The single-player side of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls just got a serious upgrade. Arc System Works and Sony Interactive Entertainment have confirmed that Kieron Gillen, the comic book writer behind Die, Once & Future, and a long run of Marvel titles including Young Avengers and Star Wars, is writing the game's Episode Mode stories.
For players who expected a fighting game story mode to be little more than an arcade ladder with cutscenes stapled on, this hire changes the calculus entirely.
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Five teams, five distinct stories
Episode Mode delivers five separate narratives, one for each launch team, all building toward a shared threat. The central antagonist is the Champion, with a figure called the Promoter pulling strings behind the scenes. Each story follows a team of 4 Marvel characters as they fight their way to that final confrontation.
Here's the full lineup of launch teams and their rosters:
The key here is that each episode isn't just a reskin of the same plot. Every story is brought to life by a different artist, meaning the visual style shifts between episodes. Arc System Works says it will reveal each episode's distinct art direction in the days leading up to launch.
Why Gillen is the right call
Gillen isn't a name that gets attached to licensed tie-in work without a reason. His creator-owned series Die is a dark, metafictional take on tabletop RPGs that ran from 2018 to 2021 and picked up multiple Eisner nominations. Once & Future reworks Arthurian mythology into something genuinely unpredictable. On the Marvel side, his Young Avengers run from 2013 remains one of the most cited examples of how to write superhero team books with real personality.
Here's the thing: fighting games live or die on their rosters and mechanics, but the ones players remember long-term tend to have lore worth caring about. Gillen writing five distinct character-driven stories for teams as varied as the Knights of Doom (Doctor Doom leading Magneto, Green Goblin, and Carnage) and the Unbreakable X-Men suggests the Episode Mode won't feel like an afterthought.
What to expect before launch
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls launches August 6 on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam, with the Standard Edition priced at $60. The game is a 2D four-vs-four tag-team fighter developed by Arc System Works, the studio behind the Guilty Gear series, and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
The official Marvel Tōkon social channels are rolling out episode art reveals daily in the lead-up to launch, so the visual identity of each story should be clear well before players get their hands on the game. If you want to get across the full roster before then, the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls full roster guide breaks down every confirmed character and what the Year 1 DLC pass adds post-launch.
For everything else, from open beta dates to confirmed content, the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls guides collection has you covered heading into August.
