Netherrealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat 1 has been a pretty smashing success, pulling a peak of 26,576 players on Steam alone, fantastic numbers for fighting game. But one source of big criticism for the gore-filled fighter is its Switch port. Boasting some less-than-impressive graphics, Mortal Kombat 1’s Switch version was the butt of many jokes since the title’s release, possibly since IGN’s graphics comparison video.
It’s no secret that Nintendo’s portable console is a bit less powerful than most PCs and its competitors, but even by those standards many people saw Mortal Kombat 1 as excessively ugly, to say the least. Luckily, Netherrealm Studios has its ear to the community and took almost immediate action, with a 27GB patch for the Switch, full notes available here, that looks to apply a bandage to the game’s graphical fidelity.
While the horrifically stiff and wide-eyed faces of Mortal Kombat 1 were the subject of many memes, and understated problem with the port was its performance even with the toned-down graphics. Luckily, the patch addresses those too, working to improve the performance of the game on the Switch.
Of course, this isn’t the first, or nearly the biggest, issue Mortal Kombat 1 has had since release. Just a little over two weeks ago a massive player 1 advantage was discovered, where only the player on the player 1 side was able to perform certain combos giving them an unfair advantage over player 2.
Luckily Ed Boon, head of the franchise, is very active on Twitter and took to the platform to state that they would be fixing it ASAP, same with the Switch port graphics.
It’s good to see Netherrealm Studios be so diligent following the release of their game. As with any new game release it’s expected to have some bugs or sub-optimal performances here and there, but with how active the Netherrealm team seems to be on social media it seems rare that these major bugs slip by unnoticed for too long, as the game has had semi-regular patches since release.
Hopefully, this diligence serves to give Mortal Kombat 1 a long and healthy shelf life, one that can satisfy both the players and the developers. If you want to enter Kombat and see how this game evolves, you can purchase Mortal Kombat 1 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and on PC through Steam and Epic Game Store.