The writing was on the wall regarding Mortal Kombat 1‘s future, but now its fate has been confirmed. Developer NetherRealm Studios has taken to social media to state that there will be no more MK1 DLC and that it is shifting focus to its next project. This seemingly corroborates a prior report spelling out that future DLC had been canned because of Khaos Reigns‘ allegedly poor sales.
The posts can be found on various official Mortal Kombat social media accounts. It explains that the team has heard requests to continue supporting the game and will continue to fix bugs and send out balance updates for MK1, but there will “not be additional DLC characters or story chapters” from this point on. A follow-up post notes that the studio knows fans are disappointed, but expresses that it “needs to shift focus to the next project in order to make it as great as [it] possibly can.” It’s unclear when more balance changes are coming, but series co-creator Ed Boon recently took to social media to ask fans what characters needed more work.
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This official confirmation is a formality, as it was somewhat clear MK1 would not be getting more DLC after the recent reveal of the aptly titled Definitive Edition. It was officially announced on the same day it was released and contained all the previous DLC and tons of new costumes that were all dumped on the in-game store almost immediately after. Many of these were related to the upcoming Mortal Kombat film, slated for October 24th, that has not even gotten an official trailer, leading some to speculate that the release of these skins was pushed up.
While some have expressed joy in ditching MK1 mostly because of its rocky launch, others have not been so pleased. Many see this as the studio cutting the game off prematurely, as its peers like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 have plenty more content on the way. Boon had also previously said that MK1 should be supported for longer than MK11.
“I think that’s the minimum we’ll be doing,” he said in July 2023, two months before launch. “I think we’ll be supporting this game at least as long as [Mortal Kombat 11]. I would suspect even longer, but a lot of the fun of releasing additional characters after we launched the game is seeing the relationships.”
That may end up technically being true if balance patches are strung out for a few more months, but, character-wise, MK1 has been supported for a shorter period of time than MK11. The last DLC fighter for MK11 came out 574 days after launch, while T-1000, MK1‘s final character, hit digital shelves 546 days after launch.
It is unclear what NetherRealm is working on next. However, speculation, history, and a recent rumor all point to Injustice 3. Some Warner Bros. social media accounts have even been posting about Injustice, further adding fuel to that rumor.
