Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection review – the ultimate retro compilation

The first decade of Mortal Kombat games is explored in loving detail, with 23 playable titles, hours of documentary footage, and a host of unexpected extras.

Mortal Kombat is a very peculiar franchise. It’s arguably the most famous fighting game series, by name recognition alone, and certainly in the modern era it’s easily the best-selling, even given the lukewarm fan reaction to Mortal Kombat 1. And yet it’s largely ignored by the hardcore fighting game fraternity and rarely features prominently at Evo and other major tournaments.

The series has never been the most technical fighter, but the modern ones have evolved way beyond the simplistic originals. And while the series has always relied a lot on the shock value of its violence, the games have always been fun and playable. What’s more, the originals were clearly very different from Street Fighter 2, at a time when other fighters were just doing their best to copy Capcom’s games as closely as possible.

All these facts and more are made plain by this new compilation, which regardless of how you feel about the franchise itself is another excellent playable documentary by Digital Eclipse, following their sterling work with Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, The Making Of Karateka, and Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story.

At the moment, the future of Mortal Kombat couldn’t be cloudier. We’re sure Mortal Kombat 1 is easy to recover from (the game was perfectly fine; it’s the changes to the series’ continuity that fans seem most upset at) but with Warner Bros. currently up for sale, either piecemeal or as a whole, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen to its game studios, or things like DC Comics. But while it’s notable that this compilation is published by Atari, not Warner Bros, that’s primarily because they own developer Digital Eclipse.

Given all that, it’s perhaps fitting that this collection gives so comprehensive an overview of the series’ past. It runs from the original 1992 coin-op, through all the various console ports of the time, and then takes in Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, Mortal Kombat 4, and PlayStation 2 era game Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (essentially Mortal Kombat 5 – and the first one not to debut as a coin-op).

Although we imagine even your mum knows what Mortal Kombat is, we’ll clarify by saying it’s a one-on-one fighter and really the only Western made example to have ever been a major hit, with what is now known as NetherRealm Studios having worked on every major entry – always in their native Chicago – since the series’ inception.

The original games featured a shared moveset for their pantheon of fighters, all of which were very simple punches and kicks. Each fighter had two or three unique moves though, which helped make them memorable characters, from Scorpion’s ability to harpoon enemies while shouting ‘Get over here!’ to Raiden’s (or Rayden as it was at first) lighting powers.

Of course, what the game’s most famous for is its violence, but while the gore in the modern games has reached a level of realism and excessiveness that outgrosses most horror movies, the originals, especially the first one, are amusingly tame now – and that’s not even counting the famously censored SNES version.

What’s so good about this compilation is that it allows you to see for yourself the evolution of the series, while also hearing from the developers themselves, who feature in a copious amount of documentary footage, both new and old. On top of this is concept art, design documents, and even faxes sent between offices, as well as everything from arcade flyers to various comic books.

The production values for the whole package are excellent, but the context it gives for the games is what is always so frustratingly absent from other retro compilations. We loved this year’s Gradius Origins, but there’s virtually no exploration of what the franchise is or how it came about, just the games themselves and a few random bits of concept art.

Legacy Kollection is the opposite, from footage of the original actors being recorded for the first game (the other big gimmick for the early games was digitised actors, a concept which was briefly fashionable in the early 90s) to how NetherWorld coped with the series’ success on a corporate level.

As with Atari 50, you can just select the games from a timeline and play them that way or work your way through the documentary, watching videos, looking at pictures, or playing games as prompted. It’s a fascinating ride and enough to get you interested in the franchise even if you previously weren’t, which is always the sign of a good documentary.

It’s not perfect though, the most obvious problem being the bare bones online mode. Considering how miserable an experience it is to play most of the games in single-player that’s a problem, unless you happen to have a Mortal Kombat obsessed friend living next door. There’re also some issues with input lag and bugs, which is a shame as the amount of effort that’s gone into the other areas is hugely impressive.

From setting an option that forces the appearance of Reptile in the original game to the absolute best TV and monitor filters we’ve ever seen, this is a museum quality affair.

Not only does it include obscure versions like the Game Gear port of the original or the Game Boy Advance edition of Deadly Alliance (but no home computer ports) there’s also spin-offs Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Special Forces. They’re both awful (even with options for modern controls and a rewind button) but that’s not the point when you’re trying to be as complete as possible.

All the games are showing their age, but we still had a lot of fun with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, which was the zenith of the 2D entries and a genuinely fun fighter, that’s perfect for newcomers to the genre. The Wavenet Edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is arguably the compilation’s neatest extra too, as it’s a version of the game that could be played online in arcades – a novelty in 1997 – and has never previously been seen outside a few test locations in the US.

As a franchise Mortal Kombat absolutely deserves this kind of attention, even if the reality is that many of the games are difficult to appreciate nowadays. The documentaries are sugar-coated, it’s true, but given the poor quality of so many other retro compilations this is close to a flawless victory for Mortal Kombat.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £39.99
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Digital Eclipse (Originals: NetherRealm Studios and others)
Release Date: 30th October 2025
Age Rating: 18

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