Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls PS5 Open Beta Amazing Guardians STORY MODE - Kamala Khan & Peni Parker

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls Open Beta has wrapped after a 72 hour run from 24 to 26 July on PS5, Steam & Epic Games Store. If you're a PS5 owner who spent the weekend in it, or an MCU fan, or a Marvel vs. Capcom & X-Men vs. Street Fighter veteran wondering what you missed, here's the full recap. Every Playable Character, Explained Fighting Avengers Captain America (Steve Rogers) matched his MCU self exactly & doubled as the beta's easiest character. Strong neutral game, shield as a ranged option, solid counters. It was the obvious starting point for anyone new to tag fighters. Iron Man (Tony Stark) also matched the films, with full eight directional flight letting him zone or dive in at will. Black Panther (Shuri) surprised anyone who only knows Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa. In game she controlled momentum & mid range with the Spear of Bashenga & the Bast's Blessing gauge. Unbreakable X-Men Storm (Ororo Munroe) matched her film & animated appearances. A technical wind based zoner rated Hard, rewarding real lab time with neutral control nobody else on the roster had, a fantasy any X-Men vs. Street Fighter veteran recognized instantly. Magik (Illyana Rasputina) had actually appeared on screen before, in a film a lot of people skipped: Anya Taylor-Joy played her in 2020's The New Mutants, the final Fox X-Men movie. She's Colossus's younger sister, raised in the demon dimension Limbo, wielding the Soulsword. In game she was an aggressive close range fighter with portal teleports & big projectiles. Wolverine (Logan) needed no introduction. Claws, healing factor, rushdown, now with an actual projectile option & armored specials. Danger was the roster's biggest lore left turn. In the comics she's the sentient AI of the X-Men's Danger Room, created by Xavier. She had just made her animated debut too: X-Men '97 Season 2, Episode 6, "Danger.exe," follows her comic origin closely, with Xavier reliving Magneto's death in the Danger Room before the AI turns on him. In game she was a Hard rated projectile zoner filling the screen with mines, drills & lasers. Amazing Guardians Spider-Man (Peter Parker), the version everyone knows, was built around the repositioning Web Zip. Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) matched Iman Vellani's MCU version. Stretchy, disjointed pokes, a hurtbox that shifts with her size, likened to Dhalsim from Street Fighter 6. Star-Lord (Peter Quill) was the film version, a zoner who swapped bullet types on the fly with his Element Guns. Peni Parker had no MCU equivalent, debuting instead in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. She piloted the SP//dr mech built by her late father & zoned with a Gadget Launcher. Knights of Doom Doctor Doom (Victor Von Doom) was Marvel vs. Capcom 2 royalty, a mid to far zoner whose Nullify Shield cancelled incoming projectiles. Magneto (Max Eisenhardt / Erik Lehnsherr) was a crossover fighter staple, controlling the field through magnetism & conjuration. Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) was the beta's late addition, bumped in after the roster was originally set at 15. Projectiles & speed defined his kit. Samurai Outriders Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) was not Nicolas Cage's Johnny Blaze. His Vengeance Gauge boosted damage but left him open if it overflowed. Blade (Eric Brooks) rated a full five stars for ease of use, throwing tracking stakes with Heart Stopper before teleporting in for sword pressure. The Story Mode Was the Real Highlight If there's one thing PS5 players kept coming back to all weekend, it was Episode Mode, the single player campaign written by veteran comics writer Kieron Gillen. The 1st 3 chapters of the Amazing Guardians storyline, illustrated by Betten Court, the manga artist behind My Hero Academia: Vigilantes & Marvel's own Spider-Man: Octo-Girl. The 3 chapters told the story of how Spider-Man ended up leading a team that made no sense together. Chapter 1 opened with a classic Spider-Man vs Green Goblin confrontation in the streets of Marvel's New York. From there, the story worked through how Spider-Man crossed paths with Star-Lord, Ms. Marvel & Peni Parker one at a time, each introduced through a skirmish that doubled as their reason for joining, rather than the 4 of them simply being handed a team assignment. By the 3rd chapter, that rather mismatched crew found themselves face to face with Xirena Awhina, the Promoter, an Elder of the Universe voiced by Sabrina Fest, who revealed the real stakes: a tournament that could decide the fate of Earth. The beta also gave players a glimpse of the Champion of the Universe looming behind her, a cosmic being with a history of wiping out entire worlds that failed to give him a satisfying fight, setting up the larger threat the full game builds toward. The presentation was the part that caught people off guard. Story beats played out as moving comic panels, described as watching Marvel getting the full anime & manga treatment, before transitioning directly into a fight once the dialogue wrapped up.