Mortal Kombat 1 has cemented itself as the best-selling fighting game of this generation despite ending support after just 20 months: 'We're still committed to refining MK1 to be our most balanced game'

Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon promises NetherRealm is "still committed to refining MK1 to be our most balanced game" after surpassing six million sales… despite officially ending major support for it nearly three months ago.

Mortal Kombat 1's most recent sales announcement puts it ahead of both Street Fighter 6—which reported five million sales two months ago—and Tekken 8, which hit a three million sales milestone five months ago.

It makes sense that it's the most popular of the three. Mortal Kombat has always attracted a larger and more casual audience than its competition—not to say there isn't a competitive scene, there certainly is—and has the numbers to back that up. It's still significantly less than previous entry Mortal Kombat 11, however, which managed to shift over 15 million copies by 2022.

You'd think as a result that'd mean a pretty extensive support window before wrapping things up, but it's pretty common for NetherRealm to pack its bags around 12 months after launching its fighting games. For comparison, Street Fighter 5 saw six years of support, while Tekken 7 had four years of major updates.

Even Mortal Kombat 1's predecessor lasted longer, going two years before NetherRealm announced on X that it was moving onto the next project and ceasing major support. That was considered short by some and, when asked about it during a Q&A at the end of 2022, Boon pointed out that Mortal Kombat 11 was the longest NetherRealm had ever supported a game before assuring fans that the "next game should be even longer".

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case: Mortal Kombat 1 lasted just under 21 months before NetherRealm dropped the news that it was no longer pumping out any new DLC characters or story chapter updates.

It's still working away at balance tweaks here and there, though, which Boon was keen to remind folk about in his latest post. "With over 6.2 million games sold, we're still committed to refining MK1 to be our most balanced game," he wrote before sharing the game's most recent patch notes in both video and text form.

"But we still want to hear from you," he continued before asking: "What four fighters do you feel need buffs the most? What four fighters do you feel need buffs the least?" Boon also polled players on whether they preferred multiple smaller packs of DLC characters or fewer larger packs.

It's nice that Boon still seems committed to pushing Mortal Kombat 1 and improving it, but a quick scroll through the comments paint a picture of a fanbase largely disappointed with the direction it took and the broken promise of an extended support cycle.

Now do I think that fighting games should be spending half a decade crapping out DLC fighter after DLC fighter? Not especially, though I'll take it over some of the more questionable paid add-ons—coughcough, Tekken 7 frame date, coughcough—but clearly the desire was there to see NetherRealm continue to build on MK1. Maybe there's hope for MK2, eh?

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