Why I'm So Excited About The Release of Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition on PC

Finally, two years later, the latest Mortal Kombat is released on PC. The digital version was available in July, but I was more interested in the retail version which just arrived last month.

I’m a big Mortal Kombat fan. To me it was always the greatest fighting series, or at least in the beginning, from the early to mid 90’s. I started out with Mortal Kombat on a Sega Genesis, playing it in the basement of a friend’s house, which his father converted in to a man cave (before it was cool) of sorts, years ago. From there it was Mortal Kombat II on PlayStation, again at a friend’s (a different friend) house. A friend of my brother lent me Mortal Kombat 3 for the PC (he even included the manual, which I didn’t give back); I played Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on a Sega Saturn, round at my neighbour's house. Then I found Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the PC at a second hand store years ago which I bought on the spot.

The last Mortal Kombat game I ever played was Mortal Kombat 4 on PC. And that was the last MK game to ever make it on to said platform. And it was the beginning of the end really for the once great fighting series, as it desperately tried to keep up with its competition, particularly Soul Calibur, with the addition of weapons, and fully 3D environments and characters, which to be frank looked awful – worse than the somewhat charming 2D side scrolling games before it.

Years passed, and no MK games were released on PC. There were petitions, such as one for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (basically like Mortal Kombat Trilogy in a way) to be released on the PC – which didn’t happened, predictably. Then, after years of horrid entries which saw the Mortal Kombat franchise plummet, Midway went out of business. And at that time I thought the hopes of a new MK game on PC, let alone one last good MK game, died along with the company. So I just went ahead and stuck to playing MK Trilogy – which is about my favourite in the series to date, and the only one that I really own if I’m honest.

Then NetherRealm was founded, and there was talk of a new Mortal Kombat game in development, which some still call MK 9, even though it is technically a reboot. Like Street Fighter IV, this MK went back to basics – a bit old school even – and did away with a lot of the gimmicky nonsense, and cut a lot of the crappier characters from the roster (although they still insisted on putting Kratos and Freddy Krueger in for some reason, even if at least one of them was a console-specific character). The game looked amazing, and excited me, even though I knew that the chances were slim of me ever being able to play it. But later in 2013, someone spotted a leaked list of achievements for the game uploaded to Steam, and the internet literally exploded. Well, maybe not, but it certainly raised an eyebrow among many PC gamers. But there was still doubt as nothing had been officially announced. Then later on this year it was officially announced, and then the internet really did explode for sure. And not to mention every PC gaming MK fan wanted to kiss every one of Ed Boon and John Tobias’s toes, and say “Come ’ere!” and hug them. They would never admit to it, not even anonymously on the internet, but that’s what they were thinking, by Jove.

Like I said, first it hit Steam, then after a month or so, it finally arrived on store shelves. I’ve yet to even buy it, let alone play it, but just owning it would be a milestone, because it would be only the second MK game I’ve ever bought, and the only one bought new, and not used. It would also be the first game in the series I’ve played since MK 4, and the first good one since MK Trilogy. I have a strong feeling that, while it is essentially comparing apples to oranges, Mortal Kombat may just go on the top of my MK podium, even ahead of MK Trilogy perhaps, after all these years.

Welcome back to the PC, Mortal Kombat.