Mortal Kombat marks its 30 year anniversary this year, to celebrate NetherRealm have put together a video reel and website.
https://www.mortalkombat.com/en-gb



History
These are the 11 titles that officially make up the mainline releases. There have been many handheld ports, spin offs and versions too.

You Have Found Me Now Prove Yourself.
Mortal Kombat 1-3

1992 and gamers are eager to say Get over Here as screenshots appears of the new game; Mortal Kombat.
With its digitized artwork and hyper violence Mortal Kombat stood out amongst its competitors.
Players battered each other bloody before being invited to 'Finish Him' and perform one of the series signature Fatalities.
Opponents were set on fire, electrocuted and torn apart.

However spines weren't the only thing being man handled, pearls were also being clutched.
Mortal Kombat became notorious as the leading corrupter of children in the early 90s and along with a handful of other titles a large reason for bringing in a age rating system for game.

The gameplay was solid if not industry leading but the violent action and real looking artwork caught imaginations.

Two sequels followed ramping up the story, introducing characters, stages and new ways to Finish your opponent.



Sub-Zero
Mortal Kombat 4, Deadly Alliance, Deception, Armageddon. 

The dark era for the franchise. Mortal Kombat didnt transition well to 3D, the first attempt, MK4 lost the appeal of digitized sprites without the technical power to make up that realism. Many other creative mistakes were also made, especially the stories. Although it did introduce Shinook and Quan Chi who became major villains later in the series.

The remaining three games released in the PS2 era worked as a story and gameplay trilogy. Each game built on the last with a 'more is less' mentality. Gameplay was poor to start, instead of resolving this development was spent adding characters and game modes. The result was a disc bulging 60 character roster (half of which are embarrassingly poor) by the final release and game modes that included chess and a Puzzle Fighter clone in Deception followed by an above average karting game in Armageddon. There were also uninspired story campaigns in the latter two games. Armageddon also included a create a fighter mode and create a Fatality mode neither of which were good or wanted.



Its the Bat!
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
Yes according to Ed Boon this is one of the mainline Mortal Kombat games.
MK vs DCU unsurprisingly sees the heroes and villains from both franchises fight it out in a convoluted storyline. What is surprising is that this was a relatively decent game. With MK offering up nothing but junk for two generations and the game releasing just before the superhero explosion we are still living through this is a title many missed.
It has been very much surpassed since but marks the start of the turning point for the franchise.



Flawless Victory!
Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat 11
Its stupid numbering time.
Mortal Kombat is hailed as the true turn of fortunes for the IP. A retelling of events from MK1-3 with a sprinkling of 4 and plenty of twists along the way. MK set the standard for what was to come with strong gameplay, decent characters, proper story, loads of challenges, bone crunching, blood and guts finally rendered well in 3D. Brutal gore was stepped up to the next level with X ray combos. Guest characters appeared in the form of Kratos (on Playstation) and Freddy Krueger. X and 11 continued the story, spinning highly entertaining yarns of time travelling, multi generational schlock. They also took the idea of guest characters and ran with it treating gamers to a host of pop culture favourites including The Terminator, Rambo, Leather Face, Jason, Predator, Xenomorph and Robocop plus skins for other characters to match turning the likes of Jax into Carl Weathers' Dillon.
Top tier graphics, excellent gameplay a huge array of Kontent. Mortal Kombat has got good.



TOASTY!
Mortal Kombat 12
Unofficially, officially, accidentally announced during a share holder meeting MK12 is slated for 2023. Although it isn't clear if that is calendar or financial year and delays may well happen.
NetherRealm released a thank you for 30 years video. At the end the is the tiniest of hints at MK12, so tiny its just a grain of sand.



Hopefully we see more very soon...