76 PCWorld JULY 2020REVIEWS MORTAL KOMBAT 11: AFTERMATH
appears mere seconds later and informs Liu
Kang that nobody can reset the timeline safely
without the crown. They’ll have to go back in
time again and retrieve the crown, then
defeat Kronika once more. Otherwise, it’s all
for naught.
As I said last year, surface-level dumb.
Aftermath is very much in the vein of its
predecessor, packed with enough time travel
shenanigans to make Doc Brown blush. The
stakes are even higher this time though, with
Shang Tsung the perfect foil for Liu Kang and
Raiden. He’s betrayed them so many times
before, but the enemy of my enemy and all
that. If he’s offering to aid them against
Kronika, can they really refuse?
Aftermath’s story manages to weave in all
of the add-on characters from this pastyear—or the original Mortal Kombat ones, at
least. No, RoboCop isn’t suddenly Mortal
Kombat canon. Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, and
Sindel all play a role though, as do Aftermath
additions Fujin and Sheeva. Five classic
characters, and with Aftermath it’s as if they
were part of Mortal Kombat 11 all along.
Adding them to the campaign legitimizes
them, in a way.
It also allows NetherRealm to deliver a
richer ending though, smoothing over a few
holes in the original framework. Jax, whose
arc felt a bit rushed in Mortal Kombat 11,
gets a beautiful moment with Fujin in
Aftermath. Scorpion and Sub-Zero also get
one last scene, as does Johnny Cage.
They’re not essential moments. You could
stop with the original Mortal Kombat 11 and