Mortal Kombat 1 was an incredibly hyped game before its launch and for several reasons. First, every trailer they dropped hinted at the grand scale of the new world/universe being made for this “reboot” of the title. Second, the gameplay looked as brutal and violent as ever, and fans couldn’t wait to get more of it. Third, the trailers for the title looked beautiful, and fans couldn’t wait to see just how beautiful they looked on next-gen systems. The problem was that the “outlier” for the hype came in the Nintendo Switch version, which has been blasted online just as bad as Megan Fox’s voice acting.
At first, gamers were simply curious about whether NetherRealm Studios would be able to “make the game look decent on Switch,” which was a fair ask as there have been some “lackluster ports” on the system. However, when the game finally arrived and people got to see the version they put on Switch…it was worse than anyone imagined. It was so horrible looking that it appeared downright comical. Character models were downgraded so much that they appeared to look like models from past-gen systems WELL before the Switch era. And to be clear, the Switch has had some beautiful games with incredibly detailed models and game worlds.
Fast forward to now, and NetherRealm Studios has dropped a new update for the game. However, the update was specifically for all systems OUTSIDE of the Switch. As you can guess, fans weren’t happy about that.
Now, to be fair, NetherRealm Studios didn’t make the Switch or PC version of Mortal Kombat 1. They put it in the hands of a secondary developer. But it’s still on them for not making the quality ports and not giving the game the updates it needs. Ed Boon himself promised that the Switch version of the title would not “be abandoned” by NetherRealm and would get future content, including any future Kombat Packs.
However, as of right now, the Switch fans aren’t feeling the love, and you have to wonder if the fixes that ARE made will have any real effect on the game. After all, currently, the Switch version has the Invasions mode missing in part, there are numerous frame rate and game-breaking bug issues, and all sorts of other things that aren’t issues on the “main titles.”
If NetherRealm won’t dedicate itself to making the Switch version the best possible version it could be, then maybe they shouldn’t have done the port in the first place.
