After quietly removing references to crossplay—or “Kross-Play” as it’s been dubbed—from its Steam page earlier this month, NetherRealm Studios has confirmed that Mortal Kombat 1 will be launching without the feature.
In a Twitter post, the Mortal Kombat 1 account revealed: “Launch is just around the corner and we can’t wait for everyone to sink their teeth into #MK1. Regarding Kross-Play, it will not be available at launch, but know we are hard at work implementing the feature into the game and it will be koming post launch.”
The inclusion of cross-play in Mortal Kombat 1 has been a bit of a confusing one, to say the least. A tweet from Wario64 back in May shows that an FAQ on the game’s website stated that NetherRealm planned to add crossplay and cross-progression support “post-launch,” but was then scrubbed from the page shortly after.
It then seemed like crossplay would be available between PC and console—something which its predecessor, Mortal Kombat 11, didn’t do—when the crossplay tag was added to its Steam page. That was also removed just a few days later, however, as noted by EventHubs.
It’s still unclear which platforms crossplay will end up coming to when NetherRealm gets around to implementing it. It would be a darn shame if it went the same route as Mortal Kombat 11 and made it between PlayStation and Xbox consoles only. After all, both Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6 have crossplay between PC and console. Tekken 8 plans to do the same when it releases in January, with the July closed network test already sporting crossplay between PC and PlayStation 5 players.
Mortal Kombat 1 is releasing in early access on September 14 for players who purchased the Premium Edition, with the full launch taking place on September 19.