Marvel Tokon unplayable in 132 countries, including Evo host Morocco

Fighting game fans are very unhappy with Sony

PlayStation is not in people’s good graces right now. On top of recently announcing that it’s killing physical game releases for its platform, it became clear over the weekend that the publisher’s upcoming fighting game, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, won’t be available for sale in 132 countries on PC.

While Sony hasn’t directly confirmed the news, Steam metadata shows the long list of nations where the game can’t be purchased, including most of Africa and Southwest Asia.

The decision almost certainly overlaps with Sony’s controversial PlayStation Network linking policy on PC. In 2024, Sony briefly attempted to require Helldivers 2 players to link their Steam profiles to a PSN account, a policy that was apparently supposed to be in place at launch but was disabled due to technical issues. However, because PlayStation Network is unavailable in many countries, players in certain regions were at risk of being unable to access a game they had already purchased. After considerable backlash, Sony eventually backed down on the game's PSN requirement.

Then last year, Sony made PSN linking optional for some of its PC releases, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, God of War Ragnarök, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. While these are all single-player titles, the move made some hopeful that the company would pivot away from its PSN requirements on PC. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Over the weekend, users expressed dismay over Sony’s choice, with many dunking on the idea of lining up the acclaimed fighting game studio Arc System Works and nabbing the Marvel license only to arbitrarily limit who can play the game.

“I had the pleasure of playing @Verix_7 at Evo on Tōkon,” X user ChromeAlchemist posted. “He’s from Senegal. Senegal is 1 of the 132 countries unable to buy Marvel Tōkon! If fighting games don’t stay global, the next future champion could be blocked before they can even try to compete!” They linked to an ongoing petition urging Sony to change its decision.

Why Marvel Tōkon being blocked for millions of gamers matters

Part of the outrage stems from the fact that fighting games are particularly centered around global competition. Many of the best players at this year’s Evo tournament in Las Vegas are from countries that won’t be able to purchase Marvel Tōkon: Arslan Ash (first place in Tekken 8, Pakistan), MenaRD (first place in Street Fighter 6, Dominican Republic), Verix (second place in Guilty Gear Strive, Senegal), and BlueSkyGuyBSG (fifth place in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Haiti). While Marvel Tōkon would normally almost certainly be featured at next year’s recently announced Evo Morocco tournament, the game isn’t available in that country, making it unclear how this will pan out.

Compared to other genres, fighting games can be a bit niche, mostly because becoming good at them requires hours of practice (and a lot of getting your face caved in). The fact that Sony would arbitrarily decrease the potential player count of its own game, ostensibly out of sheer stubbornness, has left a sour taste for many ahead of Marvel Tōkon’s Aug. 3 release date.