The Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Beta Proves Fans Still Really Want That Blade Movie — IGN

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

The Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Beta Proves Fans Still Really Want That Blade Movie — IGN | AIPROPX

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is coming off a record-breaking open beta weekend, where two particular characters reigned supreme over the rest of the game’s cast.

Despite some glaring issues that plagued PC users, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls still had a massively successful open beta, raking in more players on Steam than any other fighting game’s open beta before it.

Specifically, Marvel Tokon attracted 33,233 players at its all-time peak, just under 500 more than Street Fighter 6’s famously packed beta back in 2023. For reference, that number was 32,787 , while, for comparison’s sake, Tekken 8’s open beta garnered 15,035 players later that same year.

Of those players, a significant portion of them chose two characters more than any others. Those characters are Magick and Blade, respectively, with Magick being the consistent leader of the two. As seen in stats presented by the FGC’s resident data-compiler and infographic creator AlietteFaye, character usage in Vibranium ranks and above saw an overwhelming majority using Magick overall, as well as using her as a Team Leader. Blade wasn’t far behind, ranking as the second most-used character overall. His position fell to fourth when it came to Team Leaders, with Spidey and Shuri in second and third place, though he was by far the most popular Assist Character out of the lot. Magick still maintained her popularity in this regard, coming in second as an Assist.

Magneto and Spider-Man were Tokon’s third and fourth-most popular picks, both in overall usage and as Assist characters, while on the other end of the lineup, Danger was consistently the least popular character in all aspects. Miss Marvel was just ahead of her in overall usage and assists, but was far more popular as a Team Leader.

A final look at the character usage in Vibranium and above during Tokon's open beta. Data was taken just before the servers went down! (Pray that Arcsys makes the leaderboards a bit easier to navigate/filter so that I can do more detailed breakdowns.) #MARVELTOKON #MARVELTōkon pic.twitter.com/atAQytKGhI

— AlietteFaye | Day -232 Ryu Hater (@AlietteFaye) July 27, 2026 While this data was only compiled within the game’s highest ranks, it certainly reflects many of the matches we saw over the weekend. You couldn’t go online without seeing a Magick or a Blade, a trend that speaks to their popularity within the broader gaming community.

It’s little surprise that Blade was one of the most-used characters during the open beta. Fans have been pining for another Blade movie and video game for ages now, with Marvel President Kevin Feige recently admitting he felt like a “gigantic loser and failure” for not getting the Mahershala Ali flick off the ground after seven years.

The Daywalker’s game adaptation is also in peril, with Xbox looking to either sell or close Arkane, the studio responsible for its development, in the thick of Microsoft’s massive restructuring efforts .

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said the development house "is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options, ” leaving fans hopeful that there is some light at the end of the tunnel for a Blade game.

For now, players have Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls to look forward to, which releases on August 6, 2026. Marvel's Wolverine isn't far behind either, releasing in September 15, 2026 for the PlayStation 5.

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze .