Mortal Kombat 1 review – Johnny Cage and co return with the same old moves

Warner Bros; Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Fans of the fighting game's cast of lunatics will enjoy this nostalgic reboot, but its combat fundamentals have remained largely unchanged

It's almost adorable how much NetherRealm cares about Mortal Kombat's lore. This is a video game that built a dynasty out of jellified gore, cartoonishly proportioned femme fatales, and payloads of callow, South Park-ian bathroom humour. One of the core protagonists - a Van Damme knockoff named Johnny Cage - possesses a signature move where he drops into splits and delivers a debilitating nut-punch. (The unlucky victim quivers in weak-kneed agony for half a beat, opening them up to a devastating combo.) Another character, the rotund drunken master Bo' Rai Cho, has an offensive moveset that is completely structured around his ability to projectile vomit with startling accuracy, causing his enemies to slip and fall in the muck.

And yet, despite the vaudevillian foundation of the canon, NetherRealm is perhaps the last studio on the planet still committed to delivering a blockbuster single-player campaign in their fighting games. That makes Mortal Kombat 1, somehow the 12th game in the series, a bit of a dinosaur compared to its contemporaries. But if you know and love this cast of lunatics, you'll undoubtedly enjoy a fresh trip down memory lane.