The PC port of Arc System Works and Sony’s Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls has been subject to a wave of criticism for its shoddy performance over the past few weeks, with many theorizing that its multiple layers of anti-cheat may be to blame.
Well, we may now finally have confirmation, as a cracked version of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls has appeared online, and those who have tried it are reporting that the pirated version performs drastically better than its retail counterpart.
As user JustinSGX revealed in a post on X, the cracked version that seemingly went live at some point last night only demanded roughly 34 percent of their i7 6700K’s processing power…whereas the retail version of Marvel Tōkon hogged just over 57 percent of their CPU processing.
According to JustinSGX, this may have something to do with the cracked version’s lack of anti-cheat software. As they stated in a follow-up post, this is because the retail version of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls “is encrypted and decrypts the game in real time in 64kb chunks on 1 CPU core.”
Retail version of the game is encrypted and decrypts the game in real time in 64kb chunks on 1 CPU core. 💀 pic.twitter.com/f1QkgbxYMY
— Arcade Impact | SonGohanX (@JustinSGX) August 18, 2026
Now, I of course can’t legally confirm said reports myself. However, I find it very easy to believe, as several people on X, including a couple of well-known names in the fighting game community, have corroborated these findings.
“Looked into this a little in x64debug and ngl if you see how much memory is used on purely anti cheat you’ll get mad,” posted ArcSys content creator ShaudL.
“It literally runs 10x better now, even on highest settings, I am barely using 45% of my CPU,” stated user MattWilliamson9.
“A certain unofficial version is actually running flawless 60fps on my rig,” posted bar_barXII. “Medium settings rock solid 60fps with cpu and gpu at around 40-50% usage… meanwhile retail is stuck at perma 45fps even with GBA resolution.”
While ArcSys released a patch last week that improved the game’s performance, at least on my end, I can’t help but wonder if the five separate instances of Sony’s SDK runtime application booting up every time I launch the game could have something to do with the reports of sluggish performance.
All those layers of DRM and anti-cheat embedded in the game haven’t stopped tech-savvy folks from datamining a number of Marvel Tōkon’s upcoming DLC characters. And, well, they’ve clearly not done much to stop the game from being cracked either, considering it took less than two weeks for a pirated version to appear online.