After a brief break, Mortal Kombat returned in 2022 with its ninth mainline entry, simply titled Mortal Kombat. Acting as a reboot of the franchise, Mortal Kombat took the series back to its basic roots, streamlining the FC 25 Coins game's mechanics while also ensuring that it was complex enough for a modern age fighting game. By allowing the series to breathe, NetherRealm was able to take the time to experiment, and create a game that pleased by newcomers, and long-time fans.
The last two Mortal Kombat games have both released four years after their predecessor, with Mortal Kombat X coming out in 2022 and Mortal Kombat 11 releasing in 2022. With four years between entries, the franchise has managed to remain in the public consciousness, but hasn't overwhelmed the market, meaning that fans are kept excited for the next entry. Taking breaks from the franchise also gives the developer the chance to create new IPs, which can become majorly successful in their own right, such as NetherRealm's Injustice series.
Sports games need to take this lesson from Mortal Kombat. Sports games are currently where the MK franchise was in the 2000s, with annual releases blurring together and making fans feel like the next entry isn't worth investing in. If FIFA, Madden, NBA and all the other annual sports titles just took a year or two off, the developers would finally have a chance to sit back and think about the FC 25 Ultimate Teamure of the franchise, and how the formula could be reinvented.
One of the big points of criticism for modern annual sports games is that each new entry is simply just a re-skinned version of the last game, with barely any visual, performance, or mechanical upgrades over its predecessor. While the developers may put an extra career mode in, or even add a fan-favorite feature from an earlier entry back into the new game, it's never usually enough to justify the full retail price tag, especially when last year's entry holds up just fine.
To really move these franchises forward in a significant way, sports games developers are going to need to ensure that every new entry has a set of features or modes that are completely new, unique, and innovative. Again, the Mortal Kombat series is the perfect point of inspiration for this. The last decade of Mortal Kombat has seen three mainline games release, each of which have boasted their own set of buy FC Coins game modes and features, and each has provided more than the last. Unlike sports games, the last few Mortal Kombat titles have barely removed any fan-favorite features. Instead, they've only added to the formula.
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