Home
News
Tech
Entertainment
Gaming
Contact
Mortal Kombat 1 Fails on Switch, But It Was Predictable
Credit: Leonardo/MyTechPiece
Mortal Kombat 1 has finally released on every current gen consoles and pc and everything is great… Or is it? The latest NetherRealm fighting game also came out on an old gen console: the Nintendo Switch.
Memes ensued, and people laughed at the terrible graphics, while those who paid $70 for it weep and scream in agony. However, this failure was easily predictable, and here’s why MK1 on Switch is nothing but a pipe dream.
A Buggy Switch Port No One Asked For
The Nintendo Switch version isn’t developed by NetherRealm, it’s a port by Shiver Entertainment and Saber Interactive. Saber is known for porting major franchises to other platforms when they’re not developing their own games, which are mostly horror games.
So, we’re kind of starting with a B-Team, taking the full game and trying to cram it into a tiny Switch cartridge. The console and pc version of the game is over 100 GB, this Switch version is only 35 GB, and there’s no cloud streaming, no smoke and mirrors, the full game is compressed here.
The result is a buggy mess with textures struggling to load, horrendous frame rate, and nightmarish bugs. People seem surprised by it, but when you look at the history of the franchise, it’s not.
Credit: Leonardo/MyTechPiece
Mortal Kombat 11 Was The Only Worthy Portable Version
Even at the beginning of the franchise in 1993, we’ve seen Portable versions of Mortal Kombat. Midway released the first three games on Game Boy, and MK Gold on Game Boy Color. You probably never heard about these games, and there’s a good reason, they were bad. We found the same issues, low frame rate and bugs, but it also had no fatalities, no blood and at first no colors.
When they introduced a colored version with MK Gold, it looked like it was designed using Microsoft Paint. With Deadly Alliance, we had a GBA port, which took the entire game and turn it into 2D sprites, when the original is a 3D game, and so on. Let’s face it, Mortal Kombat has never been a thing on portable consoles. Even Mortal Kombat 9 and MK X didn’t see real portable release, except for the former getting a PS Vita port years later.
The only game that worked was Mortal Kombat 11, which was developed for PS4 and Xbox at a time when the Switch matched the technology. We had a 30 fps locked version with lower resolution graphics, which made it playable, but not riveting
Credit: NetherRealm Studios/Eurogamer
The Problem With The Nintendo Switch
The Switch is starting to get old, and even though it released in 2017, it still offers less powerful hardware than the PS4 or Xbox One, so thinking that it would be possible to release such an evolved game there is madness. However, Warner Bros also has to make money, so pushing for the game to be on every platform is their goal. They remembered the bad buzz around Cyberpunk 2077 on old gen and avoided PS4 and Xbox One releases, but the Switch is the only portable console right now.
This is an issue most developers face. There are so many platforms with different specs, it’s almost impossible to create a game pushing the limits of the most powerful machines and offering something people will want to buy on the scale of a AAA game, while having the same thing on a less powerful outdated console. The problem is that Nintendo never aimed to make powerful hardware and when Sony tried it failed commercially with the PS Vita.
The portable market is largely dominated by smartphones right now, but the Switch has a huge player base, and they clearly wanted to get at least part of it.
Credit: Leonardo/MyTechPiece
Fighting Games Aren’t Made For Portable Consoles Really
Until we get something close to the Steam Deck offering the possibility to play fighting games the way they should, there’s really no room for fighting games on portable consoles. That’s why we didn’t get Street Fighter 6 there or Tekken. Fighting games are social, you need a space dedicated to it where other people can watch and participate.
It’s impossible to offer this currently with portable consoles until the technology evolves to offer the experience everywhere with a stable connection and decent hardware. However, it’s not a risk worth taking for constructors, so we’ll probably never get it.
Subscribe to My Tech Piece
More Articles
