- Publisher: Warner Bros. Games Montreal , Warner Bros. Games
- Release Date: Sep 19, 2023
- Also On: PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox Series X
- Critic score
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Oct 8, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 is finally here and it’s every bit as entertaining as we’ve come to expect from Netherealm Studios. It looks good, plays great and has more content than you can poke a metal dart attached to a rope at. Some minor balancing issues aside, this is a much-welcomed addition to the franchise
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Sep 26, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 is a pure marvel. This reboot offers a news future for the license without altering the original material, quite the contrary. It’s one of the most beautiful games of these last years. Fighting has never been so exciting and exhilarating, not to mention the always so gory and skillfully staged fatalities.
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Sep 24, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 lives up to the hype. The gameplay tweaks to the core fighting keep things fast and explosive, and the addition of Kameos significantly adds to your arsenal in a fight. The story mode is top-notch in the genre, even if it can quickly get weird. Add in Invasions mode, and Mortal Kombat 1 matches Street Fighter 6 in giving solo players plenty to do. It looks and plays great, and the netcode is solid, so it stands alongside Capcom's latest as a strong fighting game that'll be in your rotation for years to come.
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Sep 20, 2023With the responsibility of becoming the next great Mortal Kombat game, Mortal Kombat 1 is a masterclass in gaming achievement. While not perfect, it surely brings the ultimate Mortal Kombat experience to the table.
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Sep 19, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 is a triumph in every way. Aesthetically clean, carefully crafted, with a revised and optimized combat approach for each character. The introduction of the Kameo characters amplifies the need to find ever new and lethal combinations.
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Sep 14, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 is one of those rare legacy games that manages to improve very element it inherited from it's predecessors. Superb graphics and a rich combat system come together to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience that will leave fans of the fighting game genre begging for more.
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Sep 13, 2023With gorgeous next-gen visuals, spine-wringing combos, and new Kameo fighters, Mortal Kombat 1 is less a reboot and more an accessible yet fulfilling return to form.
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Sep 19, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 successfully brings about the rebirth of the series. Although it is a little weak on the story side, it makes up for all its shortcomings with its magnificent gameplay.
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Oct 1, 2023Great gameplay, beautiful graphics and rich content but also lack of polish. A great choice but it needs a couple of patches.
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Oct 6, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 has all the depth and technical detail a fighting game should have. Though I'd expect it to be more generous with content and different game modes to keep the player entertained.
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Sep 29, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 is a job well done, but falls short of fully embracing its reboot. While the narrative restart shines, the gameplay cautiously treads familiar ground, occasionally even regressing. Nevertheless, it offers an enjoyable and accessible action experience that's just as visually stunning as it is entertaining to play.
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Sep 24, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 is fantastic, having some minor issues in the story here and there, along with the underwhelming Invasion’s mode, but overall is a great time.
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Sep 22, 2023How can we continue to keep a legendary video game series that has just celebrated its 30th anniversary alive? NetherRealm has decided. The apprentice sorcerers led by Ed Boon reanimate the beast and opt for a nice reboot taking care of its accessibility strategy, adding a big touch of RPG (Invasions) and deepening its gameplay with a feature previously unpublished in the series (Kaméos). Despite its aggressive Live service side, fairly classic solo/multi modes and the disappearance of elements loved by fans, the title published by WB Games hits hard if not delivering an uppercut.
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Sep 21, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 offers smart changes to the series’ gameplay, an entertaining story that still threatens to baffle newcomers and veterans alike, an online mode that works well on PC, and tons of gore. While the seasonal Invasions mode is a fascinating idea, it’s unclear whether it’ll be enough to retain long-term interest. However, this is still a fantastic, horribly gruesome Mortal Kombat game that’s well worth your time.
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Sep 20, 2023There is a lot to enjoy about this new era of NetherRealm's top fighting game. Mortal Kombat 1 casts a much-needed set of fresh eyes across its lore, which reinvents the roster in new and interesting ways. Not every choice works, both in character design and development, but the ones that do make an immediate impact. Fighting with these new characters is awesome thanks to air combos and Kameos, even if the modes outside of campaign leave something to be desired. The future of Mortal Kombat is bright, and MK1 marks the first step on that new path. I just hope the next chapter gives me more to sink my teeth into.
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Sep 19, 2023With Mortal Kombat 1, NetherRealm managed to surprise us both positively and negatively: from a gameplay perspective, this is clearly the installment with the most potential in the series, as well as one of the most fun overall, and it manages to maintain a certain overall balance despite being far from perfect in terms of balancing. Content-wise, however, the game feels somewhat flat, and the invasion mode in particular seemed rather rushed and repetitive to us. Overall, though, it's a high-quality fighting game, an absolute must-play for any fan of the franchise, and likely to convert even the most skeptical.
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Sep 21, 2023Enjoyable fighting game with a well presented story, slightly outdated multiplayer system, and weak invasion mode.
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Sep 21, 2023There's the skeleton of a good Mortal Kombat here, but it's lacking in meat. Low on personality and half-baked in its attempt to reboot the story, it feels fated to be remembered as the least interesting of the modern MK games.
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Sep 21, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 is an excellent fighting game that managed to surpass Mortal Kombat 11 in almost every way, but I’d avoid getting it on Steam Deck unless you’re ok with 30fps gameplay. The game itself has smart improvements over the prior entry, and the story mode might be NetherRealm’s best one yet, but the online feels dated right now. Having now played it on Steam Deck, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch, I’d recommend getting it on Xbox Series X for sure, but avoiding it on Switch. The Steam Deck version is Verified by Valve, but I don’t think it is worthy of that badge right now. I’ll be revisiting it after a few updates, but my recommendation for the game on Steam Deck has a big 30fps caveat right now.
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Oct 12, 2023There’s plenty of room for MK1 to expand, but as it stands, Mortal Kombat just tested its might on another reboot and may have broken something unnecessarily in the process.
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Sep 27, 2023Mortal Kombat 1 reboots its universe to make it much more personal than before. Keeping its brutality and having lots of content, its roster of classic characters has never felt so alive.
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Sep 18, 2023In short: good fightin', rushed writin'. The storytelling is markedly more generic than the previous game (even that was a bit too Marvel for me), and I'm less in love with the character design overall. I miss the big ringed chrome arms of Jax, for instance, the skittering sharpness of D'vorah's spikey limbs, or Kollector's blessedly messed-up arm anatomy (he's not playable so far). So for franchise-agnostic fighting game dweebs, it might not capture the imagination with the same might as its predecessor. But otherwise there's enough klassicism to Mortal Kombat 1 (and enough fan servicey callbacks) to please the diehards. A totally acceptable (akkceptable?) follow-up, provided the online kombatants follow through.
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