Iron Man is more famous in the modern era than ever before, largely thanks to Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. While his early makeshift armor in the first film is a crude assemblage, he quickly graduates to sleeker, high-tech suits that have come to define the character’s style for many audience members.
Look back to classic comics, though, and you’ll find a very different style for the character. In between the clunky suit he wore in his debut and the futuristic look of the character today, his classic design made a significant mark, and it’s just made a grand return in the new game Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls.
Iron Man’s Best Look Is Official
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ Ultimate edition unlocks five character costumes, one of which is a Classic skin for Iron Man that is based on one of his first looks in Marvel Comics: the traditional, tried-and-true red-and-gold armor that’s as bare-bones technologically as you can get, as well as a Legacy version of the same skin with a nostalgic comic book filter that adds cel-shading. Surprisingly, this skin also swaps the look of Iron Man’s Champion Buster Ultimate Super to a classic design.
To be fair, Iron Man’s Gundam-inspired, default Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls skin, Mk.782 Sho-Gun, is fantastic. Between both skins, it’s not hyperbole to say that this is the best Iron Man has looked in a Marvel game in a hot minute.
It’s been a long time since we saw a proper classic Iron Man look, anyway, beyond Marvel Rivals, which drops plenty of cosmetic skins every month. Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls may not become another cosmetic skin factory of a game (and it shouldn’t), but the 4v4 tag-team fighting game producing such excellent skins is now its cross to bear, as fans will surely want to see more. For example, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ Wolverine already looks fairly comparable to his iconic design from Marvel comic book source material, but Spider-Man does not, leaving that door wide open.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man’s Tony Stark has been dead since Avengers: Endgame, and we haven’t seen him wear an ordinary suit of armor that wasn’t composed of nanotechnology since the Mark 46 suit he wore in Captain America: Civil War in 2016. This makes Iron Man’s Classic costume in Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls a breath of fresh air that future iterations and adaptations of the characters will hopefully be inspired by.
Will Every Tōkon Character Get A Classic Skin?
How hard Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls wishes to lean on skins is undetermined, but it’s already going to take an excruciatingly long while for each new post-launch Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls DLC character to be released. If nothing else, it would be great to see every character get a Classic skin, since those for Captain America and Iron Man are arguably two of the best skins in all of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls thus far.
Considering the quality and popularity of these skins, it’d be a no-brainer to eventually release one for everyone else, and launching one for Spider-Man in the near future would allow it to beat Marvel’s Rivals to the punch (though withholding a Classic Spider-Man skin and making fans wait patiently for it might be the smarter play). Only time will tell if Arc System Works is going to indulge in skins as much as any other contemporary Marvel game, and its focus will hopefully be on balance patches and new characters, anyway.
If or when we see EA Motive’s Iron Man game rear its head again, it’d be spectacular to have this classic armor represented. Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is giving it a high bar to clear, though, especially with the option to make it look like it’s drawn straight from a comic book’s pages.
- Released
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August 6, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen / Blood, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
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Arc System Works, Marvel Games, PlayStation Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation Publishing
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
