For roughly 30 years now, Mortal Kombat has been one of the top fighting game franchises on the market. While several games have come from this storied franchise, the big games are those played in the arcades throughout the 1990s and the numbered console games. Since around MK6, the numbered versions have tried to flesh out a proper story about the Mortal Kombat characters. Each comes from a different background, with some belonging to various clans on different worlds entirely. Whether we include the “realm” side of things or simply refer to the world side, these characters have become pretty popular.
Some of the characters have gone on to become iconic. A few have even appeared in different game universes entirely. We felt it would be good to discuss these major characters and decide who belongs to the best and worst list. Before getting to that, we want to make sure to reference that we will NOT be including those added as DLC from other universes. This includes people like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger, Rambo, or anyone like that. Since MK also worked with the DC Comics Universe in a game, we will not include any of the DC characters or creations from that game either. With that out of the way, let’s get started!
Worst: Ermac
Clan: Outworlder
Ermac was interesting early on for players because people initially thought he was a glitch in the original game. A diagnostics error text would read “error macro.” Leading to the “Ermac” name. The rumors were false about this, but it only made people want to see him more. Thus he debuted in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in 1995. Originally just a telekinetic ninja, his backstory has since changed numerous times. The current is that to punish all of those who attempted to stop his claim to the throne of Edenia, Shao Kahn fused all of the dead souls from his conquering together to give us the Ermac being. He’s simply ever-changing with nothing concrete.