Which Countries Have Banned Mortal Kombat?

Mortal Kombat is one of the biggest names in fighting games and many couldn’t imagine a FGC without it, but in some countries that’s not the case. This is a game which has had its fair share of controversy for content in the past. Between the extreme violence and realistic graphics, a lot of countries censors initially had problems with Mortal Kombat. Even to this day, there are some Mortal Kombat banned countries.

While Street Fighter and the rest of the major fighting games have had controversy, its nothing compared to Mortal Kombat. Having realistic characters perform the goriest MK fatalities has meant a lot of countries try to limit access. At some points, this has gone as far outright blocking anyone form playing the game in the country. How many Mortal Kombat banned countries are there and how has the game been censored in the past?

Mortal Kombat Banned Countries List

When Mortal Kombat first debuted, quite a few countries decided the violence was over the line and banned the title. However, even more recent instalments like Mortal Kombat 1 have been banned! These are the Mortal Kombat banned countries who have blocked the release of MK 1:

Japan
South Korea
Mainland China

That’s just for Mortal Kombat 1. The series is quite a bit less controversial these days. Whether that’s from desensitization of the violence, the content itself (which has only gotten gory), or other factors. In the past, the following MK games have been banned in these countries.

Mortal Kombat (1992) – Banned in parts of Germany, censored on some platforms.
Mortal Kombat (2011) – Regions of Germany, South Korea
Mortal Kombat 11 – Indonesia, Ukraine (for symbols, not violence)
Whole Series – Japan, Malaysia, Uzbekistan

One of the weirder parts of the Mortal Kombat banned list is those who have banned the whole series. Japan is one of the centers of fighting game esports, often dominating the major titles. Mortal Kombat isn’t a part of fighting game events there though, largely due to these bans.

Mortal Kombat Censorship

That’s where we’ve seen Mortal Kombat banned, but here’s been other censorship involved with the game to circumvent bans. One of the more notable aspects is the Nintendo port of games. On the Super Nintendo, Mortal Kombat received heavy censorship. The gore was stripped away and removed. This took out a lot of the game’s appeal, which must have been frustrating for players on the wrong platform. Even today Mortal Kombat runs a bit wrong on the Switch, but at least fans can now enjoy the full violence! As long as they don’t happen to live in one of the Mortal Kombat banned countries.