A recent celebration post from Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon has sparked online discussion about the current state of the fighting game genre in today’s landscape. Despite Mortal Kombat 1 being seen as underperforming expectations compared to its predecessors, it has still been the best-selling fighting game in recent years. For some fighting game fans, this is a cause for concern, but others believe that the abundance of options available to gamers represents a current golden era of the genre.
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On August 8th, Ed Boon revealed that Mortal Kombat 1 had sold over 6.2 million copies across various platforms, saying that despite it no longer receiving new content, the developers were dedicated to refining it into the best product it could be.
“With over 6.2 million games sold, we’re still committed to refining MK1 to be our most balanced game,” Boon wrote on X while showcasing a recent post-EVO balance patch.
While Boon celebrated this number, fans pointed out that this pace falls well short of the sales figures for previous titles.
Mortal Kombat 11 had sold more than 12 million copies in the same amount of time it took for Mortal Kombat 1 to achieve its current figure. Given the current content plans and sales trajectory for Mortal Kombat 1, it is unlikely to reach previous series highs. While Mortal Kombat 1 has passed Mortal Kombat 9 in sales, it still has some work to do to overtake 2015’s Mortal Kombat X.
However, despite these lower figures for Mortal Kombat 1, they are still a reason for celebration when compared to other current fighting game titles.
- Mortal Kombat 1: 6.2 million (as of August 2025)
- Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO: 5 million (as of February 2025)
- Street Fighter 6: 5 million (as of June 2025)
- Guilty Gear Strive: 3 million (as of January 2025)
- Tekken 8: 3 million (as of June 2025)
While selling at half the pace of Mortal Kombat 11, Mortal Kombat 1 is still the best-selling fighting game title since the start of the decade. This success is even more puzzling considering that NetherRealm pulled active content development from the game just over a year after its release.
“We are hearing players’ requests for continued game support of Mortal Kombat 1, and, while we will continue to support Mortal Kombat 1 through balance adjustments and fixes, there will not be additional DLC characters or story chapters released from this point on,” wrote the official Mortal Kombat 1 X account back in May. “We understand this will be disappointing for fans, but our team at NetherRealm needs to shift focus to the next project in order to make it as great as we possibly can.”
It seems strange that a developer, having the best-selling fighting game of the 2020s, would end content support for it in favor of other projects. Surely there is more value to be gained with such a large install base?
This situation highlights the peculiar state of fighting games at present. Some fans view this example of declining sales figures as a cause for concern within the industry, while others believe it’s a positive development because players are spreading out to more and more viable games.
“I wouldn’t say golden, but it’s a good time. It reminds me heavily of the PSX/Saturn era when 3d was considered amazing and 2d was stale. We’re just doing that with ultra-realistic graphics,” wrote Reddit user nightowlarcade in response to the declaration that recent years were part of a fighting game golden age.
What are your thoughts on the current fighting game landscape? Is this generation of fighting games one of the best, and does having numerous different fighters to choose from help or hinder the genre?
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image courtesy of 20th Century Studios
