10 Video Games That Retconned EVERYTHING
2. Mortal Kombat (2011)
NeatherRealm Studios is a master at crafting a competitive fighting game with presentation flourishes that rival high-budget action/adventure titles. Mortal Kombat is its crowning franchise, and while it's been going for 30 years, it hasn't kept the same story going since the arcade original.
Released in 2011 and given the simple name of Mortal Kombat, the series rebooted to much critical and commercial success. Now referred to as Mortal Kombat 9, the game retcons much of the events of the first three games in favour of starting over.
The franchise has a plethora of beloved characters, settings and story threads that were explored in the 2011 reboot. When the company decided to start fresh they did so with the knowledge that they had a toy box filled with interesting elements that could make it a worthwhile restart, and a justified retcon of what came before.
Mortal Kombat truly retconned everything about the beloved first three games but it gave players, new and old, a better and more substantial experience. Future games have spring-boarded off its success, and so retconning what came before was a stroke of genuis from the developer.