very first closed beta, many were constantly surprised by just how much depth there is in such a seemingly shallow system.

It’s also the closest the genre has come to the “pick up and do cool stuff” mindset of being easily accessible to beginners.

Every time you press a button – something cool happens. Now, no real competitive game will ever have the true beginners beating seasoned players by just mashing, but it at the very least makes them feel cool because they actually did something, even if unsuccessfully.

This is an underrated motivational factor in the fighting games world. When you manage to do something cool that ultimately falls short, it makes you want to learn how to do the thing you already know how to do successfully. It’s a non-unethical retention mechanic.

It all sounds like a guaranteed success, but several things are working against 2XKO: the game was announced way too early, before it was in a remotely shippable state. And when it did get released, it was in an early access-ish state that has very few characters and is not shy about its monetization goals. Season 0 battle pass has already raised enough eyebrows.

Still, the game is, at its core, good enough that even some big community figures like Stephen “Sajam” Lyon go pretty much all-in on it, and this will not only help its perception as a viable title, but it will bring new audience as well.

Who is 2XKO’s target audience?

The core audience for 2XKO will be split between League of Legends players who have always dreamt of having a fighting game in the League universe and those FGC players who want a stable game they know will get supported for years.

Riot Games looks to be committed to this because the company is known to simply not ship something it doesn’t believe in the success of. It’s also the only fighting game on the market that allows you to be on the same team with your friend.

Upsides and Challenges

Upsides:

• A very easy-to-pick-up game, even without any tag fighter knowledge.
• Puts real tag in “tag fighter,” allowing you to duo with a friend.
• Super rewarding learning curve.

Challenges:

• An unfinished release state that requires belief in the project to invest your time in it.
• An out-of-touch battle pass and monetization structure.

So… are they real challengers to SF6 and Tekken 8?

The answer is complicated. Long term, no one is knocking Tekken 8 and especially Street Fighter 6 off the throne. Tag fighters inherently face more challenges. They need bigger rosters for the teams so they don’t feel stale a month after release. They need constant balance attention. And they need a strong draw.

Out of these three, it’s pretty easy to bet on Tōkon. In the past, Guilty Gear -STRIVE- has already outperformed Tekken on various occasions. And if the Season 3 launch of Tekken 8 is as rocky as Season 2 was, there’s a very real chance for Tōkon to overtake it. But over the distance, ArcSys’ game is more likely to become a part of the trifecta leading the genre rather than overthrow one of the kings.

Both Invincible VS and 2XKO will require something special, and they may very well have it up their sleeves. There’s no question that these games will be solid. But we’ve seen a plethora of games sell well, only to have 200 active players a month later.