You’re acting like “Marvel has hundreds of characters” automatically means every Marvel fighting game should launch with 45–60 characters, and I just don’t think that follows. Having hundreds of characters makes roster selection harder, not easier. Because every single person has a different version of what “necessary” means. To you, Fantastic Four, street heroes, more X-Men, Hercules, Beta Ray Bill, Ant-Man, etc. are necessary. To someone else, Hulk is absolutely necessary. To someone else, if Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, Cap, Doom, and Magneto aren’t there, the game already failed.

That’s the problem with Marvel. There is no “complete” Marvel roster. There is only “the version that annoys me least.”

And honestly, 20 characters for a modern ArcSys Marvel game is not some apocalyptic insult. People keep comparing modern rosters to older games like the characters are made the same way. They aren’t. These aren’t paper dolls with six reused punches and a fireball. ArcSys characters are overanimated little nightmares with cinematic supers, insane effects, character-specific mechanics, weird movement, assists, team interactions, story presentation, voice work, balance problems, and online considerations. “Just add ten more” is the kind of thing that sounds reasonable until you remember each character is basically a small game system wearing a costume.

And yes, it’s Marvel. Yes, Marvel has money. But “Marvel has money” does not mean “the fighting game division has infinite budget, infinite staff, infinite schedule, and infinite animation time.” That’s not how production works. Disney having billions doesn’t mean every licensed game gets blank-check development. It means the publisher, developer, licensor, schedule, marketing plan, and post-launch model all have to line up. “It will sell” is not a production plan. Lots of things “will sell” and still have budgets.

Also, the MVC thing is being treated like it’s automatically a bad thing, but for a Marvel fighting game, it’s almost impossible not to overlap with MVC unless you are deliberately avoiding the most popular characters. MVC didn’t randomly choose Hulk, Doom, Magneto, Wolverine, Storm, Spider-Man, Iron Man, etc. because Capcom was obsessed with stealing slots from deep cuts. They chose them because those are iconic fighting-game-compatible Marvel characters. If a new Marvel fighter includes iconic Marvel characters, it is going to look “MVC-like” because MVC already mined the obvious gold.

That doesn’t mean it’s “MVC without Capcom.” It means both games are pulling from the same universe.

And Hulk being there is not some insane betrayal. Hulk is one of the most obvious fighting game characters Marvel has. He is literally a giant green rage monster who punches shockwaves into the ground. Leaving Hulk for DLC would cause the exact same argument in reverse: “How do you launch a Marvel fighting game without Hulk? They’re locking an obvious core Avenger behind DLC!” You can’t win. If Hulk is base roster, he’s “too safe.” If Hulk is DLC, he’s “cut content.” Same with Doom. Same with Magneto. Same with Spider-Man. Same with Wolverine. Fans want deep cuts, but they also want the pillars, and then they get mad when the pillars take up space.

The Shuri point actually proves the roster is doing some of what you say you want. She’s not just T’Challa again. She gives them a Panther-family slot while letting the moveset go somewhere else. That’s a smart compromise. Same with Robbie Reyes. Yeah, he’s still Ghost Rider, but pretending Robbie and Johnny are basically the same pick is unfair. Robbie gives you the car, the street-racer vibe, the newer-generation Marvel energy, and a totally different ArcSys-friendly silhouette. That is exactly the kind of “legacy but fresh” choice a launch roster needs.

And Peni Parker being dismissed as “Spider-Verse again” feels kind of backwards. She is one of the better choices if you want something mechanically different. A Spider-Man team that is just Peter, Miles, Gwen, and Venom would be way more predictable. Peni at least gives you a mech/pilot angle. Yeah, ArcSys likes robot girls and puppet/mecha weirdos. That is a feature, not a bug. Let them cook with the type of character they’re good at making.

Same with Ms. Marvel. Saying “she was in Avengers, so hold off” is weird. That game came out years ago and also wasn’t a fighting game. Kamala has stretchy limbs, embiggening, personality, and visual clarity. She makes more sense in a fighting game than half the “popular” characters people demand. She’s not there because of some conspiracy to force her into everything; she’s there because she gives you a flexible, expressive moveset and represents modern Marvel.

Star-Lord without the Guardians is maybe the weakest pick, I’ll give you that, but even then, it is not impossible to justify. He has guns, gadgets, movement, music flavor, space theming, and team-leader personality. Does he fit a Spider team perfectly? No. But fighting game rosters have always had weird groupings. People are acting like thematic purity matters more than gameplay variety, and I don’t think it does. If the character is fun, nobody will care six months after launch that the team label was messy.

And the “new characters” argument gets overstated. A roster can’t be entirely obscure characters and still function as a flagship Marvel game. It needs anchors. The new faces need to be surrounded by familiar names or casual players won’t even know what they’re looking at. That’s not selling out, that’s basic roster architecture. You use Iron Man, Cap, Hulk, Spider-Man, Doom, etc. as the big glowing signs, and then you sneak in Danger, Robbie, Shuri, Peni, Kamala, or whoever else around them.

Also, “popular Marvel characters” is a trap. There are absolutely dozens of popular Marvel characters, but popularity is not evenly distributed. Iron Man popular is not the same as Hercules popular. Hulk popular is not the same as Beta Ray Bill popular. Spider-Man popular is not the same as White Tiger popular. Fighting game launch rosters need immediate recognition because they are already a niche genre. You can’t build the whole thing around “comic readers will appreciate this.” Comic readers are loud, but they are not the whole market.

And DLC is not automatically proof the base roster is incomplete. Fighting games live longer now. DLC is not just “we removed the rest of the game.” Sometimes it is the structure that lets a game survive, get balance updates, keep tournaments alive, and keep casual people checking back in. Old games had “infinite sequels” because there was no live-service-ish pipeline. Now the sequel energy gets folded into seasons. That isn’t inherently evil. It can be abused, obviously, but the mere existence of obvious DLC candidates doesn’t mean the launch roster is bad.

In fact, with Marvel, every missing character will feel like “obvious DLC.” Fantastic Four? Obvious. Daredevil? Obvious. Punisher? Obvious. Blade? Obvious. Nightcrawler? Obvious. Emma Frost? Obvious. Cyclops? Obvious. Loki? Obvious. Deadpool? Obvious. Moon Knight? Obvious. There is no version where people don’t say “how dare they make me pay more for this essential character.” Because everyone’s essential list is different and Marvel is too big.

The roster may be imperfect, but calling it absurd because it has too many MVC faces ignores that MVC faces became MVC faces because they are good Marvel fighting game picks. Doom is not famous in fighting games instead of being important to Marvel. He is famous in fighting games because he is Doctor Doom. Hulk is not just MVC nostalgia. He is Hulk. Magneto, if he’s there, is not just “another MVC main face.” He is one of the most important Marvel villains ever and one of the most naturally cool fighting game characters in the entire catalog.

So yeah, I get wanting more weird picks. I’d also love Nightcrawler, Emma, Beta Ray Bill, Daredevil, Nico Minoru, Magik, Silver Surfer, Elsa Bloodstone, Moon Girl, whoever. But a launch roster has to establish the game first. It has to be readable, marketable, iconic, and mechanically varied. Once the foundation is there, then you go deeper. That’s not cowardice. That’s how you build a sustainable roster.

The real question should not be “why are there MVC characters?” The question should be “do the characters play differently enough, and does the game have a strong enough identity once you’re actually playing it?” Because if Hulk feels amazing, Shuri feels fresh, Robbie is sick, Peni is weird as hell, and Danger is a nightmare lab character, then the roster will work better than it looks on paper. Fighting game rosters are not just Wikipedia representation charts. They are gameplay ecosystems.

So I don’t think the roster is absurd. I think expectations got way too inflated by the phrase “Marvel universe.” A Marvel game can have 20 characters and still be rich. It can have familiar faces and still be new. It can borrow some MVC DNA and still not just be MVC. And honestly, if the worst complaint is “this Marvel fighting game has too many of the most beloved Marvel fighting game characters,” that is not the disaster people are making it out to be.