Mortal Kombat is Now the Best-selling Fighting Game Series in History
Mortal Kombat 11 is officially one of the best-selling fighting games in history. The excellent result of the last installment of the brutal series helped NetherRealm's series become the most popular franchise in the history of the genre.
Mortal Kombat 11 has reached more than 12 million buyers. Studio NetherRealm announced this in a press release (via Games Press), in which the developer also boasted of the sales of the entire series. The total sales have already exceeded 73 million copies, which makes Mortal Kombat the best-selling fighting game series in history (at least judging by the latest official stats). The latest game has easily surpassed the result of the much older Tekken 7, although it's still far from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (which has long since topped 20 million copies), Street Fighter II (15 million) and SSB Brawl (13.32 million). Nevertheless, it's still the fourth best-selling fighting game in history.
The developers also boasted about the success of mobile Mortal Kombat. The F2P installment of the series has been downloaded 138 million times, and every day all games in the series are played by "millions" of people on consoles and mobile devices. Ed Boon, creative director at NetherRealm Studios and co-creator of the series, thanked the fans for supporting the brand all these years:
“When Mortal Kombat launched nearly 30 years ago, I never dreamed it would grow into the franchise it is today with more than 73 million games sold. We have some of the most passionate fans in the world and we appreciate the support they have shown us over the years.”
Unfortunately, Mortal Kombat 11 will no longer receive support, at least not in the form of new content; the developers have announced that there will be no more expansion for the game. In theory, fans can't complain too much - not only did they get some really interesting fighters (in how many games can you see Rambo and the Joker or the Terminator on the same screen?), but more than two years is still more than the previous works of the American studio got. Nevertheless, it's still not much compared to other series, and neither Tekken nor especially Smash Bros fall behind MK in terms of ambitious crossovers.
