Mortal Kombat 11

• 1. Introduction

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  Mortal Kombat 11 is the best-selling game in its franchise, with more than 15 million copies sold worldwide by 2022. Yet in 2019 a developer told Kotaku that some members of the team had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The cause was the reference material used to design the game's gore. That contrast runs through the whole project. This is a 2019 fighting game from NetherRealm Studios, published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and it is the eleventh main entry in the series. Its creators framed it as the closing chapter of a saga. How does a fighting game end a story that spans decades? Why did fans cheer for some of its guest fighters and groan at others? And what did all that violence cost the people who made it, and the countries that refused to let it on shelves?

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• 2. Fatal Blows and Krushing Blows

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  A Fatal Blow unlocks only when a player's health falls below 30 percent, and it can be used just once per match. It descends from the X-ray moves of the 2011 reboot and Mortal Kombat X. Unlike those, it never shows bones or other parts of the human body, and some players consider that a step backward.

  The game is a 2.5D fighter, like the previous three entries, including Mortal Kombat Mobile. Familiar finishers return: Fatalities, Brutalities, Stage Fatalities, Friendships and Quitalities. Mercy also comes back after its last appearance in Mortal Kombat Trilogy. After the Finish Him or Her prompt, the winner may choose to revive the loser, who then gets a small amount of life.

  Krushing Blows are the series' other new idea. They are critical-hit versions of a given special move or combination, triggered when certain requirements are met. They show graphic bodily injury and can take up to 30 percent of an opponent's health in one hit. A Flawless Block, also new to the series, gives a player who blocks with precise timing a window to fight back.

  Customization comes through the Kustom Variation system. It borrows from the Gear system in Injustice 2, NetherRealm's earlier DC Comics fighting game, and improves on the Variation system in Mortal Kombat X. Each character starts with a set of skins, gear and moves that the player can change. Unlike in Injustice 2, a character's appearance does not decide their abilities, so players can build move lists independent of how a fighter looks. Online play gains cross-play for the first time in the series, though it is still in beta and excludes Nintendo Switch, PC and Stadia.

  The unlock system behind all that customization would later become the game's most criticized feature.

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• 3. Kronika and the Broken Timeline

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  The story begins with a beheading. After Shinnok's defeat, Dark Raiden decides to protect Earthrealm by destroying its enemies, and he makes an example of Shinnok by decapitating him. That act inspires Kronika, the keeper of time, to rewrite history and erase Raiden from existence.

  Two years later, a Special Forces team led by Sonya Blade, Cassie Cage and Jacqui Briggs attacks the Netherrealm with Raiden's help. They destroy the castle, but Sonya dies. Kronika then allies with the revenants and with Netherrealm's rulers, Liu Kang and Kitana.

  In Outworld, Emperor Kotal Kahn is about to execute Shao Kahn's loyalist Kollector when a time storm interrupts him. It brings younger versions of Kano, Erron Black, Jade, Raiden, Kitana, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Sonya, Jax, Scorpion, Kabal and Kung Lao from the past. It also delivers Shao Kahn, Skarlet and Baraka, and it erases Dark Raiden. A battle erupts in Kotal's Koliseum, and D'Vorah carries several fighters to her hive to recruit them for Kronika.

  The heroes spread across the realms. Liu Kang and Kung Lao investigate the Wu Shi Academy, where Kronika's right-hand man Geras escapes with capsules holding Earthrealm's life force. Elsewhere, Sektor, backed by Noob Saibot and a cyberized Frost, revives the Cyber Lin Kuei to turn kidnapped warriors into cyborgs. Grandmasters Sub-Zero and Hanzo Hasashi shut down the factory with help from Cyrax, but Kronika's side simply rebuilds the army.

  Raiden seeks help from the Elder Gods, whose power is being drained by the time storm. Shinnok's twin sister Cetrion gives him a clue, but he later discovers she has killed the Elder Gods to serve her mother, Kronika. Then the Black Dragon gang and the cyborg army wreck the Special Forces base. Sektor self-destructs in the attack, and the younger Johnny and Sonya are captured.

  The survivors regroup at Hasashi's Fire Garden. Cassie leads a rescue, and Sonya kills the younger Kano to erase his present self. Kitana, Liu Kang and Kung Lao win Baraka and Sheeva over to an alliance, and Kitana defeats and blinds Shao Kahn. She unites the Outworld factions and inherits the throne from Kotal.

  A revelation follows when Hasashi persuades Scorpion to join the heroes before D'Vorah fatally wounds him. Raiden attacks Scorpion on sight, and Liu Kang steps in. Raiden then realizes that they have fought like this across multiple timelines, and that Kronika orchestrated all of them because she fears their combined strength. With the ferryman Kharon recruited, an Earthrealm and Outworld army assaults Kronika's Keep. Geras falls into the bottomless Sea of Blood, and Frost is shut down.

  A revenant Liu Kang absorbs his past self's soul, and Raiden merges with him to become Fire God Liu Kang. When Kronika rewinds time to the primordial state of the universe, erasing every event of the franchise, his godly status leaves him unaffected. The last fight decides the New Era, and three epilogues are possible. If Kronika wins, she decapitates Liu Kang, and the player is urged to replay the fight. If Liu Kang wins but loses a round, a now-mortal Raiden offers to advise him for as long as he lives. If Liu Kang wins two rounds in a row, he chooses Kitana to join him at the Hourglass, and both vow to build a better timeline.

  The middle ending, with Raiden as advisor, is the canon one, and it sets up the expansion.

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• 4. The Aftermath Betrayal

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  In the expansion, Fire God Liu Kang and Raiden try to use Kronika's Hourglass to restore history, and three prisoners interrupt them. Shang Tsung, Fujin and Nightwolf were locked in a timeless void by Kronika for refusing to join her. Shang Tsung explains that the Crown of Souls was destroyed in Liu Kang's victory, so the Hourglass cannot change history without being destroyed. His proposal is to send the three of them back to retrieve the Crown before Cetrion does. Raiden distrusts the sorcerer, but Liu Kang agrees and stays behind to guard the Hourglass.

  The trio lands in the Koliseum just as Kitana confronts Shao Kahn. News of their arrival spreads, and Kronika retaliates. To face Cetrion on Shang Tsung's island, they decide to resurrect Sindel. They capture her revenant in the Netherrealm, then use Sheeva's blood debt to Sindel to reach the Soul Chamber, over fierce resistance from Kitana, Jade, Kotal, Black and Baraka.

  With Sindel restored, the group reaches the island. Fujin defeats Kronika's forces and persuades the present-day Jax to defect early, while Sindel defeats Cetrion and helps seize the Crown. When Kronika tries to intervene, Raiden, Fujin and Shang Tsung drive her off, and she reveals that the sorcerer himself designed the Crown.

  The turn comes as the assault on Kronika's Keep is about to begin. Shang Tsung signals Sindel to heal Shao Kahn, and the pair betray Sheeva and take over her army. They destroy Geras, imprison the Cage family, defeat Kitana, Liu Kang and Jade, throw Kung Lao into the Sea of Blood and kill Kotal. Sindel, it turns out, was never brainwashed. She willingly married Shao Kahn after he conquered her realm by killing her husband, who was Kitana's biological father.

  Shang Tsung then tricks Fujin into handing over the Crown. He gains Kronika's full power, having planned everything since she imprisoned him, and drains the souls of Raiden and Fujin. After Kronika's remaining revenants are killed, he betrays Sindel and Shao Kahn, takes their souls, and erases Kronika from existence. Fire God Liu Kang then appears. He knew what Shang Tsung intended, and he let the sorcerer live because only Shang Tsung's scheme could remove Kronika.

  The player then picks a final destiny. If Shang Tsung wins, he absorbs Liu Kang's soul, leaves him a dried-up skeleton, and uses the Hourglass to become a Titan. If Liu Kang wins, he erases Shang Tsung, takes the Crown and forges his own New Era. He then visits the Shaolin temple to train the Great Kung Lao, ancestor of Kung Lao, as his champion in Mortal Kombat.

  The final battle also tore the fabric of time and spawned timelines in which every fighter beat Kronika and took the Hourglass. The sequel, Mortal Kombat 1, is set mainly in Liu Kang's timeline.

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• 5. Building the Game

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  In December 2018, at The Game Awards, series co-creator Ed Boon announced the game with a trailer of Dark Raiden fighting Scorpion. The trailer's song was "Immortal", an original piece by the artist 21 Savage. It ended with a bonus for pre-order buyers, who would get Shao Kahn as a playable character.

  The public rollout moved quickly. On the 17th of January 2019, a community reveal event was held simultaneously in Los Angeles and London. It included a filmed interview with Ronda Rousey, who voiced Sonya Blade. A public stress test of the online mode ran from the 15th to the 17th of March. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One pre-order buyers then got a closed beta between the 27th of March and the 1st of April.

  Under the hood, the game ran on Unreal Engine 3. NetherRealm made the main version, while Shiver Entertainment developed the Nintendo Switch version and QLOC developed the Windows version.

  The game launched on the 23rd of April 2019 for Windows, Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The exception was Europe's Switch version, which arrived on the 10th of May 2019. A Stadia port followed on the 19th of November 2019. McFarlane Toys made a line of action figures to promote it.

  The mobile game launched as Mortal Kombat X was renamed Mortal Kombat Mobile in February 2019. Its 2.0 update added Mortal Kombat 11 content and moved the graphics engine from Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 4. Google Play alone lists 50 million downloads.

  The branding around the game changed too. The physical release of Aftermath, in June 2020, was the final game published under the WB Games label, after Warner Bros. rebranded its corporate identity in 2019. The Ultimate edition, released the same year, carried the shield logo that Pentagram designed. That shield replaced the WB Games logo used since 2010.

  Almost three years after launch, on the 22nd of March 2022, a patch removed the Denuvo Anti-Tamper from the PC version.

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• 6. Guests and Downloads

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  The roster totals 37 playable characters. Twenty-five come in the base game, two of them unlockable, and 12 arrive as downloadable content, five of them guests. Beside veterans such as Kano, Raiden, Scorpion, Sonya Blade and Sub-Zero, Skarlet returns from the 2011 reboot. Four fighters are new, and three of them are playable.

  The unplayable one is Kronika, the series' first female boss, who has watched over its timelines since the beginning. Geras is her construct, with time powers and sand-based attacks. Cetrion is an Elder Goddess, Shinnok's sister and Kronika's daughter, who commands elemental forces. Kollector is a six-armed Naknadan who collects tribute for the Outworld empire. Non-playable cameos pop up too. Shinnok appears in the story intro and, as only his head, in one stage. Ermac, Reptile and Smoke feature in Shang Tsung's moveset, and Kintaro appears in one of his fatalities.

  The first downloadable character came at C2E2 on the 22nd of March 2019. Shang Tsung returned with the voice and likeness of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who played him in the 1995 film. On the 31st of May 2019, five more fighters were announced for the first Kombat Pack. Nightwolf and Sindel returned from the 2011 game. Spawn, from Todd McFarlane's Image Comics, joined as a guest with Keith David reprising the role from the HBO animated series.

  Spawn's path was odd. In February 2015, McFarlane gave NetherRealm a limited window of permission to use the character. Boon said later that Spawn had come up as a possible guest early in development, but he did not learn of the offer until after Mortal Kombat X came out.

  On the 21st of August 2019, the other two guests were revealed: the Terminator and the Joker. Arnold Schwarzenegger provided the Terminator's facial likeness and capture as a tie-in with Terminator: Dark Fate, and Chris Cox voiced him. Boon revealed in a December 2015 interview that the Terminator had also been considered for Mortal Kombat X.

  The Joker's reveal drew a poor response, and online fans compared his design to a bad cosplay. A teaser on the 12th of December 2019 showed a redesign, which was better received for its improved facial features. Boon described this version as "Vicious", unlike earlier appearances that had been toned down to keep a T rating. A New Year's Day 2020 teaser showed his graffiti and smile on the walls of Arkham Asylum. The gameplay trailer, showing a gruesome Fatality, followed on the 16th of January 2020.

  The expansion added Fujin, Sheeva and RoboCop, with Peter Weller returning to the role for the first time since RoboCop 2. Kombat Pack 2 followed, with Mileena, Rain and John Rambo, voiced by Sylvester Stallone, who recorded from home over Zoom calls to work around the COVID-19 pandemic. Mileena's absence from the base game had been deliberate. Boon said the team wanted to "create an appreciation" for her after fans kept demanding her return on social media.

  Skins filled the gaps between characters. The Kombat Packs together offered 18, usually three per pack. A few were free, including a Harley Quinn-inspired Cassie Cage and a Sub-Zero skin voiced by Dimitri Vegas. On the 24th of November 2020, a Klassic MK Movie pack gave Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade and Raiden the voices and likenesses of Linden Ashby, Bridgette Wilson and Christopher Lambert.

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• 7. Critics, Charts and Trophies

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  On Metacritic, the console versions earned generally favorable reviews. IGN praised the slower-paced combat compared with the previous game, along with the expanded tutorial, the story mode and the improved netcode. It condemned the unlock system for customization as "frustratingly gimmicky and grindy". GameSpot gave the game a 9, calling the fighting system "accessible, deep and exciting". It criticized the "always-online requirement for progression" and the randomized rewards in the Krypt.

  The Nintendo Switch version also fared well. Pure Nintendo gave it a 9, and said the online features are where that version "falls short". Nintendo Life gave it 8 out of 10. It called the port "a performance-first experience that nails 60fps", at the cost of what it called a noticeable downgrade in visuals.

  Sales were strong from the start. In North America it was the best-selling game of April 2019, and together with Fortnite it helped push digital game sales above $8.8 billion for the month. It topped the North American chart again in May on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4. In June 2019 it passed the sales of Kingdom Hearts III. Abroad, it reached number 1 in Australia and number 2 in both New Zealand and Switzerland in May 2019. It was also the fourth most downloaded game on the European PlayStation Store in April. For the year, it was the fifth best-selling game of 2019 and the fourth best-selling on PS4.

  The trophies came in a run. At the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards it won for Best Storytelling and Best Multiplayer Game. The Game Awards 2019 named it Best Fighting Game, and Steam voters gave it the "Best Game You Suck At" award. At the 23rd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards in 2020 it took Fighting Game of the Year, plus audio design and original music composition. It also collected honors from SXSW Gaming and the G.A.N.G. Awards. The Ultimate version won Best Fighting Game at The Game Awards 2020, and Fighting Game of the Year at the 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards in 2021.

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• 8. Bans, Backlash and the Sequel

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  Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and China all ban the game for its violence and gore. Ukraine bans it for a different reason: laws against Communist symbols. Some of those symbols appear in the Kollection images and on a bonus costume for Skarlet, which came with the Premium Edition.

  A different complaint came from fans. Many objected that the game sharply cut back on the sex appeal of its female characters. Boon told Playboy it was unrealistic for female fighters to be scantily clad, and he felt the 2011 game had gone too far in its sexualization.

  The human cost surfaced inside the studio. For the gore imagery, developers drew on real videos and images, including beheading footage, photos of murder victims and slaughtered animals. Some staff reportedly suffered nightmares. The studio was also accused of a crunch culture, with employees regularly working 80 to 100 hours a week to hit submission deadlines.

  The game's own community also found ways to protest. In January 2021, a Pro Kompetition finalist named Titaniumtigerzz was disqualified for naming his Sheeva variation 'WhyDidNRSdoThis'. He said the name was meant as only a very mild criticism of how strong Sheeva was.

  Six months later, on the 2nd of July 2021, NetherRealm announced that the game would receive no more DLC or update support. The studio turned to its next projects, Mortal Kombat 1 and Mortal Kombat: Onslaught. In February 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told an earnings call that a twelfth installment would arrive that year. Mortal Kombat 1 launched on the 19th of September 2023, with the Kollector and Premium editions out on the 14th. It earned very positive reviews, except for its Switch version, which was received negatively.

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