Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat 11: The Kotaku Review

2015’s Mortal Kombat X signaled the beginning of an evolutionary turn for Netherrealm Studios’ storied fighting game series, featuring fresh new characters, a compelling story and the ability to select different fighting styles for every combatant. Mortal Kombat 11 continues this evolution, but not every aspect of the game is moving in the right direction.…

Rage-Quitting Is Appropriately Bloody in Mortal Kombat 11

Mortal Kombat wouldn’t be Mortal Kombat without extreme violence, and the look of the game has only gotten more and more gruesome as home consoles have become more powerful. The most recent game in the series, Mortal Kombat 11, kicks things up to, well, 11 in the way it displays bloodshed. Naturally, this brutality also…

People Are Upset About Things That Don’t Actually Happen In Jax’s MK11 Ending

In keeping with series tradition, every character in Mortal Kombat 11 gets a unique ending sequence depicting what would happen if they won. This game’s big baddie is Kronika, a new villain with the power to control time. She’s got serious beef with thunder god and humanity’s pal Raiden, and she plans to do away…

Mortal Kombat 11’s Tutorial Is An Excellent Intro To High-Level Play

Everybody knows how punching and kicking work, but do you know what Frame Advantage is? How about how to perform a Frame Trap? If you get knocked down, do you know which defensive “Getup” moves to use to counter your opponent’s likely follow-up attack? Work your way through Mortal Kombat 11’s exhaustive tutorials and you’ll…

Mortal Kombat 11 Has A Great Story Mode

Thanks to the temporal manipulations of a powerful new foe, past and present versions of iconic heroes and villains collide in Mortal Kombat 11’s story mode. It’s easily the most entertaining tale the series has ever told, and it leaves the future of the franchise open to exciting possibilities. When we last left our heroes…

The Week In Games: Get Over Here!!!

It’s time once again for decapitations, burning flesh and other grisly deaths. Mortal Kombat 11 is out this week. In the words of Scorpion “Get over here and play my game. Thank you.” I love me some Mortal Kombat. I’m not a huge fighting game guy and I’m not great at them, but I always…

A Sea Of Thieves Player Is Hiding On An Island And Waiting For You

Hello! Today we long to ride a motorcycle, discover the corn man, think about tricking pirates on a deserted island and ruin(?) Smash Bros. with dicks. It’s Morning Checkpoint! Great Kotaku Content From The Past Week Like most weeks, Kotaku was filled with some great stories. Here are a few of my favorites! Humanity once…

The Keys To A Good Mortal Kombat Fatality: Rhythm And Humor

Mortal Kombat 11’s art director Steve Beran has seen a lot of fatalities, given that he’s worked on the series since the ‘90s. His favorite in the new game involves “bloodsicles,” where the character Skarlet stabs an opponent over and over with spikes made from their own frozen blood. Then she pops an eyeball out…

Revealed today during Netherrealm Studio’s special event, MMA superstar Ronda Rousey is the voice of Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat 11. That sounds about right.

Mortal Kombat 11 Announced, Launching Globally April 23

Tonight at the 2018 Game Awards, Netherrealm Studios head Ed Boon took the stage to announce the winner of the best sports or racing game award, but sgave us a trailer for Mortal Kombat XI instead—complete with an April 23 global launch date. Not a lot of details were given during the clever twist reveal,…

Meet SonicFox, The Queer Furry Who’s Destroying Everyone Else At Fighting Games

Dominique “SonicFox” McLean competed in his first Mortal Kombat tournament in 2011 at age 13. Back then, his opponents didn’t know what they were up against. But SonicFox knew his own truth: he was queer, he was a furry, and he rocked at fighting games. Seven years later, the four-time Evo champion has shown the…

Behind The Scenes Filming A Mortal Kombat Game In 1995

Series co-creator Ed Boon shared a very cool video earlier today, showing some behind the scenes action from Mortal Kombat 3’s motion capture filming. Bit and pieces of this kind of stuff tend to pop up every now and again (like the MK1 photos we posted in 2014), but this is particularly great, because it…

A History Of Cool And Quirky Fighting Game Cameos

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Injustice 2! Final Fantasy XV’s Noctis in Tekken 7! Fighting games have a history of enhancing their rosters with guest characters from comics, cartoons, movies and unrelated video games. Here are some of our favorites. “Who would win in a fight?” is a question that’s launched a million schoolyard, comic…

Contortionists Perform Dance Inspired By Mortal Kombat 

Admire the craftsmanship but try not to watch too closely. Appearing on Asia’s Got Talent, the Adem Dance crew out of Kyrgyz Republic took the stage recently in a gold buzzer audition to try and wow the judges with a performance where the Mortal Kombat costumes turned out not to even be the weirdest part.…

Gaming’s Weirdest Mashups That Worked Surprising Well

Titles like Puyo Puyo Tetris and Street Fighter X Tekken prove that bringing two successful franchises together can yield a match made in heaven. But every now and then two brazenly different intellectual properties form an unholy union that manages to get things right. The somewhat surprising success ofMario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle for the Nintendo…

Sub-Zero, master of the Lin Kuei, joins the Injustice 2 roster today as the first Mortal Kombat guest character. With the Red Hood showing up last month, the only DLC character from the first “fighter pack” is Starfire. That’s called saving the best for last.

Storm Collectibles’ Ryu And Scorpion Figures Are The Best Around

No one makes fighting action figures quite like Storm Collectibles. From real life warriors like Bruce Leeand Muhammad Ali to a pair of video game’s most famous martial artists, Storm’s kung fu is incredibly strong. I’d meant to showcase Storm’s renditions of Mortal Kombat’s Scorpion and Street Fighter’s Ryu much sooner, but the box they…

Ghana’s Mortal Kombat Movie Looks Amazing

Remember that Predator movie that came out of Ghana’s Kumawood scene a few years back? Now there’s a flick based on Mortal Kombat That’s one hell of a trailer. There are drones! And martial arts! Even some pretty good costumes. Before you start wondering what the fuck is going on here, know that Kumawood movies…

It’ll All Be Over Soon

Mortal Kombat X‘s PC Version Is Finally Good

At the start of this year, Warner Bros and NetherRealm abandoned the PC version of Mortal Kombat X, a port that wasn’t super hot to begin with. While the console versions would continue to receive updates and DLC, PC players were left with the one thing worse than pulverized ribs or a spine used as…