Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection Review (PC)

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is here! I grew up playing Mortal Kombat. I played the first three games in the arcade, and by the time Mortal Kombat 3 had come out, I had taken up the dastardly hobby of stealing quarters from my mom’s laundry tin, just so I could go meet my friends at the arcade and get some rounds in. Even though some of the titles in the Kollection were released separately on online platforms, some of them haven’t, which allows players to experience some of the older games for the first time! However, I won’t be rating the games in this Kollection, because let’s face it… Mortal Kombat is God-Tier and genre-changing, so the games are top-notch! What I will be rating is the overall quality of the Kollection itself. Is it a Flawless Victory, or is it a FATALITY waiting to happen?

Let’s Go!

Title: Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection
Platform: PC (Reviewed), Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Developer: Digital Eclipse
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: October 30, 2025
Price: $49.99 (Standard), $69.99 (Deluxe), $149.99 (Kollector’s Edition)

The Included Games

Before I even say a word about this, the burning question on everyone’s mind is: What are the games in Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection? It’s a fair question because whenever a collection of games comes out, the meat and potatoes aren’t going to be the extras; it’s going to be the games included with the collection because that’s what you’re going to play. So, without further adieux, here are the titles you can expect to play:

• Mortal Kombat (Arcade)
• Mortal Kombat (Genesis)
• Mortal Kombat (SNES)
• Mortal Kombat (Game Boy)
• Mortal Kombat (Game Gear)
• Mortal Kombat II (Arcade)
• Mortal Kombat II (Genesis)
• Mortal Kombat II (32X)
• Mortal Kombat II (SNES)
• Mortal Kombat II (Game Boy)
• Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade)
• Mortal Kombat 3 (Genesis)
• Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES)
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade)
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade Wavenet)
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES)
• Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PlayStation)
• Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
• Mortal Kombat 4 (Arcade)
• Mortal Kombat Special Forces
• Mortal Kombat Advance (GBA)
• Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance (GBA)
• Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition (GBA)

Looking at that list, you’re probably saying, “WOW! That’s a lot of Mortal Kombat games!” and from a numbers perspective, you’d be correct; however, when you break it down by unique title, it’s not. In reality, it’s these games:

Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat II
Mortal Kombat 3
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
Mortal Kombat 4
Mortal Kombat Trilogy
Mythologies
Special Forces
Advance
Tournament Edition
Deadly Alliance

The list suddenly gets cut in half. This ends up becoming the biggest issue I have with collections such as this (and this isn’t the only franchise to do this, I’m looking at you, Tetris Forever). They artificially inflate the included games list by including multiple copies/ports of the same title. To me, that feels lazy and cheap, especially when some of the titles aren’t even their best versions.

For example, (and maybe this boiled down to a licensing issue), but where is the PlayStation 2 version of Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance? After all, that was the original and proper version of the game, but instead, we end up with a far inferior Game Boy Advance port of the title. Where is Mortal Kombat 4 Gold, which featured extra characters over the Arcade version? If you’re going to include every port under the sun for 1, 2, and 3, why stop there and skip out on MK4 Gold?

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet edition? To be honest, as much of a die-hard Mortal Kombat fan I am, I wasn’t even aware of this title, but this, and the original, were both arcade titles, so what is the point of including them? I know the Wavenet edition includes Noob Saibot; however, you have Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the list, which also includes him, so was it worth taking up storage space for just an extra character? Did we truly need the SNES port of UMK3 as well? The same could be said of all of the MK1 and MK2 ports. We would have been perfectly fine with just the arcade versions of these.

I can see a case for including the Game Boy/Advance versions of some of these games, and there are some unique titles for the handhelds, but a lot of these are just unnecessary. While I do enjoy the fact that they went with the PlayStation version of MK Trilogy, I’m surprised the Nintendo 64 version wasn’t included since that contained a different variation of Chameleon/Khameleon, and had a different (i.e., smaller) roster. I mean, if you’re going to include every port under the sun, skipping out on the Nintendo 64 version is just an odd decision.

In my case, I’m not interested in playing the ports of these games. If I want to play MK 1, 2, 3, or 4, I’m going straight for the arcade version… the version that it was meant to be played in. Sure, some of the ports had their charm, but I don’t believe there was any need for them. In that sense, the selection of titles is pretty disappointing and feels more like artificial bloat than doing a collection like this true justice.

Features

One of the things a game collection will often do is throw in some extra features, and Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is no different.

If you absolutely suck at Mortal Kombat, either by never being good at the game or by way of playing it for the first time, there are a few features included here to help you out. Every game has an on-screen move list, a trainer mode for combos and fatalities, and a Rewind feature where you can rewind the match as far back as you’d like. So when the computer decides to go into Cheater AI mode and counter everything you do, no matter what you do, you can try again and hope that there is a break in its AI code that allows you to get a hit in (and a lot of games operate this way because that’s what kept your feeding quarters into the cabinets, and that’s how they made their money!)

In the case of the on-screen move list, I have to say I’m quite disappointed. It’s very handy for MK 1 and MK 2; however, once you get to MK 3, when combos were introduced, there is nothing on the screen that even tells you what the combos are. Yes, there is that separate training mode, but to have the combos on the screen during matches would have been very helpful… especially for someone like me who hadn’t played some of these games in 20-something years.

Then there’s the Krypt. Unlike other variations of this mode, this just displays characters from the various games, giving you an interactive timeline and lore behind every character in the franchise and then some. It’s pretty well put together, and for anyone who is a lore nerd for Mortal Kombat, or if you need a refresher course on everything that happened before all of the timeline reboots, this is your go-to bible for that information.

Also, much like most collections, there is a Music Player, which, as it sounds, allows you to go title by title and listen to each game’s soundtrack, so you can listen to UMK3’s nice, CD-quality soundtrack from the arcade, and then the charming, yet cheap, soundfont version from the SNES game if you desire to do so!

It also features a Player Kard where you can keep track of your most-played players, your total playing time, and other handy stats… all of which will increase and give you insight into your playing sessions as you play through each game in the series. Spoilers, my most-played game is the Arcade version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and my most-played character was my main back in the day… Cyrax!

Last, but not least, the biggest joy of playing Mortal Kombat wasn’t beating Shang Tsung or Shao Kahn. It was beating the crap out of the kid next to you and making him regret wasting a quarter by going up against your superior gaming skills. Thankfully, you can take the fight online and relive that joy (if you have a stable internet connection), and while you may not make someone regret spending a quarter, you might make them cancel their Xbox Live, PSN, or Switch Online account. Hey, modern problems require modern solutions, right?

So, as far as collections go, the extras are pretty standard fare, but even though they are standard, what we are given (especially in The Krypt) is plentiful and is one of the true highlights of this collection.

A Lot of Koin to Own It All

I don’t know what to say on this one, but whoever planned the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection Deluxe and Kollector’s Edition completely missed the mark here. Why would you offer special collectible items in the Deluxe Edition, and NOT include them in the Kollector’s Edition? You’re asking for $80 more for the Kollector’s Edition, and aside from the Goro controller holder, you’re not even receiving the Deluxe Edition’s goods?

Sure, there are unique items to the Kollector’s Edition, but let’s call a spade a spade here… this is purely parasitic marketing built around FOMO. By offering different items for the different editions, you’re pressuring people into buying the same game multiple times over.

In addition, there are also exclusive covers for the base game as well themed after the Mortal Kombat 1 ninjas. So, if you want EVERYTHING, you’re going to need to buy, at minimum, five copies of the game, thus spending close to $400. I’m sorry, but that is just not worth it any way you slice it.

If I’m being honest, if you charged $199.99 and gave us everything in the Kollector’s Edition, Deluxe Edition, and three slip-over covers from the ninja editions all in one package, I would have been okay with that. Spreading it out like this is not the way to go, and as soon as these collections were announced like this, they faced immediate backlash, as they rightfully should.

Big fans of Mortal Kombat would have loved to own all of that, but being made to buy the game five times over just to get it all is beyond unreasonable. I have no idea who pulled the trigger on a decision like this, but it is absolutely deplorable on their part, and the fact that Digital Eclipse and Atari went through with it is even worse.

Overall Thoughts

As I said in the opening paragraph of this review, there is no need to truly review the games here because Mortal Kombat is a legendary fighting game franchise, and the first three games redefined the genre that we know today.

The first game challenged censorship with fatalities. The second game expanded the roster, gave us better graphics and smoother gameplay, the third game gave us the Run button and the combo system, and Ultimate took things further by allowing you to start combos in the air, adding more risk vs reward. In my opinion, this was the pinnacle of the franchise, and the fact that everything is here in this collection is well worth getting a copy. Yeah, some of the games go into AI cheating mode and cause frustration, but a lot of the fun was figuring out how to circumvent that and manipulate the AI into getting destroyed, thus sticking it to the arcade owners by refusing to feed them more quarters.

What Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is truly being judged on is the selection of titles and their special features.

For that, the selection includes the best versions of each of the important titles, but I feel there is too much repeat bloat clogging up spaces that other titles could have filled. No MK 4 Gold, no original Deadly Alliance version hurts, but we do get Mythologies and Special Forces, which were spectacles in and of themselves. So, when you remove the bloat and just look at the main lineup of unique titles, there is still plenty of variety there to be had.

• Overall Score for the Title Selection: 2.5 / 5.

As for the extras, again… It’s standard fare with nothing super unique. You get what you expect to get out of a game collection, but the Krypt is very well-done with a TON of lore about the games and the characters, so that in and of itself is a major win. The music player is great, although the on-screen moves list should have included the combos as a refresher. But kudos to them for including a combo trainer and fatality trainer for every game where applicable.

• Overall Feature Score: 3.5 / 5

So, that brings us to a total of 6 points, so to average that out, the overall score of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection gets a 3 / 5.

If you are a die-hard Mortal Kombat fan, you’ve probably already had Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection pre-ordered the day it was announced. If you’re a new fan, this is a great collection to get into the franchise and to experience some of the best fighting games ever made, but if you were hoping for a better selection of titles, this may end up disappointing you when you see all of the pointless bloat. Either way, it’s fine for what it is, and it will still bring back a lot of great memories going through and playing some of the best games ever created in the Mortal Kombat franchise!

Review Disclosure Statement:   A copy of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection was provided to us by Atari for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.

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