Thirty-three years ago, the release of the original Mortal Kombat changed video games forever. Its depiction of graphic violence led to the creation of a rating system that is still used in 2025; its use of digitized and realistic sprites was revolutionary; and it expanded the horizon of what a fighting game could be.
While 2011’s Mortal Kombat: Arcade Kollection was an attempt at bundling together a collection of classic titles, it wasn’t greatly received, and it remains stuck in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era. However, the upcoming Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection seems to be the package of your dreams if you want to relive the games that made the franchise the household name it is.
At EVO 2025 in Las Vegas, TheGamer sat down with Digital Eclipse content editor Dan Amrich to dive deeper into what to expect from this new bundle.
It Was Bound To Happen
In the 90s, Amrich was a games journalist working for different magazines, such as GamePro. In 1995, fresh off the launch of Mortal Kombat 3, he interviewed the creators Ed Boon and John Tobias for an article. When it was announced that Midway was working on the fourth entry, he pitched them an idea for a book about the history of Mortal Kombat. Amrich got a positive reply, but panicked and never followed up.
Thirty years later, Amrich finally closed the loop. Now working on Digital Eclipse, he not only got the chance to work on a collection that will feature “more than 20 titles from Mortal Kombat’s arcade era”, but he also got to participate in a documentary that will be included in the collection.
“I literally brought stuff out of my personal collection and put it in the game,” he explains. “I have some behind-the-scenes photos of Kerri [Hoskins] from Mortal Kombat 3 that I don’t think have been seen in thirty years, but they were sent to me as a PR asset. I have the Mortal Kombat 3 flyer, these behind-the-scenes photos, and these John Tobias sketches. I scanned them all in.”
I ask Amrich about his opinion on remakes and remasters, about how some re-releases of the classic titles end up changing what made those games great in the first place. He assures me that Digital Eclipse is working hard on restoring the games as they were, with the chance to give you a few options (such as CRT and resolution filters), if you want a more modern experience.
“We want you to walk into a museum and see, this is exactly what it was,” explains Amrich. “We understand that times have changed in the last thirty years. This is probably more fun if you turn on these options, but that’s up to you. We don’t change what it was originally; we just enhance what it is now, if you want.
“We will always try to improve [the original], but there are options. We need to leave the original in there so that you can see, people didn’t care about this problem back then because it was so much fun.”
Trilogy And Mortal Kombat 4 Are On The Menu
When I ask Amrich about which games will be included, he tells me that not all the titles have been revealed yet, but there are a lot of surprises that fans will look forward to. For example, the Game Gear and Game Boy versions of the first Mortal Kombat, or the 32X and Game Boy releases of MK 2. At the stand at EVO, I got a chance to try the PlayStation version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy, which has been restored for the first time.
“We knew that Trilogy was really important to people,” says Amrich. “It’s the game that a lot of people spent the most time with. If you played Mortal Kombat 3 or even Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, you spent most of your time with Trilogy because you had the luxury of having it at home, right? You would put [in] hundreds of hours rather than [spending money at the arcades].
“The thing with Trilogy is that a lot of super fans don’t prefer the PlayStation version because it had bugs in it. Particularly, a lot of loading bugs. That’s the nature of hardware in 1995. When we went into the code, we found that some of that loading time was actually baked into the code and that it was stuff that we could remove. So you’re not going to see any extra-long loading times. The loading times you remember will not be there.”
Amrich also tells me that it’s the first time Digital Eclipse is emulating PlayStation, which was a real technical challenge for them. It was necessary because the collection will also feature the PlayStation and arcade versions of Mortal Kombat 4, the first 3D entry in the series.
When I ask him why the team is tackling so many versions of the classic games, he points to the deep emotional bonds that players have with the specific versions they grew up playing.
“As soon as we announced this collection, people were like, ‘You need to have this version!’, and then they brought up their favorite game. Sometimes they’re naming games that were like, ‘Gosh, we’d like to be able to do that, but we just can’t.’
“We’re trying to create an archive that will last, and we’re trying to give gamers a chance to play what they never got to play and appreciate this franchise on a different level.”
For example, Amrich mentions Sega Genesis’ Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as one of the few titles that they couldn’t restore, but they are still working on it.
Perform Classic Fatalities Online
One of the most exciting aspects of collections like this is the ability to play these titles online. This was something already available in the previous Arcade Kollection, but the netcode and matchmaking systems have improved a lot over the years in the genre, and Digital Eclipse is fully aware of that.
Amrich tells me that all the games with online modes will have rollback netcode, and they are happy with the results they had from closed betas around the country. However, he explains that the online system will be functional, but it might not work as well as it does for other current titles.
“We’re not really positioning this as, if you’re a hardcore competitive gamer, you’re going to want to be here. But we are making it so that it’s predictable, so that it’s smooth. We’re actually testing online right now at the studio.”
At the time of writing, every game features an online mode except for the handheld versions.
He also adds that while cross-play is being considered, there is no guarantee that it will be available in the future, and the collection will definitely launch without it.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection doesn’t have a firm release date yet, but it’s expected to come out in 2025. There will be exclusive physical editions for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2, and the game will also release digitally for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S & X.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection
- Released
- 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
- Developer(s)
- Digital Eclipse
- Publisher(s)
- Digital Eclipse, Atari, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Mortal Kombat
- Number of Players
- 1-2 players
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
