Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection - Input Lag is Burning Fans
October 30, 2025
Digital Eclipse
Nintendo Switch
Nintendo Switch 2
PlayStation 4
PlayStation 5
Windows
Xbox One
Xbox Series X/S
I went into Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection with the kind of excited, slightly nerdy hope only a fighting-game fan carries, this is the set we’ve wanted for years, rare builds (hello, WaveNet UMK3), arcade originals, home ports, and a tidy documentary-style deep dive. Instead, after a week of playing, I felt baffled, gorgeous archival work and fascinating extras sit beside a fighting experience that too often feels sluggish, unresponsive, and just… broken in the ways that matter most.
Below I break down where the collection stumbles, what actually still works, and why the devs need to act fast if they want long-term goodwill from players who’ve loved Mortal Kombat for decades.
Fighting games are a timing sport
Fighting games live and die by frames. Input latency can be difference between perfect punishes and getting hit out of neutral. From day one, players reported noticeable input lag on consoles (PS5 in particular) and uneven behaviour between platforms; that’s not only frustrating, it changes how the classic games feel.
Online play compounds the problem: bad rollback/net code or missing lobby features turn competitive matches into a guessing game, not a duel of skill.
Netcode and online give us quick matches, but no real lobbies
The Kollection launched with online functionality, but the implementation felt thin. Players can find quick matches, yes, but there’s no proper lobby system for hanging out with friends, setting up casual sessions, or running tournament pools. What’s worse is rollback, the saviour of modern fighting games, isn’t performing reliably across platforms. For gamers who want to run local or community tournaments with classic MK rules, that absence is a dealbreaker in 2025.
Input lag even offline and adaptation is a grind
What floored me personally was how input latency sometimes shows up in offline play too. You shouldn’t have to “adapt” your muscle memory for a retro compilation, retro fighters need crisp 1:1 inputs. Instead, I am being forced to adjust timings, which kills the joy of returning to these old bones.
What’s still good (so it’s not all doom)
To be fair, the collection’s archival work is brilliant. Restored ROMs, rare builds, and the curated documentary content are the reason many of us back these projects. The basic emulation of the games, when it behaves, can still capture the pixel-perfect punches that made Mortal Kombat a cultural moment. The problem is consistency, highlights exist, but they’re sandwiched between gameplay issues that hit the core audience hardest.
It’s not just mechanics. People compliment the documentary material and the painstaking preservation, those extras genuinely add value for fans. But when audio crackles during a kombat round or music stutters mid-finish-him, the polish fades fast. Combine that with a price point that feels steep to many players given the technical issues, and you start to see why we are calling the launch a misfire…(get over here…and go back to the dev studio)
If you love atmospheric worlds with creeping tension and emotional storytelling, check out the breakdown of Hollow Knight Silksong: The Sequel Every Metroidvania Fan Needs. Both games show how even the most beautiful worlds can hide their own kind of danger.
To stay updated on patches, developer notes, and future improvements to Little Nightmares 3, visit the official Bandai Namco news hub on their website.
So, how melty is it?
Early Hype: 7/10
The announcement lit up nostalgia hard. The idea of WaveNet UMK3 in a modern collection had many of us salivating. Expectations were sky-high.
First Week Frustration: 8/10
Input lag, broken or inconsistent rollback, audio glitches, these surfaced fast and took much of the joy out of quick matches and local sessions.
Community Reaction: 9/10
Threads, clips, and high-profile reviewers flagged the core issues. Praise for the archival extras collided with anger about playability.
Patch Pressure – Peak Meltdown: 10/10
This is fixable, but it’s a race. The more the community feels ignored, the louder the backlash gets. If rollback and input lag aren’t solved soon, the collection’s reputation will be hard to repair.
Total Melt Score: 8.4/10
Brilliant preservation work, undermined by problems that matter more to players than any art book ever will.
I love Mortal Kombat’s history. I really do. That’s why it hurts to see a preservation project stumble on the fundamentals of playability. Restoring lost builds and curating history matters, so does making sure the games play the way they were meant to. If the devs can match their archival excellence with engineering fixes (fast rollback, fixed input timing, and real lobby support), Legacy Kollection will become the fan service it deserves to be. Until then, it’s a beautiful book with a scratched cover and worth owning, but frustrating to use.
What I’d like to see fixed, fast (and why it matters)
- Priority one: measurable input latency fixes on PS5 and consoles. We want predictable frames so give it to us.
- Priority two: robust rollback netcode and friend lobbies. Quick matches are fine, but community play thrives on lobbies and stable rollback.
- Priority three: polish the audio and address edge bugs (stutters, crackles, visual hitches) so the whole package feels professional.
If Digital Eclipse delivers on those, the Kollection can move from a frustrating launch to a respected preservation project.
