MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls Open Beta kicks off July 24–26 on PlayStation 5 consoles and PC. Whether you’re new to fighting games or stepping into the arena with your favorite Marvel heroes for the first time, we’ve put together this beginner’s guide to help you get started. From choosing your first character to learning basic controls, combos, and team mechanics, here are a few tips to help you make the most of the Open Beta.

Find your favorite Hero or Villain

When selecting a character, take a look at the EASE OF USE rating on the character select screen.
The more stars a character has, the easier they are to use, making them a great choice for newcomers.
Some of the most beginner-friendly characters include Captain America, Ms. Marvel, and Wolverine. Iron Man and Spider-Man are also relatively easy to learn.

On the other hand, characters such as Storm and Danger offer more advanced playstyles that may take additional time to master. One of the strengths of MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls is that once you’ve learned a character, you can rely on them throughout the entire match. That’s why we recommend starting with the hero you like most and gradually expanding your roster from there.

If you’re unsure how to build a team, try combining close-range and long-range specialists. For example, Wolverine’s aggressive melee style pairs nicely with Iron Man’s powerful ranged attacks.

That said, the best team is ultimately the one made up of your favorite heroes. Experiment and create a team that feels uniquely yours.

Learn the basics with Startup Battle

Not sure where to begin? Start with Startup Battle. This mode teaches the game’s core mechanics step-by-step while you play as Captain America.  You’ll learn everything from basic attacks—including Light (□), Medium (△), and Heavy (○) attacks—to combos, skills, and unique character-specific actions through hands-on tutorials.

Startup Battle is divided into two sections:

●       Basics, which focuses on actions performed by an individual character.
●       Assemble, which introduces team-based mechanics and cooperative actions.

Players already familiar with fighting games can skip the Basics section and jump directly into Assemble. While you don’t need to master everything right away, Startup Battle is the perfect place to learn the fundamentals before heading into battle

Master basic combos and defense

One of the first mechanics new players should learn is the Link Attack system. By repeatedly pressing the same attack button, you can easily perform beginner-friendly combo sequences. In the examples below, L, M, and H refer to Light, Medium, and Heavy attacks.

●       L → L → L → L
○       Chains into a Skill and can trigger a Break (stage transition)
●       M → M → M
○       Leads into a powerful Super Skill
●       H → H → H
○       Leads into an even stronger Ultimate Skill

Start by learning these sim

Last week, we asked you to share shots of the sun from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:

raphxander_ shares Arjun facing the eclipsed sun in Saros

jobolts_ shares Atsu watching the sun set from a cliffside in Ghost of Yōtei

honeysinghzzz shares Aloy raising a hand up towards the sun in Horizon Forbidden West

Mur4dQ shares the sun hiding behind a mountain in Sea of Stars

pavesoint shares the sun’s rays shining in the background in Infinity Nikki

CaptainGG_R shares an orange-drenched sky during sunset in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme, or be inspired by other great games featuring Photo Mode. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?

THEME: Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on July 22, 2026 

Next week, raise the sails and share moments from Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. Use #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

It’s the February 12 State of Play. Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse has just been announced, and Evil Empire, the team developing this action adventure for the past four years, is having a nervous watch party.

“We were waiting because you never know when your trailer is about to appear,” says Marketing Director Bérenger Dupré. “Then we saw it and started freaking out. And the video’s chat moves so fast that you can’t read the reactions. Then we received a message from a fan showing a version of the ‘absolute cinema’ meme, and I was like, okay… we’re doing fine.”

Since that nerve-wracking reveal, Konami and Evil Empire have been hard at work to ensure Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse meets its October 15 launch on PS5. Which has also included offering some hands-on time to peer into the gothic depths that await.

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The wait is almost over. The MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls Open Beta is nearly here, and we can’t wait for players to jump into the action.

Whether you’re returning after last year’s Closed Betas or stepping into the fight for the very first time, here’s everything you need to know before the Open Beta begins.

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Open beta schedule

The Open Beta will run for 72 hours, starting on:

• Start: July 24, 12:00am PT / 8:00am BST / 4:00pm JST
• End: July 26, 11:59pm PT / July 27, 7:59am BST / 3:59pm JST

The Open Beta will be available on PlayStation 5 console, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. No registration is required: simply download the Open Beta from your platform store and start playing. Pre-downloads will be available two hours before the Open Beta goes live, so you can be ready to play as soon as the servers open.

A PlayStation Plus subscription is not required. However, all players will need an internet connection and an Account for PlayStation  to access the Open Beta on both PS5 and PC.  

15 playable Heroes and Villains

Fifteen of the game’s twenty launch characters will be available during the Open Beta, including Blade who becomes playable for the very first time.

Fighting Avengers

• Captain America
• Iron Man
• Black Panther 

Unbreakable X-Men

• Storm
• Magik
• Wolverine
• Danger 

Amazing Guardians

• Spider-Man
• Ms. Marvel
• Star-Lord
• Peni Parker 

Samurai Outriders

• Ghost Rider
• Blade 

Knights of Doom

• Doctor Doom
• Magneto
   

Players will also be able to battle across six

Australian Rules Football, Australia’s favourite sport, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players, where they chase a ball on a cricket oval, and score goals by kicking the ball between two gigantic posts. For many, Aussie Rules sounds like a completely made-up sport – and that’s where our game comes in: we redefine the rules of Aussie Rules Football.

Welcome to Pro Jank Footy, launching August 12 on PlayStation 5.

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I’m David Ashby, Creative Director for Pro Jank Footy, a love letter to Aussie Rules Footy, retro sports games of the 90s, and our cultural irreverence. Now, there have been many “Footy” games over the years, but there was never one that leaned into the high-energy arcade sensibility shared by titles such as NBA Jam or NHL ‘94. We leaned right into both the fun and absurdity of our sport and I’m excited to share more about it with the PlayStation Community.

The “jank”

Aussie Rules Footy is a high-scoring game, akin to basketball and hockey, which makes it fast by design, which allows us to implement a simple core mechanic whereby whenever a player scores a goal, the opponent gets to choose one of three random power-ups. This is how we put the jank in Pro Jank Footy.

There are over 150 power-ups in the game. These powers range from making your team better, making the opposition team worse, or changing the rules of the game. Not only does this allow players to bounce back, but it also allows players to change the game from retro sports into pure, unhinged, janky chaos. Personally, I suck at sports games. There’s nothing worse than just sitting there, taking an absolute belting. With our power system, you’re rewarded for losing. Tyler Roach, who co-created this game with me, is a genuinely dominant player (and to be fair, he did make the game). When we play each other, my only tactic is to concede a bunch of goals so I can get a decent power-up build to turn the tide (note: he still beats me most of the time).

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Hi, I’m Emil Esov from Saber Interactive, and we are excited to have Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival coming to PlayStation 5 on October 8, 2026! The team has been hard at work over the past 4+ years creating a game that brings life to Clive Barker’s unique style of horror and we’ve got the first look at an exclusive behind-the-scenes developer diary to share with you that covers what building this game has been like for us:

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Hellraiser separates itself from other pieces of horror media by having villains, the Cenobites, who aren’t so easily viewed as being morally bad. As the Hell Priest (aka Pinhead) explains in the original Hellraiser movie, they are “Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some, angels to others”. We like to think of them as monks – whether it comes to extreme pain or pleasure, they are interested in exploring sensations and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. 

Your Hellraiser: Revival experience will come from the perspective of Aidan Lynch, our story’s protagonist. He first encounters the Cenobites after his girlfriend Sunny activates the Genesis Configuration, a mysterious puzzle box with unknown power and purpose. The Cenobites appear and unceremoniously tear Sunny in half. At first this seems like some kind of fever dream to Aidan, but he quickly comes to learn that Sunny’s soul can still be saved and that the Cenobites are integral to accomplishing that goal.

While Cenobites exist as godlike explorers of experience from another realm, there are people in the real world who are seeking that same kind of enlightenment. This is where one of the groups of enemies that you’ll face in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival come in… the members of the Scarlet Church. Led by a charismatic figure named Marlowe, this cult is working to establish contact with the Cenobites and seeks to use the Genesis Configuration in order to create a debauched paradise for themselves.

Arknights: Endfield will support upgraded PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) on PlayStation 5 Pro as part of the Version 1.4 update. Designed to take advantage of the latest PS5 Pro enhancements, the upgraded PSSR delivers sharper image quality, improved temporal stability, and smoother performance as you explore Endfield’s expansive sci-fi world.

Sharper character detail

With the upgraded PSSR enabled on PS5 Pro, character outfits and material textures appear noticeably sharper. Fine costume details, layered materials, and surface textures retain greater definition, allowing the game’s distinctive character designs to stand out with improved clarity throughout exploration, combat, and story scenes.

Greater clarity for Endfield’s stylized world

Arknights: Endfield’s stylized environments also benefit from the upgraded PSSR. Lush vegetation, sprawling industrial facilities, and the wildlife peacefully inhabiting natural environments all maintain stable, crisp detail, making exploration across the game’s diverse maps even more immersive.

In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, launching October 23, developer Infinity Ward is amping up the Multiplayer experience with Kill Block, an adaptive live-fire training environment where modular battlegrounds reconfigure before every match, creating hundreds of unique configurations. Let’s take a closer look.

Introducing Kill Block

Deploy to the West Bridge Training Facility in Kill Block, a new dynamic combat space where sightlines, pathways, and cover objects shift between matches, forcing Operators to adapt in real time. Launching with both 3v3 Gunfight and the all new 10v10 Gunfight mode, Kill Block will offer over 500 possible configurations.

The building blocks

The West Bridge Training facility is an unrivaled example of military engineering, a self-contained compound featuring an array of concrete towers, electronics, motors, and pulley systems allowing regular reconfigurations of the map as various pieces, or “Slabs,” are moved around dictating the overall layout for the next deployment.

The core design for Kill Block is based on three modular sections, including two outer End Slabs attached to a Central Slab, that combine into new battlegrounds between matches and even after certain Gunfight rounds. Most of these sections are brand-new while others are inspired by iconic locations from the Modern Warfare series such as Crash, Storage Town, Shoot House, and others.

Each Slab is rectangular in shape, and when all three Slabs are connected a play space roughly the size of Shoot House from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) is created. To quicken your intake of the environment, look for section markers around the perimeter and spray-painted signs helping to orient your position in the map.

Learn the layout and adapt when it changes… or die trying.

Play it your way

No matter your playstyle, there’s room for it on Kill Block as the changing layout offers creative challenges with variations on vertical positioning, sightlines, flank routes, and more. For example, in one match you may be fighting within close-quarters trenches, while in the next you’re firing downrange across rooftops, or some mixture of the two. Luckily, with Modern Warfare 4’s refined and fluid movement mechanics, improved player agency, and tactical decision-making, there are countless ways to approach the field, no matter its form.

Shifting weather patterns

It’s not just the terrain that changes, but the weather, too. Some Slabs are fitted with military-grade weather simulation arrays outfitted with powerful fans to propel rainfall and snow flurries across the map. Weapons are additionally affected by the weather, with water and ice particles building up on the weapon until you swap armaments or reload.

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This month, journey into the breathtaking open world of Pandora in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, carve your own path through a war-torn 19th-century Japan in Rise of the Ronin, tackle raging infernos and rescue civilians in Firefighting Simulator: Ignite, or relive classic Saturday morning heroics in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind. All these titles and more are available in July’s PlayStation Plus Game Catalog lineup*. Meanwhile, two PS2 classics land into PlayStation Plus Premium: Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy and Indigo Prophecy.  

As a reminder, we’re exploring new ways to deliver PlayStation Plus Game Catalog titles in select markets. Games will be available on varying dates as noted below in the US, the UK and Japan. The full lineup will be available to play on July 21 in all other regions. 

PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | Game Catalog 

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Suit up, Rangers! Pre-registration for Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble is now open worldwide on the App Store and Google Play. To celebrate, we’re launching a community rewards campaign, headlined by a reward we think Ratchet & Clank fans will especially love: the exclusive Clank Suit skin for Widget.

Since the game’s reveal a few months ago, we’ve been testing and refining the experience through regional soft launches in Canada, the Nordics, France, and Asia. After a successful testing phase shaped by player feedback, Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble is now gearing up for global launch, and pre-registration is the first step on that journey. We can’t wait for what’s coming next!

What is Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble?

Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble is a free-to-play multiplayer hero shooter that brings the iconic franchise to mobile, developed by Oh Bibi in collaboration with PlayStation Studios and Insomniac Games. Captain Qwark has created a revolutionary combat Simulation to find the next generation of Galactic Rangers. But, well… it’s Qwark. So once you step into the Arena, anything can happen.

Players choose from legendary heroes, master unique abilities, and unleash an arsenal of explosive weapons in real-time PvP arena battles, enhanced by dynamic PvE elements that add depth and variety to every match.

The hero lineup is something we’re especially proud of. With 12 Heroes available at launch, and more to come, each character brings a fresh new perspective to the Ratchet & Clank universe.

Players will discover brand-new characters never seen before in the series: legendary heroes from the past, each with their own story and personality. From robots, aliens to new Lombaxes, every hero has a unique playstyle, design, and exclusive cosmetics.

For Oh Bibi, it was a real privilege to collaborate directly with Insomniac Games on the design and backstories of the new Lombaxes, including insights from some of the original developers and designers behind the series’ most iconic titles. Bringing these characters to life inside the Simulation has been a true passion project for the creative team, and we can’t wait for players to meet them.

At launch, Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble features six distinct game modes, giving players plenty of ways to jump into the action. Squad up with friends in fast-paced team PvP battles, take on waves of enemies in PvE, or discover fresh twists to the license, including a battle royale-inspired mode and a football-inspired showdown where every goal comes with a little extra firepower (and yes, it’s football, not soccer!).

Whether you’re chasing competitive wins, looking for co-op chaos, or simply excited to experience the Ratchet & Clank universe in a brand-new way, there’s a Rumble for you. Every mode is built around the fast, inventive, over-the-top action that has always defined the series.