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Mortal Kombat is weaponizing fan nostalgia with the upcoming Legacy Kollection, with 20 different MK games involved
What was your first Mortal Kombat game?

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The Mortal Kombat series has been at the heart of the fighting game community for decades, with entries in nearly every console generation. That is part of what makes the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection so interesting, as it brings together over 20 Mortal Kombat games. Giving players that much choice was important to the developers, who know that players of different ages joined the series at different points.
Speaking to IGN at EVO 2025 in Las Vegas, Stephen Frost, the head of Production at Digital Eclipse, explained that it was important for them to include a wide variety of games in the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection. “The core product – there’s over 20 different Mortal Kombat games in this collection, and the primary focus are the original arcade games. So, MK, [MK] 2, Ultimate MK 3, and Ultimate MK 4. And then along the way, we’re doing a large number of the home ports across both console and handheld. Even including some of the more obscure platforms like the 32X and the Game Gear, which we haven’t emulated before for the most part.”
That is a lot of work for obscure entries, but it was all about catering to fans who have jumped into the series at different points in its long history. “The main goal of that – why we’re trying to include such a large and diverse number of Mortal Kombat games is because, depending on who you are, you probably grew up playing a different Mortal Kombat game. You have different nostalgia for different games. So, for one person, the Game Boy version of Mortal Kombat, like, why would you include the Game Boy version of Mortal Kombat? But I know personally a lot of people who grew up, and that was the first version of Mortal Kombat that they had. They played it day in and day out.”
The Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection doesn’t have an official release date, but leaks would have us believe that it is due out in September 2025, with a physical release set to follow later in the year.
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