Marvel Tokon's Beta Crashed PSN on Day One

Tens of thousands of fighting game fans tried to log into Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls on July 24th. PSN had other plans.

The open beta for Arc System Works' tag fighter went live that morning across PS5 and PC, and within hours, PlayStation Network was down. PS5 players were met with error code WS-116486-6, which PlayStation's own support page describes as "there was an issue connecting to the server." Reports on Downdetector spiked starting around 12 PM BST, and the outage persisted for several hours. As reported by VGC, the issue was linked to a short Amazon Web Services outage, but PSN remained unavailable long after AWS recovered.

The result was a chaotic first day for a beta that should have been a victory lap. Marvel Tokon had been building momentum since earlier closed tests, and this was the first time PC players could try the game publicly. On Steam, the beta peaked at 22,087 concurrent players on its first morning, as tracked by SteamDB. For a free-to-play fighting game beta that hadn't even hit the weekend yet, those are strong numbers. Street Fighter 6's open beta peaked at 32,787 on Steam, and that had far more lead-up hype behind it.

But PC players got to actually play. PS5 players got an error screen.

Sony's Silence Made It Worse

What frustrated players most wasn't the outage itself. Networks go down. It happens. The problem was that Sony said nothing. As multiple outlets reported, PlayStation's official support channels on social media didn't acknowledge the issue for hours. The Japanese PlayStation X account, which has historically been quickest to respond to outages, was also silent. Meanwhile, a PlayStation post on X asking players for game feedback was getting flooded with replies from people who couldn't even sign in.

The Marvel Tokon team, to their credit, responded faster than Sony did. The official Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls X account posted an acknowledgement and directed players to its Discord:

"To our Tōkon Warriors, We're aware that some PlayStation players are experiencing login and network issues. Our team is actively investigating the problem and working to identify the cause. We'll share updates as soon as we have more information. Thank you for your patience while we work on resolving this."

That's a developer doing Sony's job for them. Arc System Works shouldn't have to be the one telling PS5 players why they can't connect to PlayStation's own network. I keep coming back to this pattern with Sony: they're happy to charge a premium for the PS5 ecosystem, but when the infrastructure buckles, the communication is glacial. Vague patch notes are bad enough. Total silence during an outage that affects a major beta launch is worse.

Some players did eventually manage to get back in after repeated login attempts, and Downdetector reports gradually tapered off through the afternoon. But for anyone who carved out their lunch break or took the afternoon off to try the beta on day one, the window was gone.

The beta itself, when it works, seems to be landing well. Players and press who got hands-on time have praised Arc System Works' signature anime-style visuals and the roster variety. Magik has emerged as an early favourite (and an early candidate for nerfs, if community sentiment is anything to go by). The tag mechanic has been tightened since previous tests, though some players have flagged the rollback netcode as inconsistent, with occasional stuttering in online matches. The beta runs through July 27th, so there's still time to try it, assuming PSN cooperates.

The full launch is expected next month, and Arc System Works appears to be actively responding to feedback from this test. If the netcode gets further polish and the roster balance shakes out, Marvel Tokon could carve out real space in the fighting game scene. But the beta's first impression on PS5 wasn't defined by the game. It was defined by an infrastructure failure and a platform holder that couldn't be bothered to tell its own players what was happening.