A Mortal Kombat 1 beta is debuting in August, but only on consoles.
Earlier today on May 18, NetherRealm finally announced Mortal Kombat 1 as a reboot for the entire fighting series. The trailer though, which you can see below, quietly mentions a beta for the new game, in its YouTube description section, which will be here in August.
However, rather than arriving on all platforms, this beta will only be available for console players, so it'll only be present on both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Additionally, you'll need to pre-order any edition of Mortal Kombat 1 to be guaranteed access to the new beta, as it's only for players who put down the cash ahead of launch.
As for the wider Mortal Kombat 1 though, the game looks like it's putting a historical spin on its settings and characters for the first time. The announcement trailer showed the familiar likes of Scorpion, Mileena, and Shang Tsung all far back in the past, which goes hand in hand with NetherRealm's intended reboot of the fighting game series at large.
Mortal Kombat 1 launches later this year on September 19 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. If you do pre-order the new fighting game, you'll get exclusive access to Shang Tsung at launch, as well as access to the Kombat Pack, which includes a Jean-Claude Van Damme skin for some reason.
Check out our guide to the best fighting games if you're wanting something new to try your hand at before Mortal Kombat 1 is here.
"I didn’t have a single ally": Tekken 4's negative reception put series boss Katsuhiro Harada under so much stress that he left Namco for a year
Tekken lead Katsuhiro Harada says he's spent decades "mentally preparing" for AI to overtake humans, but it's not happening: "If AI had really advanced, we wouldn't be pouring 10, 20, 30 billion Yen into making games"
