EDITOR’S
CHOICEMortal Kombat 11
THE CLASSIC FIGHTER RETURNS, BLOODIER THAN EVER CHRIS BURKE
PUBLISHER WARNER BROS INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT / DEVELOPER NETHERREALM STUDIOS / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW / COST £55.99/$59.99evil forces of Netherrealm, such as
series stalwart and usually-hero Liu
Kang. Raiden, the Elder God with the
coolie hat and sparkly fingers, was
corrupted by evil Elder God Shinnock’s
amulet and upset the universe’s
status quo in his zealous defence of
Earthrealm. Kronika, a celestial being
and Keeper Of Time, is annoyed by
this and attempts to restart time to
bring balance back, and get rid of
Raiden once and for all. What this
does all allow for is younger versions
of many of the heroes, including Liu
Kang, Sonya Blade and, amusingly,
the unreconstructed action-movie
egotist version of Johnny Cage, to
turn up to fight alongside variously
older versions of themselves, and
their own same-age children. The
many wonderfully scripted, beautifully
animated cutscenes provide this
exposition, and you won’t want to skip
any of it. Mainly, of course, it serves to
glue together a series of one-on-one
fights across 12 chapters.ABOVE Raiden in
the present day
is a lot more
ruthless in his
protection of
Earthrealm.
LEFT Scorpion is
co-creator Ed
Boon’s favourite
character, so
his inclusion in
MK11 always was
a certainty.Mortal Kombat was created in 1992 by the Chicago studios of legendary arcade game company MidwayTHE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 075REVIEW
it was going to ruffle feathers, and
Mortal Kombat is actually one of the
reasons why we now have age ratings
for videogames. Nearly 30 years on,
and Ed Boon and John Tobias’s bloody
vision is realised more disturbingly
than ever with Mortal Kombat 11,
which now explodes out of the Xbox
One like a tsunami of viscera.Time to die
The timeline of the Mortal Kombat
games might have become so
convoluted and complicated over the
years that OXM had to come up with a
timeline diagram a couple of months
back (we’ve still got headaches
thinking about that one), but MK11
manages something that few fighting
games ever have: a coherent, even
enjoyable, story. Using some time-
displacement shenanigans to
fantastic effect, all you need to
know is this: half of the series
regulars are dead, or undead
Revenants fighting for theMortal Kombat
changed everything.
When Midway’s
2D fighting game
emerged in the early
’90s to a fanfare
of controversy and cries of ‘Finish
Him!’ echoing around arcades and
playgrounds up and down the land,
it was literally like nothing else the
world had seen before.
Its photorealistic style that had
begun life with the intention of getting
martial arts superstar Jean Claude
Van Damme’s likeness in a fighting
game (ironically he ended up in the
Street Fighter movie), blew our minds.
And with this graphical realism came
gory, over-the-top brutality. Back
then, pulling off those fabled
Fatalities was pretty difficult, but
when you managed it, ripping out
spines and slicing heads off your
beaten opponent was about as
satisfying as arcade games
had ever got. Of course,