MORTAL KOMBAT 1

With SF6 and MK1, we'll be talking about 2023 for decades

- Wes Fenlon

Every time a new Mortal Kombat arrives I think this is it: the one that’ll be so freaking gross I can’t stomach it anymore. MK1 threatened to be that game when Netherrealm trotted out a fatality montage to show off its latest skin-shredding tech, but playing it at Summer Game Fest, the gore didn’t give me the same ick.

The dismemberments of Mortal Kombat are just punctuation, an eternal exclamation point at the end of every match. While I was playing this one, the sentence that kept running through my mind over and over was: this is going to be the best year for fighting games ever.

Mortal Kombat 1 is more polished than a crystal skull, almost as if Netherrealm could have just made a fighting game in its sleep and used the bulk of the last few years to focus on flair. The detail on these faces? Johnny Cage’s cakes? The way two fighters square off in a short cutscene that masks loading, before flowing seamlessly into the fight? Mirror sheen.