Buy Street Fighter 6 if this is your first fighting game, you are buying for a household that includes anyone under 17, or you want the most generous single-player content for the money: it carries the World Tour mode, and the ESRB rates it Teen on Mild Blood, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence, In-Game Purchases and Users Interact. Buy Mortal Kombat 1if you want the cinematic story campaign, the Kameo assist system, and the series that invented this genre's spectacle.
These two discs sit in the same budget bracket and look interchangeable on a store page. They are not. The split is not difficulty or depth — both are deep — it is what you get when nobody else is home, and who is allowed to watch.
On the solo question, Street Fighter 6 is unusual for the genre. PlayStation's listing describes the World Tour single-player mode alongside the Battle Hub and the Fighting Ground; our registry entry records it as fighting, World Tour story mode, 1–2 local plus online. That is a game you can buy, never go online with, and still finish. Mortal Kombat 1, released September 19, 2023 per PlayStation, answers the same need with a conventional story campaign and the Kameo system, as 2 players locally and up to 8 online with PS Plus.
On the rating question there is no ambiguity, and it decides more purchases than anything else on this page. PlayStation lists Mortal Kombat 1 as rated M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases and Users Interact. Street Fighter 6 is Teen. If this is a living-room purchase for a mixed-age household, that is the end of the discussion. For the lane ranked rather than compared, see best cheap fighting games.
Street Fighter 6 vs Mortal Kombat 1, decided on five questions
1. Who is going to be in the room?
The ESRB gap between these two is the widest of any pair we have compared. Street Fighter 6 is rated Teen with descriptors for Mild Blood, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence, In-Game Purchases and Users Interact. PlayStation lists Mortal Kombat 1 as Mature 17+ for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence and Strong Language, plus In-Game Purchases and Users Interact.
Mortal Kombat's violence is not incidental to it; the series' finishing moves are its signature. That makes it an easy recommendation for adults and a poor one for a shared television with children in the house. We flag the rating on every pick for exactly this reason in gifts for PlayStation owners and cheap games for kids.
2. Will you ever play it online?
If the honest answer is no, Street Fighter 6 is the stronger buy, because World Tour is a substantial single-player mode rather than an arcade ladder. Most fighting games give a solo player an hour; this one gives considerably more, and that changes the value calculation for anyone who bought the disc to play alone.
If the answer is yes, both need a subscription. PlayStation lists Mortal Kombat 1 as requiring PS Plus for online play while describing online play as optional, and the same structure applies to Street Fighter 6's online modes on PlayStation hardware. Add PS Plus to whichever you pick and compare the real annual figure, not the disc price.
3. Do you want to learn a fighting game, or just play one?
These games answer that differently. Street Fighter 6 is built as an on-ramp: its modern control scheme reduces the motion inputs that keep newcomers out of this genre entirely, which is the single biggest reason it ranks as the better first fighting game on this site.
Mortal Kombat 1 is the more spectacular game and its Kameo assists give you a second partial character to work with, which is a system worth learning on its own terms. If what you want is a game to mash through with a friend on a Friday, either works. If you want to actually get good at a fighting game and not bounce off week one, start with Street Fighter 6 and a pad that suits you — see best cheap controllers for fighting games.
4. How much of the game is in the box?
Both of these discs are base games, and both have had content sold on top of them since launch. PlayStation lists a separate Definitive Edition of Mortal Kombat 1 and a Khaos Reigns expansion as additional purchases; Street Fighter 6 has shipped multiple character passes since release. Neither disc is the complete article, and on this site that is a mark against both.
It is also the reason the best-value fighting game on the whole shelf is neither of them. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate bundles its base game with both Kombat Packs and Aftermath for a 37-fighter roster, which is the comparison we run in Mortal Kombat 1 vs Mortal Kombat 11. If content-per-dollar is your only criterion, read that page next.
5. Which one holds its value as a thing to own?
Both are current-gen discs still travelling down their price curves, which means both get cheaper from here and both are worth waiting on if you are not in a hurry; the windows are in when do games go on sale. Fighting games also age unusually well, because the thing you are buying — a roster and a set of rules — does not get patched out from under you.
The one thing that does decay is the player pool, and it decays for the older game first. Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1 are close enough in age that this does not separate them today. Both sit on our current-gen shelf in best cheap PS5 games, and both are two-player games before they are online ones, which is the form of value this site cares about most.
