For Warner Bros. Games, one franchise dominates XBOX backward compatibility demand: Mortal Kombat.
A measurement, not a petition.
XBOXGamePreservation.com asks players a single question: which Original XBOX and XBOX 360 games do you want to be able to play again via backward compatibility on modern XBOX consoles?
What is XBOX backward compatibility?
It's the program in which Original XBOX and XBOX 360 titles are given the green light by publishers and rights holders to let XBOX make them playable, and often buyable, again on current XBOX consoles, and PC. The games require no work from the original owners, just approval. XBOX handles everything else to get them up and running.
Half of Warner Bros. Games' ten most-requested titles have never been released on PC.
In July 2026, XBOX backward compatibility expanded to PC. When a game enters the program, XBOX does the technical work at the platform level, getting original console games to run on modern XBOX consoles and on Windows PCs and handhelds. The publisher doesn't need to edit the original game code.
For Mortal Kombat, that is transformative. The four most-wanted MK games, Shaolin Monks, Armageddon, Deception, and Deadly Alliance, were console-only. They have never been officially released on PC. Together they account for more than 8,300 of Mortal Kombat's 9,093 votes. A single green light from Warner Bros. wouldn't just restore them on XBOX; it could bring them to PC for the very first time, decades after release.
PC support is optional. A publisher can approve a title for console backward compatibility alone, or for console and PC together. As of now, only Original XBOX games have been announced for PC backward compatibility, so the "PC debut" note in this analysis is applied only to Original XBOX titles that never had a PC release. The XBOX 360 catalog may follow, but has not yet been announced for PC.
The Warner Bros. Games catalog, by rights category.
Warner Bros. Games owns a deep catalog, from the Midway arcade era it acquired in 2009 to DC, and beyond. The votes divide into four ownership groups, ranked here by demand.
Top 10 Warner Bros. titles by votes
Vote counts shown at right.
Titles marked ▸ PC debut are Original XBOX games that were never released on PC; backward compatibility could bring them there for the first time.
Mortal Kombat is the clearest demand signal in the Warner Bros. Games catalog.
Of every vote cast for a Warner Bros. Game, more than one in five went to Mortal Kombat. It is the single most-requested franchise in the entire catalog, and no other Warner Bros. Games franchise comes close.
votes across six Mortal Kombat games, from 4,045 distinct voters.
One game. Over a thousand votes. A straightforward legacy candidate.
The original Area 51 on Original XBOX has drawn 1,054 votes on its own, one of the highest single-game totals in the entire Warner Bros. catalog outside of Mortal Kombat. Its rights picture appears straightforward, with no obvious external IP owner to clear.
Its XBOX 360 sequel, BlackSite: Area 51, adds another 276 votes, bringing the two-game franchise to 1,330 votes from 1,157 distinct voters.
Warner Bros. Games has already approved some of their games for backward compatibility.
Warner Bros. titles are already among the games playable through backward compatibility on modern XBOX consoles, including some Mortal Kombat games.
The demand is concentrated, not diffuse.
Mortal Kombat alone accounts for 21% of Warner Bros. Games demand in this dataset, and four Original XBOX Mortal Kombat titles make up more than 8,300 of those votes on their own. Beyond Mortal Kombat, a handful of legacy franchises, Batman, Area 51, Condemned and others, show meaningful demand across both the Original XBOX and XBOX 360 generations.
The signal also appears to extend beyond console preservation. With XBOX Backward Compatibility now reaching PC, the Original XBOX titles that never received a PC release represent a potential new audience, not just a returning one.
Taken together, the data points to a relatively small number of high-demand legacy titles that, in my reading, could carry outsized weight with players relative to the effort involved.
To put the concentration in concrete terms: approving just the 20 most-requested titles for backward compatibility would account for roughly 54% of the entire voting demand across the Warner Bros. Games catalog, more than half the votes, from fewer than a fifth of the 115 titles.
Method & caveats.
Live site data: 871,129 votes from 91,237 voters across 2,817 games, and growing. Percentages are calculated against the current voter total.
Titles are attributed to Warner Bros. Games to the best of my knowledge from public information, working from the Midway Games catalog Warner Bros. acquired in 2009 and Warner Bros.' own first-party properties. A single asterisk (*) marks games that carry a separate professional sports-league license. A double asterisk (**) marks games where Warner Bros. made or published the title but the underlying property is licensed or shared, so a return may require agreement from additional rights holders. Games already that are backward compatible and delisted are excluded from the demand totals. Titles that used the Kinect sensor are labeled as such in the full list below. The "PC debut" marker is applied only to Original XBOX titles that were never released on PC, since only Original XBOX games have so far been announced for PC backward compatibility.
This site and analysis are independent, unaffiliated with Microsoft or Warner Bros. Games, and carry no paid promotion. It is one signal of player interest, offered as input, not a demand or a commitment sought on any specific title.
A separate 3,780 votes are for Warner Bros. Games titles you can no longer purchase.
Seven Warner Bros. Games titles are backward compatible yet cannot be bought digitally today. Some were delisted from the store; others, like Batman: Arkham Origins, were never sold digitally on XBOX 360 at all and are playable only from a physical disc. Players are voting to see them available on the XBOX store. These votes are tracked separately and are not included in the 43,236 figure above.
Every game by category.
All 115 Warner Bros. Games titles behind the demand figures, with platform and vote count. A game released on both Original XBOX and XBOX 360 appears as two separate entries, each with its own demand. The ▸ PC debut marker flags Original XBOX titles never released on PC. Tap any title to open its page.
* Warner Bros. controls the game rights, but the titles incorporate separate professional sports-league licenses that may require additional clearance.
** Warner Bros. made or published the game, but the underlying property is licensed or shared, so a return may require agreement from additional rights holders.
HP Developed and originally published by Electronic Arts under license. Warner Bros. owns the Wizarding World franchise and may hold or control the rights to these titles today; their status is less clear-cut than the first-party catalog.