Midway was founded as “Midway Manufacturing” in 1958, which released primitive arcade games for amusement parks until 1973 by distributing Space invaders nationwide. Midway saw profits shortly afterwards. Following that, they licensed games like Galaxian, Pac-Man, Galaga, and so on. In 1969, Bally Manufacturing acquired Midway, and consolidated pinball games into the Midway banner and renamed the company as “Bally Midway.” It was then sold to WMS Industries, and WMS then folded Tradewest into Midway to add games to the portfolio. Long story short, Mortal Kombat was released in August 1992 under Midway Games. A few years later, in 1994, Mortal Kombat was a subject of controversy over the blood, gore, and violence. United States congress told the video game industry to create a ratings board, or the government will do it themselves – and the industry heard it. ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) was born, and Australian Classification Board was also formed.
Mortal Kombat was finally released for Super Nintendo (SNES), Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear on Monday, September 13, 1993. Which ironically enough, is dubbed “Mortal Monday.” Mortal Kombat II was released in arcades in November 12, 1993, with the final version being released in January 1994. Console release was on Friday, September 9, 1994 – which again was dubbed “Mortal Friday.” Shortly thereafter, Midway released Mortal Kombat 3 on April 15, 1995. The console release is similar again: Friday, October 13, 1995. Again, dubbed “Mortal Friday.” Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is the final version of Mortal Kombat 3. UMK3 was released November 6, 1995. Console releases were under the radar, and did not get equal amount of attention and/or notoriety the other games did. Mostly because there is no uniformity, no uniform result in how each version “behaved.”
Mortal Kombat Trilogy as a game was basically a version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, and PC. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is technically categorized as a compilation but is a unique “trilogy.” Rather than just throwing the games in a list – like Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in a collection – Mortal Kombat Trilogy pulls characters and stages from each game, using the Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 engine as the base.
Mortal Kombat 4 would go on to be the final Arcade game to be released. To no fault of Midway’s, in general, arcades would start to dwindle, due the market moving onto advanced game consoles. Mortal Kombat 4 was released for PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, and PC. Mortal Kombat Gold was an updated version of Mortal Kombat 4 for Sega’s final game console – Dreamcast.
On June 4, 2025 – Netherrealm Studios, a company comprised of Midway Games developers. On February 12, 2009 – Midway Games filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the team that developed Mortal Kombat was reincorporated as “Netherrealm Studios.” Netherrealm Studios announced that Digital Eclipse would create a compilation of Mortal Kombat games. This time, it is an actual collection. Digital Eclipse said the collection, which is dubbed “Kollection” – will focus on games released between 1992 to 1997. Digital Eclipse wrote an article on PlayStation’s Blog, to talk about the game, and what will be in the collection…
- Mortal Kombat – 1992: Arcade, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear
- Mortal Kombat II -1993: Arcade, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, 32X
- Mortal Kombat 3 – 1995: Arcade, SNES, Genesis
- Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 – 1995: Arcade, SNES
- Mortal Kombat 4 – 1997: Arcade
- Mortal Kombat Advance – 2001: Game Boy Advance
- Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance – 2002: Game Boy Advance
- Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition – 2003: Game Boy Advance
There was a mysterious “???” in the list, and the trailer had 4 question marks…
On August 1, 2025 – Digital Eclipse revealed one of those question boxes… It was Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Digital Eclipse said that it would be the PlayStation version. The developers said that they’ve reduced loading times across the board. The original release had loading times during the “Versus” screen, and when Shang Tsung was morphing.
During Gamescom, which took place on August 21, 2025 – Digital Eclipse dropped a surprise trailer that reveals what they consider the final 3 games: Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, and “WaveNet” version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
During Nintendo’s annual Nintendo Direct livestream, Digital Eclipse released a short trailer unveiling the final release date for Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection…
Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection is scheduled to be released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PC on October 30, 2025 digitally, followed by a physical release on December 12, 2025.
