In an interesting development, The 41st annual Golden Joystick Awards has given Mortal Kombat 1 the “Multiplayer Game of the Year.” This being so in one of gaming’s most incredible years ever. Of course, you’d be hard-pressed to choose one right now, considering there are too many games to choose from.
At the current time, Mortal Kombat 1 has its share of issues. From the Switch port’s lack of basics to be on par with its console release brothers to not having crossplay available at launch – a feature available out of the box nearly six months ago – spanning all three major ecosystems.
Crossplay has become a standard for the fighting game genre in recent generations. Street Fighter V shipped with Steam to PS4 crossplay intact in 2016. Capcom vs SNK 2: Millionaire Fighting 2001 had crossplay between both the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast back in the 128-bit days, making it one of the first fighting games ever to do so. Companies, such as Namco Bandai, SNK, and Arc System Works, are now attempting to rectify the lack by holding beta tests for crossplay against the three dominant console ecosystems to check out load. Namco Bandai, especially for Tekken 8 – which is coming in just a few months. King of Fighters XV, Samurai Shodown Remake, and Guilty Gear Strive have had betas to steel themselves to provide the feature over the years.
Outside of that, people are speaking against the supposed win for Netherealm Studios. Some have even hinted at Mortal Kombat’s original arcade rival franchise – Street Fighter – for having the better showing. One Twitter/X user, in particular, Eddy Want, laid out all the issues wrong with the title – and right on The Golden Joystick Awards’ Twitter post, too.
No crossplay
No filters
No lobbies
No online search in practice mode
No public replays
No friends lists
No blacklists
No social hub
Predatory Micro Transactions
PC port is awfu
Worse netcode than MK 11Congrats to NRS for winning the Best Multiplayer Game https://t.co/O8rKsj9AU9
— Eddy Wang (Akira, Jin, Kunimitsu, Skarlet, Ibuki) (@DamageXcaling) November 11, 2023
“No crossplay
No filters
No lobbies
No online practice mode
No public replays
No friends lists
No blacklists
No social hub
No clubs
Player 2 combos don’t work still
MTX out the ***
PC port is awful
Worse netcode than MK 11″
From what Street Fighter 6 has brought out, it’s hard to see where Mortal Kombat 1 edged the win in this department for the Golden Joystick judges to take notice. Battle Hub is robust as it is with seamless Casual and Ranked Play, the Capcom Fighting Network connectivity to being able to see who’s online and where, and clubs, to name a few, from Capcom’s star player of the year.