Despite Rumors Of Game’s Abandonment, NetherRealm Studios Boss Ed Boon Seemingly Hints At More DLC For ‘Mortal Kombat 1’
Though previous whispers suggested that the poor performance of the game’s thus far released DLC had led developer NetherRealm Studios to abandon their plans for future updates, studio head Ed Boon may have recently hinted that more content is currently in development for Mortal Kombat 1.
Boon offered this seeming hint on January 21st while providing fans with a brief status update as to the current state of the game.
Following a highlighting of MK1‘s newly released Conan the Barbarian DLC, a new episode of the company’s official Kombat Kast livestream, and the game’s continued standing as the 15th most played PlayStation 5 game, the series co-creator beamed, “With Conan getting into player’s hands, we are excited to keep trucking forward with future DLC!”
Admittedly, Boon’s statement is vague at best, and as such fans are divided as to what his mention of “future DLC” actually means.
On one side, some speculate that it’s confirmation that despite the previous rumors of its demise, MK1 still has a long road ahead of it.
Meanwhile, others believe he was simply referring to the game’s last DLC character, the yet-to-receive-a-release-date T-1000 of Terminator 2 fame, and purposely used ambiguous language so as to not show NetherRealm’s hand regarding their development schedules.
Ultimately, as of writing, a definitive explanation to Boon’s possible teaser has yet to be offered by anyone related to MK1’s dev team.
However, looking at the numbers, one could argue that it’s in NetherRealm’s best interest to just move on to their next project anyway.
Despite MK1′s initial announcement at the 2022 Summer Games Fest being met with widespread excitement, that sentiment quickly waned thanks to the subsequent reveals that its narrative, art style, and mechanics were less an upgrade from Mortal Kombat 11 and more of a sidegrade.
As a result, the game has significantly underperformed compared to its predecessors.
Per another tweet in Boon’s thread, since its release in September 2023, MK1 has sold roughly 5 million copies to date. By comparison, MK11 sold 8 million copies in only two years – in other words, MK1 has to sell about 3 million copies in about 8 months if it wants to keep up with its predecessor, let alone surpass it.
And in a further indication of its unpopularity, as of this article’s writing, MK1 has only 30% more currently active players than MK11, albeit with its all-time peak sitting at 800 players less.
Further, it also has seen significantly less players than either of Namco’s Tekken 8 or Capcom’s Street Fighter 6.
Aside from its general quality issues, the lack of enthusiasm towards the series’ latest entry also likely has something to do with many players being fully aware that if they bought game, they would not yet have a complete roster of fighters.
In fact, the overall roster for MK1 is not only two fighters smaller than that of its predecessor – 35 vs 37, DLC characters included – but it’s also tied with MK vs. DC Universe in having the second-smallest base roster of any Mortal Kombat, their numbers only undercut by the 17 total playable kombatants in 1997’s Mortal Kombat 4.
And given that it’s common practice for NetherRealm studios to eventually put out ‘complete’ editions of their, it’s likely that MK1 won’t see any significant uptick in players until such times as it receives one of its own.
As noted above, at current, NetherRealm studios has yet to confirm an official release date for MK1‘s final DLC character, the T-1000.
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