“It’s Dragon Ball PTSD all over again”
Of all the nightmare scenarios for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, this was probably top of the list.
Fighting game community icon MaximilianDood has uninstalled the botched PC version of Sony’s highly anticipated superhero brawler live on air, declaring its documented issues “too frustrating”.
To be clear, this wasn’t a typical streamer meltdown: Max remained relatively calm and reasonable throughout, simply criticising the port and pointing out its technical issues were preventing him from wanting to improve.
He also appears to enjoy the game, noting he’ll be “exclusively playing the PS5 version” from this point on.
While the PC release has been criticised for a broad range of issues, including in Max’s case a flakey frame rate, it seems like he wants to stick with it – just not on PC.
He said:
“This is bad, chat – I don’t think I can play this anymore. It’s making me like the game significantly less. The game’s just unfun when we have to deal with all this. It’s fun coming up with solutions to issues in combat, but you just can’t do anything. You just have to watch it stutter like crazy. It’s literally Dragon Ball PTSD all over again. It’s really sh*t.”
The PC version launched to an unremarkable 25k concurrent players on Steam, but its peaks have plunged since launch on Thursday, as word about the poor port spreads.
It currently has a ‘Mixed’ rating on Steam, but PS5 players have been encouraged to disable crossplay as the issues on PC can affect online matches on console as well.
This is a nightmare scenario for the game, because as a live service release, Sony was counting on a robust playerbase across both PS5 and PC.
Now, due to the issues, console players are isolating themselves from the PC version – while PC players are bailing out entirely.
For the record, I’m reviewing the game and I’ve had practically no issues at all on the PS5. In fact, I think it’s really well optimised for Sony’s console.
But one fighting game tournament in the US has already announced it’ll be hosting its competition exclusively on PS5 hardware, in response to the issues.
Meanwhile, Arc System Works has acknowledged the flaws, and said it’s “actively investigating” the reports. The problem is, first impressions can be so important in situations like this.
I personally think Sony needs to pull itself together as a publisher: if it wants to benefit from the enormous PC install base, then it needs to ensure its products are much better optimised than this.
Marvel Tokon may be a blast on the PS5, but the platform holder’s somehow managed to torpedo the title’s reputation by releasing this botched PC port.
