Mortal Kombat Co-Creator Ed Boon proposed an interesting question to the FGC over the weekend: “If you could have just ONE game come back for another swing at the plate…”
It’s a much-discussed concept in the FGC, where new games seem to “die” incredibly fast, going from hopeful Street Fighter rival to obscure, niche side event in a matter of months.
Many are speculating that Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls could be the next game to share this fate, which could ultimately be a self-fulfilling prophecy if the discourse continues. For now, the game has mainstage at Evo France 2026 to look forward to.
The FGC could just be a bit traumatized from the incredibly fast fall of 2XKO, Riot’s 2v2 fighter that finally gave some hope to the grassroots scene early on. However, Riot’s involvement went from a positive to a negative after players realized how unrealistic Riot’s financial and active player goals were for a niche fighting game genre.
With so many worthy, fun, and unique fighting game concepts basically dead upon arrival, Boon asked fans which one is most deserving of a second chance: 2XKO, MultiVersus, Killer Instinct, RumbleVerse.
FGC wants Killer Instinct to get a second chance
The results are in, and Killer Instinct won by a landslide, with nearly 50% of the vote.
If you could have just ONE game come back for another swing at the plate…..
— Ed Boon (@noobde) September 27, 2026
Killer Instinct was not a bad game, but was born into horrible circumstances. It was released in 2013 as an Xbox One exclusive, which already limited its reach. A lot of competitive fighters prefer PlayStation, which made this a pretty bad start.
On top of that, Microsoft wasn’t even handling Killer Instinct correctly despite having full control. The game’s developer, Double Helix Games, was acquired by Amazon mid-development. This put Iron Galaxy Studios in control with a reduced budget halfway through, further complicating the launch.
Things got even worse when Microsoft wanted to pivot its focus to other games, like Halo, rather than a niche genre like fighting games. So… Microsoft wanted full control, then ditched it. It’s a familiar story in the gaming industry.
Like most “dead” fighting games, Killer Instinct still has plenty of active players. Well, in fighting game standards. But Killer Instinct definitely doesn’t have the playerbase and dev support to grow in the competitive scene at all. And it’s not its own fault, which is likely why the FGC wants to see a comeback.
The second-most-voted-for title was MultiVersus (my pick as well). It was basically Super Smash Bros. with rollback netcode and Shaggy. While I’m not really a fan of the whole “Smash killer” title given to these platform fighters, I think MultiVersus was fun to play and had a lot of promise in the Smash community.
The issue, however, is that when the community kept comparing it to Smash, it took away its own identity and made Smash the focal point. Player retention continued to dwindle as players went back to the OG. If MultiVersus came back, I’d say it would need to find a way to get away from that “Smash killer” title it was given. That sorta set it up for failure: you can’t kill Smash.
2XKO was in third. I admittedly thought it would get more votes, seeing as it just passed away and all. But I think the 2v2 focus made it quite niche, and, outside of the passionate competitive players in the scene, it wasn’t all that exciting to the masses. And having League of Legends champions really meant nothing once it entered the fighting game scene.
Similar to 2XKO, RumbleVerse was made by a huge developer (Epic Games) that was not impressed with the size and finances of the FGC scene. It failed to get enough revenue or active players to feel worth it. Knowing how much Fortnite relies on skins, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The FGC is not going to obsessively collect skins, especially for a game nobody cares about.
76,070 votes later, there you have it: The FGC wants Killer Instinct to make a comeback. Unfortunately, no sequel is planned right now, with Xbox reportedly canceling a possible reboot earlier this year.
For now, let’s see if the FGC can manage to keep Marvel Tokon alive. The game is actually quite fun, so we better.
