While you wait for its arrival, Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is out now for cloud, PC and Series X/S players, with Monster Train 2 coming tomorrow to Game Pass Premium alongside Spray Paint Simulator. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be available on December 4th with Premium.

On the same day, Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers can get their hands on Routine, a long-delayed procedural horror title first announced in 2012. December 9th sees the arrival of A Game About Digging A Hole, Death Howl, and Dome Keeper for all three tiers. Bratz: Rhythm and Style on December 11th caps off Wave 1.

Several titles will be leaving on December 15th, and in an intriguing twist, Microsoft has confirmed those which won’t be available post-31st.

December 15

• Mortal Kombat 11 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Still Wakes the Deep (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Wildfrost (Cloud, Console, and PC)

December 31

• Carrion (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Hell Let Loose (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Other notable releases include Giant Squid’s Sword of the Sea, launching on the same day worldwide for PS5 and PC. Subscribers can also check out Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End and the Secret Key, Coral Island, Earth Defense Force 6, Harold Halibut, Indika and Unicorn Overlord. It’s a solid line-up, especially for role-playing game fans.

However, that’s not all for Premium/Deluxe subscribers, as they can also play Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, two legendary PS One classics, on PS4 and PS5. Both titles support quick save, custom filters, rewind and up-rendering for a smoother experience.

A new balance patch is also live, which adjusts numerous Kombatants, including Havik, Kenshi, Li Mei, Liu Kang, Rain, Reptile, Shang Tsung, and even DLC fighters like Omni-Man, Ermac, Conan the Barbarian and Homelander. If that wasn’t enough, Kameo Fighters such as Frost, Darrius, Jax, Goro, Stryker, Sektor, Sub-Zero, Mavado, Tremor, and more have seen adjustments.

Check out all the changes in the video below. Boon said that the team is committed to making this “our most balanced game,” so further balance changes and hotfixes could be due later. Stay tuned for updates.

Mortal Kombat 1 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch. NetherRealm announced last May that it wouldn’t receive any more characters or story DLC as it focuses on its next project (rumored to be Injustice 3).

It’s a shame in many ways, but especially when you look back to 2019 when a title called Mortal Kombat 11 hit. And what a glorious period it was.

Maybe it was at The Game Awards 2018 when the first trailer hit and we watched Dark Raiden battling Scorpion, the former absolutely demolishing the latter after a bone-crunching duel. Then a new challenger appeared and it was…Scorpion? What followed was an extravagant execution and the words, “You’re next” (alongside a teaser for the new big bad).

As it turns out, the story set-up dwarfed anything we had seen in previous Mortal Kombats – more so than stopping Onaga or Shao Kahn. This time, the forces of Earthrealm were up against a Titan, Kronika, who controlled time. Having gone a little too power mad, she decided the time was right to restart the timeline and herald a new era.

Heroes and villains were in a pretty complicated spot. Between Dark Raiden and his machinations, Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Kitana being Revenants, and so on. Kronika further muddled things by bringing their past versions to the present. Johnny Cage had to deal with his past self, which really showcased how far the character has progressed; the original Raiden effectively removed his dark variant from the timeline; the Cyber Lin Kuei was starting back up; and, perhaps best of all, Shao Kahn was back and as brutal as ever.

The highlights only escalated from there, whether it was Liu Kang and Raiden finally reconciling their differences and finding a way to coexist, Kitana overcoming past demons and achieving her destiny, Scorpion and Sub-Zero teaming to dispense the Cyber Lin Kuei, and, of course, the penultimate battle. And who could forget that launch trailer with a modernized version of Techno Syndrome from the first Mortal Kombat? Granted, the boss fight against Kronika wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and she wasn’t the best-written villain per se, but when it was all said and done, it felt like Mortal Kombat had truly culminated years and years of history in epic fashion.

On the gameplay side, there were other issues, specifically with the amount of grinding involved in the Towers of Time and The Krypt. Players quickly realized that they could use an AI version of Noob Saibot with the best moves and leave it to farm the Towers overnight for enough currency. NetherRealm eventually fixed this and reduced the grinding while also revamping some of the Towers’ challenges to feel less frustrating. And it’s a good thing because, as far as unlockables go, the Krypt was simply fantastic, offering an explorable space with secrets, Easter eggs and cool references. Towers also provided some fun single-player content, including the Klassic Towers that mimicked the Arcade Mode of older titles and offered different conclusions depending on who defeated Kronika.

As for the actual combat, opinions remain a bit mixed, leaning towards the positive. Mechanics Fatal Blows worked similarly to X-Ray Moves, though they were more like comeback mechanics, but Krushing Blows added a new degree of brutality to special moves. The overall speed had dropped massively compared to Mortal Kombat X and Breakaway, which allowed for escaping air combos and gaining armor as your character dropped. Depending on who you asked, it was either an annoyance or the worst mechanic in the series to date.

Nevertheless, the overall system is robust enough and offers a good amount of enjoyment once you’ve mastered the fundamentals. Kustom Variation was also a nice system, allowing one to customize move sets for characters to their liking. The fact that this was decoupled from gear also made it significantly better than Injustice 2’s Gear system.

That being said, Mortal Kombat 1 is considered better in terms of actual combat and mechanics, striking a strong balance between speed and combo potential. The Kameo Fighters added some interesting dynamics and extensions, but didn’t exactly light the world on fire. On top of having to master more than one character for fights (because they weren’t optional), they were considered an ill-fitting addition in a series geared towards 1v1 fights.

It is a new era, though – one with new beginnings…sort of. Leaving aside the absolute cluster of the finale, the story itself was received well, and it was nice seeing the world and its characters in a different light. But after the conclusion of Mortal Kombat 11, the stakes weren’t anywhere near as insane (and none of this matters much anyway once the multiverse shenanigans began). The Krypt was also gone, and Invasions felt completely superfluous with its challenges and super armor-touting enemies, despite offering a neat concept.

However, perhaps the biggest fundamental difference between the titles is their overall level of polish, at least at launch. Mortal Kombat 1 felt far buggier – the Player 1 advantage was a whole rigmarole unto itself – and the monetization felt excessive. Perhaps because of these reasons, it sold only five million plus copies about two years after its launch.

Mortal Kombat 11 sold over 15 million copies, and to be fair, it was available on more platforms over a longer period. But the sheer hype surrounding the franchise was palpable – fans had waited years for a follow-up, and the concept of progressing through a timeline reset by Liu Kang was intriguing. It had everything in terms of marketing and hype, and while selling over five million copies isn’t terrible, a third of its predecessor’s sales by this point is a significant drop.

Now that both titles have effectively concluded their post-launch support, it’s easy to look back and appreciate just how much better Mortal Kombat 11 really was. It also highlights the perils of making a sequel, especially in such a long-running franchise. You could pack in the greatest graphics, the sleekest gameplay, award-winning voice actors and dozens of hours of content, and still slip up. This can happen to several different franchises, especially as budgets grow and developers attempt to reach the largest possible audience. Very few have the burden of NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat series, though.

It’s not just a blockbuster triple-A title that millions of people want to play. It’s also an illustrious fighting game series with extensive lore. Even with all the reboots and resets, Mortal Kombat still commands attention in a way that many other fighting games simply can’t. The benefits of being so well known collide with the expectations of constantly one-upping itself in terms of story content. On the other hand, FGC fans can simultaneously have wildly different opinions about what constitutes good gameplay and mechanics while also uniting on truly awful things. Catering to all these different people will always be challenging, and while I don’t think Mortal Kombat 1 ended up a terrible game, it’s definitely a step down from Mortal Kombat 11.

The series has seen a resurgence of sorts, thanks to the latest trailer and details for the Mortal Kombat 2 film, which seems like a massive improvement compared to the 2021 film. In a way, it indicates the long-term appeal of Mortal Kombat – of seeing these characters, presented in different ways but still paying loving homage to the originals. Whether the next game manages to fill that void or not – and judging from the rumors, it’s going to be a while before we find out – here’s hoping that NetherRealm cracks the code and offers a follow-up that both new and long-time players can enjoy.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

When the fighting title launched under two years ago, it did immediately meet with skepticism from many in the audience. From its new Kameo fighters system not convincing everyone to its multiversal timeline-rebooting story feeling like kind of a mess, there was a lot about Mortal Kombat 1 that drew criticism from many critics and those in the audience alike. Of course, for a fighting game releasing in the current market, a less-than-stellar launch is by no means a death knell, but sadly, Mortal Kombat 1 didn’t make a recovery in its post-launch period either.

In fact, if anything, you could argue that things only went worse for the game in the time following its release. From lukewarm reception for DLC fighters and the game’s story expansion generally being considered a disappointment to underwhelming Invasions update (a mode that was already not the most popular among fans), startling and controversial monetization decisions, and more, it felt like every single step that WB Games and NetherRealm Studios took with Mortal Kombat 1 following its release was worse than the last.

With all of those poor choices, criticisms, and controversies snowballing together, it maybe shouldn’t come as a surprise that that has reflected in not just critical, but the commercial reception for the game as well (even though it is– it’s still Mortal Kombat, after all). In January, it was announced that Mortal Kombat 1 had sold over 5 million units worldwide, which, viewed in isolation, is by no means a bad feat for any game- 5 million units sold in a year and a half is not necessarily something to scoff at.

But by Mortal Kombat standards, MK1’s sales definitely do seem like they have slowed down. At last count, Mortal Kombat X had sold over 12 million units worldwide, while Mortal Kombat 11 stands at over 15 million units sold. Even though MK1’s numbers aren’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination, the game is still clearly still selling at a much slower pace, with the generally mixed reception surrounding it having clearly impacted sales.

And it’s not just the base game that has not sold to WB Games’ expectations. Reports have claimed that the expansion, Khaos Reigns (which wasn’t too well received and was also considered overpriced by many), also did not sell well, following which the publisher made the decision to cancel future content that was in development for Mortal Kombat 1. And after more reports and speculation over recent weeks that post-launch support for the fighter had been killed, WB Games and NetherRealm Studios recently officially confirmed that that was indeed the case. With NetherRealm apparently focused on its next big project (which could reportedly be the next Injustice game at long last, but there’s nothing concrete on that front just yet), WB games says the decision has been made to shelve future content plans for Mortal Kombat 1, so the studio can instead dedicate all of itself to its next game.

That comes as a surprise for several reasons. For starters, at only a little over a year and a half since its release, Mortal Kombat 1’s post-launch death seems like a somewhat premature one. Past Mortal Kombat titles have kept things going for longer, so to see MK1 closing the book so early comes as a disappointing surprise. And when you look at other major fighting games on the market right now, the contrast becomes even clearer. Take a look at the likes of Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, or Guilty Gear Strive, and Mortal Kombat 1’s post-launch deficiencies become even clearer- in case they weren’t pretty darn clear already, that is. That is all doubly true, in fact, because until not too long ago, word from the official channels had consistently suggested that there was going to be plenty more post-launch content for the game in the pipeline. Clearly, NetherRealm Studios intended to keep pumping content out for the game if critical and commercial reception for it had allowed it.

You can, of course, argue that it is likely for the best that Mortal Kombat 1 is being sent to the grave, because ultimately, that means NetherRealm gets to move on from the mistakes it made with this game and instead focus on its next project, which will hopefully be a much better and more well thought out experience, both at launch and afterwards. The question many will have is whether the mistakes that NetherRealm made with Mortal Kombat 1 were the kind that warranted a premature abandonment of the game. Games that were way worse, more broken, and seemingly much, much more beyond salvage than MK1 have enjoyed truly spectacular recoveries, so it would be foolish to suggest that there was no way NetherRealm’s fighters wouldn’t have been able to win people over again. Ultimately, however, you do get why WB Games is choosing to move on.

What lessons the publisher and developer will take from the missteps of Mortal Kombat 1 should be interesting to see. For starters, it seems fair to say that people are maybe feeling a little bit of Mortal Kombat fatigue right now, so if NetherRealm Studios is indeed developing Injustice 3 next instead of another MK game, that is probably the best decision that could be made right now. Beyond that, you’d also hope that WB and NetherRealm will have much better and more compelling post-launch content plans for their next project, whatever that is, and that, crucially enough, they will have much fairer and less aggressive monetization policies in place. If not, if they continue to make the same mistakes, we wouldn’t be surprised if the next release continued to slide backwards from the highs of Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11.

As for Mortal Kombat 1 itself, it’s disappointing to see the game going down. Obviously, the franchise itself remains one of Warner Bros’ biggest IPs, and it will of course continue to be hugely important. But whenever it is that the next Mortal Kombat game comes out, it will be interesting to see how (or if) it follows up on MK1. Will NetherRealm pick up the game’s story and continue telling that tale, even though that story is partly responsible for the game’s mixed reception, or will we be in for yet another reboot? Either way, it feels like the developer is going to have to sidestep several mines, which it didn’t necessarily accomplish with Mortal Kombat 1. Here’s hoping the future has better things in store for the franchise.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

While balance adjustments and fixes will continue, the developer will focus on its next project to “make it as great as we possibly can,” though it understands the news will disappoint fans.

Launched in September 2023 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch, Mortal Kombat 1 is a reboot of the series timeline. It introduced Kameo Fighters as assists and a new mode, Invasions, to accommodate a seasonal format. While it received acclaim for its visuals and story, fans raised concerns about the mechanics, extensive bugs and excessive monetization.

An expansion, Khaos Reigns, followed in September 2024 alongside Kombat Pack 2, but this also received criticism for its short story and $50 price. Another expansion and Kombat Pack 3 were allegedly in development but seemingly cancelled due to Khaos Reigns’ poor sales.

As for the future, NetherRealm Studios may be working on a new Injustice, according to a MultiVersus leaker. Nothing is confirmed, so stay tuned for updates.

Retailing for $69.99, the Definitive Edition also includes Shang Tsung, six Kameo Fighters (including the recently released Madam Bo), the MK2 Movie Skin Pack, and the Tournament Liu Kang skin. You also get six Premier skins, instant unlocks for the Kameo Pack and Havik, and 1250 Dragon Krystals.

The base game’s price has also dropped to $49.99. A paid upgrade option for the Definitive Edition is also available.

Mortal Kombat 1 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Though director Ed Boon promised extensive post-launch support, rumors indicate that Khaos Reigns sold poorly. A second story expansion and Kombat Pack 3 were also allegedly cancelled. As for what’s next for the studio, stay tuned for updates.

The T-1000 possesses a unique kit, like turning into metal and seemingly gaining super armor as he shrugs off several attacks. He can also transform his arms into hook swords a la Kabal and toss an enemy beside all the slicing and dicing with the many different blades. Then there’s his second Fatality, which mirrors a famous scene from the film while amplifying the brutality.

The T-1000 arrives on March 18th for Kombat Pack 2 and Khaos Reigns owners alongside Madam Bo, who joins the roster as a new Kameo Fighter free for all players. Her Fatal Blow is noteworthy since she smacks an opponent with her chanchla. Everyone else can purchase the DLC fighter on March 25th.

As the proprietor of Fengjian Teahouse, she brings some interesting assists to the table. The latest teaser trailer sees Bo throwing a bottle at an enemy and smashing two together against their head before setting them ablaze with her cigarette.

One of her cooler moves involves sliding into an enemy and comboing them from the other side. Of course, Madam Bo also gets a Kameo Fatality, decapitating an opponent with a somersault kick, their head landing in a dish.

Madam Bo is available free for all players on March 18th. NetherRealm hasn’t confirmed any other content for Mortal Kombat 1, which has sold over five million copies since launch. Rumors claim the cancellation of another story expansion and Kombat Pack after the poor performance of Khaos Reigns.

Played by Robert Patrick, who lends his voice and likeness, the T-1000 was an advanced machine that utilized liquid metal to alter its shape. It allowed for blades to attack and even granted absurd durability. The former comes up during combat, while his metal form allows for transitioning between combos. Of course, he also has a Fatality that pays homage to his film.

Perhaps more intriguing, however, is Madam Bo as a new Kameo Fighter. Players will remember her from the Fengjian Teahouse during the base game’s story, where she plays a minor role.

Mortal Kombat 1 is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Check out our review of it and the Khaos Reigns expansion. NetherRealm hasn’t commented on further support for the title, though it did add a new ninja inspired by Pink Floyd.