Mortal Kombat 1 Outsells Street Fighter 6 Despite Ending Support

Mortal Kombat 1 is showing that it is still relevant in the discourse around fighting games following an announcement from its official X account that it has hit the 8 million units sold milestone. 

Support for MK1 effectively ended in May 2025 with the release of a short statement from NetherRealm Studios saying that there will be no new DLC characters added to the game and that focus was shifting to their next project. They did promise to still maintain the game through patches, which they delivered in December 2025 when they released a hotfix patch. 

Since then, there has been no news regarding MK1 until now, with the declaration of the sales milestone. 

Their statement on X reads as follows:

“8 million units sold and kounting! Thank you to the Mortal Kombat Kommunity for your support!  #MK1”

MK1 is the King of Fighting Games

According to an August 8, 2025 tweet from the game’s co-creator, Ed Boon, MK1 had sold 6.2 million copies at that point which put it over other competitors like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8. This means that since then, even with no new characters or dedicated support, it still sold almost 2 million copies more. Street Fighter 6 has so far sold 6.36 million copies and is considered as the face of fighting games thanks to its widespread appeal. It is still losing ground to MK1 which came out late 2023, months after SF6 was released and had a shorter lifespan. 

This still pales in comparison to Mortal Kombat 11, which sold a mammoth 15 million copies before service ended for the game. 

The next project for NetherRealm Studios is still unknown, with speculation rife that it could be the next installment of the Injustice series.