The name is a bit rich, given the eleven previous Mortal Kombats and numerous spin-offs, but Mortal Kombat 1 doesn’t just reboot the series, but the entire cosmos behind it too. Perhaps it’s the only way to deal with the ridiculous, tangled storylines that have built up over thirty years of blood-splattered kung-fu fighting and brutal fatality moves. Reset the universe, rework the cast of heroes and villains, and let the endless brawling start again from scratch.
It's not a bad idea, even if the actual game still looks and feels broadly similar to 2015’s Mortal Kombat X and 2019’s Mortal Kombat 11, which themselves went hard on nostalgia for the series’ Nineties glory days. If you’re of an age to remember the good times of dodgy digitised video graphics, killer combos and vanquished fighters having their skulls and spinal cords ripped out, Mortal Kombat serves up much the same. Only it now comes with astonishing, cinematic visuals and a much smoother fighting style with more finesse. Two fighters enter the arena, and only one leaves – or at least leaves with all vital organs in roughly the same place.
