Takeda’s Return May Not Be Enough To Revive Mortal Kombat 1’s Online Community

Highlights

Mortal Kombat 1’s low engagement challenges its legacy next to Tekken and Street Fighter.
Despite DLC character hype, MK1 struggles due to balancing issues and unappealing assist fighters.
Takeda’s return sparks buzz, but the game’s sustainability may hinge on more than flashy DLC characters.

Mortal Kombat 1 is wrapping up its first round of DLC characters, and as kombatants all over the globe anticipate the final character trailer, we’re left to wonder what’s next to extend the lifespan of the major esports competitive title. Though less than a year old, the general mood surrounding MK1 and ensuing conversations give the impression that the game, though not oppressively disdained, hasn’t managed to endear itself to fans in quite the same way previous entries have asserted themselves. But why?

Between the fast-paced story adorned in a stellar high-def graphical art direction and stimulating story environs and the re-adjusted kombat system combining the appreciated aspects of the previous three MK titles, what has the latest entry to the series forgotten that has managed to see it sideline itself among the other fighting game giants?

10 Games To Play If You Love Mortal Kombat

If you want to play some games like Mortal Kombat, look no further!

Across the board, MK1 consistently reports lower streams, viewers, and active player numbers than its competitor series titles of Tekken and Street Fighter 6, even being uncomfortably close in statistics to MK11, released over five years ago. A short web search will reveal the common mounting frustrations with the game. The most prominent woes I’ve seen aired are the balancing issues and that many people simply aren’t fans of the assist fighter genre, at the very least not with the Mortal Kombat series. With each newly released DLC character comes an accompanying assist fighter and patching software to improve the game’s stability, redoubling the signature mechanic that sets MK1 apart from its related entries but also further alienating the game from would-be players.

The roster of playable characters has always been one of Mortal Kombat’s main draws, however, and that has not evaded MK1, despite its controversial reputation. This suite of base game fighters has been lauded as one of the most appealing and dynamic, even with the DLC releases thus far driving mass engagement around each launch window.

Through all the word-of-mouth and public scrutiny, hardcore fans of any long-running series will want to pause what they’re doing to see how their favorites are re-imagined more epic than ever before in any new iteration they may turn up in. Such was the case for characters that have made an appearance or re-appearance in the title, like Ermac and Quan Chi, but major commotion has turned heads with the drops of guest characters Omni-Man and Homelander, both popular modern comic characters with gruesome rap sheets and equally depraved kombat.

Mortal Kombat 1 Review: A Konfident Not-Quite-Reboot

As fantastic as it is brutal.

It’s due to the surge of activity brought about by those DLC characters specifically, that I question what consequence marketing Takeda as the season finale character will mean for the lifespan of the game going forward. Netherrealm Studios even went so far as to drip-feed a very short clip of a single Takeda combo in MK1 gameplay against Scorpion ahead of any scheduled character showcase, and the community has been buzzing about it since. The clip displayed a flashy kombo characterized by MK1’s infamously fast-paced and brutal kombo structure with moves looking like they’d be taken straight out of Takeda’s MKX kit and polished to a shine.

We saw some mix of two of his character variations (the gimmick for character variety in MKX) with the chain whips being the highlight of the combo, though the devs made sure we saw a combo extension through a side-switching teleportation technique and exploding shuriken. They even managed to get the voice actor to return for the role on top of keeping Takeda’s appearance relatively unaltered for his return appearance.

The teaser trailer is roughly 19 seconds long, and I’ve re-watched it at least as many times. The chatter has been constant, many from excited fans itching to see their favorite come back in a new form, others with a solemn appreciation for the effort but caution regarding their feelings toward MK1. The game has an interesting reputation, to say the least. It has somehow managed to present experimental and innovative concepts to flesh out the Mortal Kombat universe and provide more engaging content for players to explore, yet the disparity between the general level of engagement with said material between MK11 and MK1 alone is vastly different.

People love seeing and playing as their fictional idols, but they tend to hate to see their potential squandered in environments deemed by popular opinion to be unfit. People adored the Krypt side activity in MK11. Exploring the dank under-dwellings and macabre corridors of Shang Tsung’s island to attain rewards in addition to producing a satisfying measure of exploration was a compatible juxtaposition from the sweaty button-mashing antics found in the game’s primary modes. Unfortunately, MK1’s side feature modes have not been able to replicate that effect, though not for a lack of trying or quality content.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon on top left, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance on bottom left, Mortal Kombat X in middle, Mortal Kombat 11 on top right, Mortal Kombat 2 on bottom right

Best Mortal Kombat Games, Ranked

Mortal Kombat is one of the greatest fighting game franchises of all time, but which games are the absolute best? Read on to find out.

If anything, the position Mortal Kombat presently finds itself in just exemplifies that it takes more than a signature trick and reputation to pump out a good game that produces any kind of lasting legacy. MKX still finds itself compared and alluded to because it has good bones, a great cast, a gratifying gameplay loop, and a pretty decent story (by fighting game standards) to boot, and at this point in time, it doesn’t feel like it will be hard for many to let go of MK1 once its time in the sun is fully over.

Riding the highs granted by the unveiling of new characters and new content with update packs, patches, and hotfixes but not having a strong base of persisting interest from fans actually coming back to the game at regular intervals is not a sustainable formula, and we’re seeing the weight of it here. If MK1 didn’t generate hype from its peculiar choice of DLC characters over the course of this first kombat pack, would we have seen any real headlines about it? It sounds harsh, I know, and I adore the series to no end, but that does not make it invulnerable to shortcomings. Personally, I’m ecstatic about Takeda’s return, though I’m not expecting that excitement to have MK1 present itself as a mainstay on my current gaming rotation, and from the forecast, it doesn’t seem like I’m alone in that sentiment.