Mortal Kombat is the most successful fighting game series of all time, having sold over 80 million copies, and with the release of Mortal Kombat 1: Definitive Edition, that spells the end for the latest entry into the series. So, how well did Mortal Kombat 1 do? According to reports, the game has sold just over 5 million units. That’s pretty good… if we weren’t talking about one of the most successful franchises in the industry. Compared to Mortal Kombat 11, which sold more than 15 million copies, Mortal Kombat 1 is a massive disappointment. I wish I could say I’m surprised by this, but as a long-time Mortal Kombat fan, the writing was on the wall. When Mortal Kombat first came out in 1992, I was four years old, and since then, I have never missed an entry until now, and clearly, I wasn’t the only one who decided to skip out on MK1. So what happened? What could NeatherRealm have possibly done to cause so many MK fans to walk away?

Where It All Started to Go Wrong

I know that Mortal Kombat 11, at least from a gameplay point of view, is a divisive game. That said, I loved it. I thought guest characters like Robocop and Spawn were a lot of fun, and the story, which is the main reason I’m always coming back to the series, was really engaging. And it’s that Story Mode where I believe trouble started. Don’t get me wrong, I love everything that happens. With Lui Kang now an Elder God, the ending of the game sees Lui and Kitana defeating Kronika, the Keeper of Time, resulting in the Mortal Kombat timeline being theirs to mold how they see fit. And I know at the end of the MK 11 expansion we’re shown Lui Kang visiting the original Kung Lao (you wouldn’t think MK’s lore is so deep but it is) to prepare him for a new Mortal Kombat tournament, but even knowing that’s where the next game might be headed, the possibilities were still endless.

And with those endless possibilities, the imagination of the fans started to run wild. Showing Lui Kang introducing himself to the original Kung Lao could easily mean the next game would take place during the very first Mortal Kombat tournament, but this time, instead of Kung Lao losing to Goro, the outcome could be different. And because the story takes place so many years before the original Mortal Kombat game, the developers would have the opportunity to introduce either new characters or, at the very least, take characters from previous games like Sub-Zero and show what his clan was like all those years ago.

I can’t tell you how many times I thought about what a new MK timeline that could do something as drastic as deliver an entire new roster could look like. And don’t get me wrong, I understand that video games, especially something like Mortal Kombat, are a business. You still need to deliver iconic characters like Sub-Zero and Scorpion, but what about the others? Yes, we have Cassie Cage, who I think is great, but what if we cut out the middle man and did something ridiculous like make Johnny Cage a woman? What about Jax? The MK Universe is full of cyber-ninjas, so what if Jax’s injuries were so severe that he needed more than just metal arms? Oh, and Takeda. What if he was IN THE GAME AT LAUNCH?!

And sure, the combat never spoke to me. In fact, I found a lot of the gameplay shown before the launch to be overwhelming and seemingly aimed at the more “dedicated” fanbase. With air juggles and assist characters, I never saw a single moment of gameplay that looked like something I could ever get good at. Even with that, though, if the story and even more importantly, the roster were interesting, I would have forced myself to become good enough to beat a distracted child at least. But the game launched with a roster that created the worst kind of problem for a casual player like me. The roster wasn’t the interesting reboot that would have put every level of player on the same starting point, and characters from past games that I had gotten comfortable with were gone. Kotal Kahn, a character only just introduced in the previous game, is nowhere to be seen. Takeda, a character that became an instant fan-favorite in Mortal Kombat X, wasn’t in MK11 and didn’t show up in MK1 until he was added as DLC. And to make things worse, the game brought someone like Garus back from MK11. Sorry to any Garus fans, but Garus sucks.

But Chris, that’s only two characters. It isn’t NetherRealm’s fault that you’re so average that you need a specific type of character to even be able to enjoy fighting games.

Wrong! I recognize that Spawn and Robocop aren’t coming through that door. Jason Vorhees is not going to be in MK1 to help me learn how to play this new game, but I don’t think I’m out of line when I expect Noob Saibot to be on the roster at launch. Instead, just like Takeda, he’s DLC. So I’m left looking at a fighting game that looks overwhelming to play and a roster that’s being carried by Johnny Cage, still making the same tired jokes that he’s been making for 30 years. And I like Johnny Cage. He’s the one I probably would have chosen to be my main if I had picked up MK1, but once again, because there’s nothing new or interesting about the character, I don’t think it would have been enough to keep me around to even get to the DLC.

And I recognize that after months and months of hard work, the talented team at NetherRealm has turned the gameplay around and improved the roster. My understanding is that the people who still play Mortal Kombat 1 really love it. And I know there are a lot of reports that the higher-ups at WB did such a bad job with their games division that the only reason MK1 launched in the condition it was in is because MK was sent out way too early to save the day. With that said, games cost more than ever (EVER), as a human being, my heart goes out to the team who was put in an unfair situation, but as a consumer, I don’t care. If I’m expected to pay so much for a product, I shouldn’t be expected to wait 18 months for it to finally be “good.”

The question we have now is, what’s next? With WB’s gaming division finding itself in such dire circumstances, the concern is that NetherRealm will end up right back in the same situation they were in. Whether it’s another MK or an Injustice 3, besides the Hogwarts Legacy team, NetherRealm is the most dependable studio the publisher has, and when companies get desperate, quality is the first thing to go. Hopefully, whatever the studio’s next project is gets the time needed to make the great game I know they’re capable of. Otherwise, we could be looking at the end of NetherRealm, which would not only be a huge blow to the fighting game genre but to the video game industry as a whole. And I know that sounds crazy, but if I had told you 5 years ago that Monolith, the creators of Shadow of Mordor, would be shut down and that we may never see another game from Rocksteady after Suicide Squad, you would have thought I was crazy then, too.