Mortal Kombat 1 has had its ups and downs since it arrived in 2023, but NetherRealm Studios has been supporting it regardless with new DLC fighters and more. If a new rumour is to be believed, however, it looks like the team's post-launch work on the game may come to an abrupt stop.
Over on the Mortal Kombat Leaks subreddit, "verified insider" _FateUnknown_ claims Khaos Reigns and Kombat Pack 2 will be the last DLC for the game, with all work on further DLC cancelled.
The leaker claims a Kombat Pack 3 and second story expansion were planned, but will not be released, and that there won't be any more fighters after Kombat Pack 2. They add that one or two Kameo character may see the light of day, but aren't certain.
When asked why the future DLC has been cancelled, _FateUnknown_ says "Khaos Reigns sold poorly."
With rumours like this it's always best not to take it as read, but the subreddit user does seem to have some credibility.
While Mortal Kombat 1 was broadly received well, its expansion Khaos Reigns was met with middling reviews and general disapproval from players. It'll be interesting to see whether this rumour holds true in the months ahead, when presumably we'll hear from Warner Bros. on the future of MK1.
What are your thoughts on this? How are you feeling about the game at this stage? Discuss in the comments section below.
[source reddit.com, via playstationlifestyle.net]
Comments 29
They need to go back to MKX combat style and fast!
Edit: Seeing people comment below saying MKX is worst entry, that's the most craziest thing I've ever read!! Clearly don't play fighting game very often.
Another MK with very short life cycle. Why i'm not surprised.
MK players got my sympathy.
@PuppetMaster except this life cycle was backlash for how mid mk1 is; the previous times were just the devs not wanting to continue support despite the success
mk1 is trash. waste of my $70
Apart from noob saibot, the characters were underwhelming. A lot of people wanted jade, skarlet, sareena but we got characters no one asked for
@Oram77 Facts. All we want is a cross between MKX & MK9 . not this new streamlined & slow experimental gameplay , but this time with air combos and tag assists . dumpster Mk11’s gameplay entirely & go back to X !
Good. Close to the price of a full game (€50) for a story expansion (that takes a few hours to finish) to a competitive fighting game. They also gated the second character expansion behind this, so if you wanted the new characters you still had to stump up for the story expansion (first character pack was €30).
Plus, the roster expansions feel more like advertisements for other franchises than anything at this stage. I'm playing MK for Sub Zero and Baraka, not ***** Ghostface and Peacemaker.
EA and Ubisoft are frequently branded as the worst publishers in the industry, but I've long held the opinion that it's WB.
It's too expensive.
I like to dabble in fighting games but they are too much for me to get too deeply involved in - i don't have the skill and i don't have the time or patience to improve enough.
So when you drop a base game at full price with an expansion that costs almost as much again it just isn't for me.
Worse still, everyone knows full well there will be a 'Komplete' edition that will drop in price down to £25 in a very short time.
Maybe just maybe - and this goes for all fighting games - include more content in the base game.
Stop telling me before the game is even released that you are going to try fleecing me multiple dlc at extortionate prices to get a full roster.
They just need too release MK original trilogy for modern consoles.
That's great news! MK1 in some ways felt like a step down from MK11 which itself was a step down from MKX. It needs to go back to being dark and gritty, make it so that in a way we feel like we're playing a horror game (again like MKX).
@MrPeanutbutterz The characters can be bought separate and yet again guest characters sell the most hence why they do them, moan about Ghostface all you want but he will sell more then any of the MK characters
@nomither6 Funny because one of the few things people love about MK1 is the gameplay. Don't why you're praising MKX its easily the weakest NRS entry.
@DennisReynolds They can be bought separately for €8 a go, which will run you €48 instead of the €30 for the full stack.
The funny thing is MK1 is actually my favorite of the modern 2D MKs. I liked 9 but X and 11 did nothing for me. I found the kameo system for MK1 pretty interesting even if it provided some balance issues. I also liked how they brought back some 3D era MK characters which is my favorite MK era. (Seriously, give me a collection of those and I'd buy it in a heartbeat WB.)
The only reason I don't play it more is I just prefer SF more.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Here's the thing - base versions of modern fighting games are rammed full of content already. Tekken 8's base roster is one of the biggest (and notably - significantly bigger than the fully unlocked rosters of the older games that people cry "but unlockable characters used to be free!" about) in the series, the characters have massive and yet well balanced movesets, training tools are complex, single player content is chock.
Street Fighter 6 has the largest base roster of any new entry to the series. It also has a wealth of single player content (there's basically a fully fledged 30 hour "build your own character" RPG in there), comprehensive training tools, robust online modes and netcode that's so good it's basically witchcraft. It's also balanced to the point where the entire cast is viable at high levels. It's also seen subtle tweaks and refinements based on player feedback since it was released.
Now to my point that people seem to miss completely - the extra DLC characters just wouldn't exist in the older games. Sure, they removed Heihachi from Tekken 8 and later added him as DLC, but you know what you did when they removed Kazuya from Tekken 3 and wanted to play him? You waited four years for Tekken 4 and then bought that for full price. Or like when they removed M. Bison from Street Fighter 3 - he didn't return as DLC, instead you waited over a decade for SF4.
This model ensures that the games receive long term support, both from the developer and players. It also means that buying the game on day one will still be valid in five years when the Super Turbo Champion Edition is out and it doesn't fracture the player base by making early adopters buy an entirely new game just to access new characters (which is what, you know, the older versions of these games people champion did).
I have been known to buy the odd character or DLC pack for fighting games in the past but MK1 was just a disappointment so was never going to get extra money out of me. It might have fared a bit better if its release wasn’t sandwiched between SF6 and Tekken 8, both of which felt like a massive step forward in their respective series….MK1 felt like a step forward with its ideas but a step back in gameplay.
I like this game but I didn't really want another Mortal Kombat so quickly. I don't think the appetite was there.
I think they should have done another Injustice or something new to give some space between the last MK.
@get2sammyb Who’s hand do I need to bite off for an Injustice 3?!? The second is one of my favourite fighters of all time! I put days into that game.
To expensive and I feel the are way to many guest characters. So many mainstay/ favorite characters are not there. The starting roster is to small there are way to many better alternatives.
@GeeEssEff At this point I would pay for a native injustice 2 complete edition I'm that desperate.
@DennisReynolds MKX is arguably the best NRS game purely for the combat system and the roster. Ask anyone who plays fighting games regularly and they'll likely tell you they're favourite is MK9 or MKX. To say MKX is easily the weakest game is absurd.
@Flaming_Kaiser Same dude! I had this exact thought shortly after I posted that comment. I miss Injustice
@get2sammyb yup. Especially how MK11 kept charting higher than this, even mere months after its release
@MrPeanutbutterz if I’m told about XYZ characters are coming in a future DLC, before the game has even released. Then said character could have been in the base game.
Either way it’s ridiculous for a company to tell me I need to spend £50-70 (whatever it released at) then multiple lots of dlc for a ridiculous price to have some more fighters.
Companies have to stop taking gamers for a ride, and gamers need to wise up. - be it play early, deluxe editions, pre order for broken day 1, half a game with future dlc.
Why buy MK (or any game) day1 if I know I wait it will be in a better state, feature complete and a fraction of the price.
@get2sammyb You hit the nail on the head. MK11 was the end of a really strong trilogy of games that largely kept things fresh with each new title and MK11 still seems to be selling and being played. And MK11 nerfed its aggressive monetization post-release.
MK1 simply came too soon. I liked the campaign, but my opinion of the game soured post-release due to continuous expensive and flat quality DLC. I think we’re hitting an age where consumers are either too critical of cheap live service practices or too broke to afford them at the cost they’re being sold at. It’s like Netherrealm hadn’t learned from the recent trilogy when they made MK1 and rushed into making the game. And Khaos felt even more rushed, haphazard, ad pointless. NRS got greedy and it killed the game. Live service can and does work, just not the way it’s being done by so many of these publishers these days, and they need to wake up to what gamers will and won’t accept or they’ll risk further diminishing returns.
For the record, I do think it was a huge missed opportunity that MK1 didn’t go all in on the multiversal characters and customization, as I think that would’ve given the game a lot of longevity. I also perhaps like its brand of gameplay best yet in the series too. It’s a good game with some deeply flawed aspects to it.
It might just be me, but the install size is ridiculous for a beat'em up. It's a genre I will play for an hour or two if I'm in the mood and then may not go back to for months and to have (on XBox) nearly 200gig for a fighting game is crazy, when I'm sure the MK Trilogy on XBox Arcade was around 200mb (I think).
This install size puts me off getting the game
@Burnish1619 I really did not get on board with MK10, partly due to the 3 styles for each character being separate (remember on PS2, you could tap a button to switch style mid-match). I greatly preferred MK11, and still quite enjoy it, but MK9 was/ is absolutely my favourite. MK1, however, isn't even worth discussing 🥲
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Just because they have a planned roadmap of support of several years (you're aware of the basics of how product management works and some Management Bro at Capcom doesn't sit up three years after release and say "I want five new characters for next week!", right?) doesn't mean that content was good to go at launch.
You're ignoring my point that those older games (which were already smaller to begin with) got iterative expansions that were the cost of a new game (like say Street Fighter 2 > Street Fighter 2 Turbo > Super Street Fighter 2 > Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo). You waiting five years to play Street Fighter 6 (or whichever game) is effectively buying the last version of a game everyone else has been playing for those five years. Or they just didn't get any updates at all.
You're also ignoring that this model doesn't fracture the playerbase. Know what happened when I bought Super Street Fighter 4 for the new characters and my buddy stuck with the base Street Fighter 4? We couldn't play online together as they're different games. Now with SF6, I've bought the extra characters and he hasn't, yet it's still the same base game and we can continue playing together. Please tell me how that's somehow worse for consumers? Especially when he gets all the balance updates, new stages, customisable music playlists and other tweaks for free?
You've also completely ignored the fact that these games are very much feature complete at launch, and are bigger than the old games ever were.
And you've also missed that the fighting game community - you know, the people who actually play these games and do so for hundreds if not thousands of hours - have "wised up" to the fact this model is far better than the old one. And comparing optional DLC that does not negate your day one purchase to broken at launch games is utterly disingenuous.
I loved 9. X was a dissapointment. 11 was... Kinda good. But I stopped caring.
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