Fan-made Mortal Kombat+ fixes bugs and adds new features to the original arcade trilogy

facepalm: The Mortal Kombat team missed a great opportunity to celebrate the franchise’s 30th anniversary earlier this month. The August leak said that a wacky anniversary pack was in the works, but on October 8, all we got was a 90-second anniversary video posted on YouTube.

Luckily, the gaming community has taken matters into their own hands.

Mortal Kombat+ is a project that includes the first three games in the series – Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 – and disassembly of their code to fix known issues that Midway never bothered to fix.

Each game has its own set of issues, but they all get improved factory custom settings, improved CPU AI, updated sound, and new characters. MK1 and MKII also get combo counters, 2v2 mode and tag team mode and all levels will be unlocked.

MK1+ is currently in development, beta expected sometime by the end of 2022. Beta version (version 2.8.50) is already available for MKII+ as well as Ultimate MK3+ (version 2.0.0) for those who want to try. Files available for download for MAME and Fightcade on the project website.

Ed Boon, one of the original creators of the franchise, recently interview PlayStation Blog on the eve of the 30th anniversary. In it, he said that one of the secrets to Mortal Kombat’s enduring success is that every game brings something new. Things outside of the games, such as films, animation, and merchandising, also helped bring the series into the public eye.

Boon also touched on Acclaim’s famous Mortal Monday, a $10 million advertising campaign that coincided with the release of Mortal Kombat on the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear.

As for what’s next, Boon said they haven’t made the latest MK game yet, but can’t reveal more. A sequel to the Mortal Kombat movie reboot is also in the works, and Boone has confirmed that the project is progressing well.