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While there are a lot of great fighting games out right now, I am personally super excited for MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls. It has been a hot minute since I’ve seen a Marvel fighting game like this, and this one looks incredible so far. It’s also being developed by Arc System Works, which is one of the best developers for fighting games. I couldn’t be more excited for it, but as of right now, there are going to be a lot of countries that will be left out from playing this on PC.

According to SteamDB, the game is unavailable for purchase in 129 different countries. A lot of the major countries, like the US, UK, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Mexico, aren’t affected, but there are a lot of countries around the world that are, including Chad, Egypt, the Philippines, Monaco, Cuba, and Vietnam. This was originally set five months ago, around the time the store page first appeared on Steam.

Technically, this isn’t new news, but it is making its way around Twitter/X now, so I felt it would be a good idea to cover it. The reason these countries are restricted comes from the fact that PlayStation Network (PSN) accounts can’t be created in these countries. With this being a fighting game where we can play online, it makes logical sense that it would go through PlayStation servers, which means these countries would be excluded.
However, I wouldn’t lose hope just yet with Marvel Tōkon. This is something that PlayStation has done with a lot of their PC releases in the past, including with HELLDIVERS 2, but a lot of that was actually reversed. Before this, PlayStation had announced that HELLDIVERS 2 players would need to link their PSN accounts to keep playing the game, which meant a lot of countries were added to the restriction list. But after a good chunk of outcry from the community, this decision was reversed, and these countries were able to play the game again. So, it’s very possible that this decision could be made again at release or after.
Still, it means that PlayStation hasn’t learned from the past. I understand online play being restricted to using PSN servers, but there may be some people who want to play this game offline with friends locally. In that case, a PSN account should not be required. Seeing how the game includes a story mode, episode mode, and more than likely has local multiplayer and arcade modes, it’s a shame that the game would be restricted in these countries for those who want to just play offline.
I do have hope that the decision will be reversed, since PlayStation has shown that they can listen to and respond to community outcries, but there is a part of me that still feels sad that they haven’t learned from the past.

MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls can be pre-purchased for $59.99 ahead of its August 6th release. There's no word on if this will run on the Steam Deck yet, but fighting games are generally very optimized, so I am hoping.
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Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic about Sony doing an about-face. Pivoting on Helldivers 2, one of the earlier examples of Sony investing into the GaaS format, and PC supported games. They wanted to court PC players, plus PSN was initially axed simply because of a bug that would've delayed its release date.
However, a fighting game is different situation. Playstation is the defacto platform for fighting games, with much of the community also being hardened, tribalistic Sony stans (still fightin the Console wars like it's 1999). I think under these circumstances, Sony is less likely to find their better selves, as they rarely do, esp when they are courting a consumer base who views them as friends.