Many gamers experienced the blood and gore of Mortal Kombat on an arcade machine long before the infamous title was ported to home consoles, but Arcade1Up is bringing the best of both worlds to an updated version of its miniature Mortal Kombat cabinet. The new machine is introducing online multiplayer so players can compete with anyone around the world.
Officially known as the Arcade1Up Midway Legacy Arcade Game Mortal Kombat 30th Anniversary Edition, the new version of the cabinet, as the name implies, commemorates the 30th anniversary of the original Mortal Kombat landing in arcades in October of 1992. But don’t worry: Unlike the first iterations of the game that landed on home consoles like the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, the versions included with this cabinet have all the blood, gore, and over-the-top finishing moves included out of the box.
The cabinet includes three Mortal Kombat games in total: the original, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and each version gives players three ways to compete: against a computer opponent, side-by-side against a friend using the cabinet’s second fighting stick and buttons, or against online competitors using the same Arcade1Up hardware. But unlike modern consoles that charge for online multiplayer capabilities, the service is rolled into the machine’s price tag, so you don’t have to pay additional monthly fees to hop online and get your butt kicked.
This isn’t the first time online multiplayer has been available on one of Arcade1Up’s arcade machines. The feature was first introduced back at CES 2020 with NBA Jam, but this is the first time the feature has been designed to work with the old-school Mortal Kombat games.
The three-quarter scale cabinet features the same art and deco that Midway used on its arcade machines in the ‘90s — just scaled down to be more house-friendly — and in addition to the four MK games, it also includes 10 additional retro Midway titles such as Rampage, Joust, Gauntlet, Defender, and Paperboy, to name a few. Specific pricing and available details haven’t been shared yet, but you can expect the cabinet to arrive sometime in 2022 and be priced similar to Arcade1Up’s NBA Jam cabinet which currently sells for just over $US700 ($974).