YMMV / Mortal Kombat 11

See also the franchise-wide pages for:

• And The Fandom Rejoiced
• Complete Monster
• Hilarious In Hindsight
• Memes
• Nausea Fuel
• The Scrappy
• The Woobie

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A-I

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • While Shang Tsung is undoubtedly evil, his desire to become the new ruler of time may be considered slightly more complex when you take into account how much Kronika played a role in setting him on the path he walks (something he seems to be aware of). Does his desire to usurp Kronika merely stem from his lust for power or does he believe that achieving the highest position of power and authority is the only way he can properly live a life without anyone interfering or railroading him to a specific outcome?
  • Cetrion, likewise, secretly loathes serving Kronika's mad schemes with all mirror matches against herself and some with others indicate shows how much she dislikes it, yet she still dutifully acts according to Kronika's will. One mirror match, however, throws into question exactly how loyal Cetrion really is as it implies that an earlier incarnation(s)—if not the original one herself (judging from the specific wording of "flawed first draft" from the replacement)—outright stood contrast to Kronika's will. Is Cetrion's loyalty to Kronika due to a choice she made or is it because of that loyalty being built into subsequent replacements after the original defiant ones were destroyed by the time we meet her in-game? This itself also throws into question why Dark Raiden disappeared when past Raiden crossed over if more than one Cetrion can exist at a time which could be chalked up to Kronika's schemes ensuring that two Raidens won't be around to stop her.
• Ass Pull: See the Headscratchers section. Here are the biggest ones:
  • The pre-Aftermath story is seen as this by many in various ways due to the use of time travel. Here are a couple of issues:
    • Who, both their present and past forms, is chosen to exist and who isn't, and the effects of their past selves. Examples include past Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang) and past Mileena. In Sub-Zero's case, this came at a time where past Sub-Zero had just been captured by the Lin Kuei and was about to be transformed into Cyber Sub-Zero and should have caused some effect to the current Sub-Zero. Mileena became a DLC after the Aftermath package was released, but no story has been revealed to this day.
    • Jade's romantic connection to Kotal Kahn comes out of nowhere, and yet the game treats it as if it was always a thing, which seems odd given how Kotal was only introduced in X, a game Jade wasn't even seen or mentioned, to the point some believed her Revenant. It's commonly criticized as being a sign that the writers wanted to bring Jade back, didn't know what to do with her, and then threw it in to try and justify her story use. In the eyes of fans, all it accomplishes is make Jade a Satellite Love Interest for Kotal after being already a Satellite Character for Kitana.
    • Some fans are incredulous about the "Kronika was behind everything, from the beginning" plot twist, as it comes out of nowhere and retroactively makes the actions of every single character a contrived step in her ultimate plans — especially Shinnok, who is essentially demoted from a Big Bad to a Big Bad Wannabe that happens to be her son. Further, the idea that Liu Kang fights Raiden and dies in every timeline makes little sense. ^note Especially in the original timeline, where Liu Kang and Raiden were still on remarkably good terms right up to the moment that the Deadly Alliance murdered him. And even then, Liu Kang and Raiden didn't come into conflict — Raiden raised Liu Kang's body from the dead to act as his enforcer, while Liu Kang's spirit remained bound to Kitana and then Nightwolf, and ultimately "died" when both of them were killed during the Battle of Armageddon. The detractors feel that pinning the blame for these events on Kronika cheapens the choices of both the characters and the writers; is the audience really supposed to expect things to be different from here on, now that she's gone?
  • Aftermath takes this even further. Many see this as a way to just give the DLC characters a filler story and throwing the DLC characters "into the void" as a means to reserve them into the story.
    • Claiming that Sindel was evil all along causes a lot of inconsistencies. The original timeline where she became a force for good at the end of Mortal Kombat 3 and up to Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is completely ignored and shows no connection to this retconned version of Sindel. It even shows major inconsistencies with Mortal Kombat 9 as well, given that she was resurrected by Quan Chi as a corrupted servant and later turned into a revenant, meaning we never truly meet the "real" her. However, her Evil All Along persona is cemented in Aftermath as her true characterization, meaning that her backstory was deliberately altered to cement the evil reinterpretation of the new writers, as they never address how she went from good in the original timeline to Evil All Along in this timeline. It's possible that Kronika somehow altered her personality in time for Shao Kahn's attack, but there's still no evidence of her being able to do such a thing.
    • Shang Tsung is credited as being the one who designed Kronika's crown. Assuming this is true, one wonders why he didn't think to use such a powerful relic to prevent his numerous defeats or remained a servant of Shao Kahn for so long.
• Author's Saving Throw: Has its own page.
• Awesome Ego:
  • Johnny Cage, once again. While MKX amped up his snarkiness a tad more as seen in intros involving him, this game is notable for bringing back his younger self, who is just as immature as we remember him, if not more so. His intros also make sure we get the message, for as they're even snarkier and self-centered than in MKX.
  • Kung Lao. Part of his past self's new characterization (and to some extent, his revenant self's too), is his amped up snarkiness, arrogance, narcissism, pride and jealousy towards Liu Kang being The Chosen One. Compared to his ego in Shaolin Monks and the smaller one he had in MK9, the ego he develops here is comparable to that of Johnny.
  • Frost has probably a bigger ego than Johnny and Kung Lao combined. She sees herself as "Sub-Zero's greatest pupil" and destined to rule the Lin Kuei, a characterization amped up for the better since Deadly Alliance. Yet, even as a cyborg, nobody takes her seriously, not even Johnny or Kung Lao, prompting her to be more egocentric.
  • From the Ultimate expansion and Kombat Pack 2, there's Rain. Having learned of his half-God heritage, Rain has always been a person that only cares for his half-God status making him worthy of being Edenia's ruler. Helping his enormous ego is his Adaptational Attractiveness, making it clear he's a tall, tanned Pretty Boy. Yet, this game reveals not only nobody takes him seriously or wants to help him, but has him roasted by virtually everyone, including Johnny, Kung Lao and even Frost!
  • Shao Kahn in Aftermath. While the main story had him easily defeated and horribly humiliated, the Aftermath campaign lets him and Sindel wreck havoc on the heroes, coming in as a brutal force of nature that utterly destroys almost everyone he comes across. He does this as he's clearly enjoying himself not only brutalizing his enemies, but doing so with his eager wife by his side. Sure, his ego gets so big that it clouds him to Shang's expected treachery, but fans of Kahn love the moments that led up to that.
  • Shang Tsung in Aftermath plays everyone like a fiddle, precisely because nobody trusts him. He allows Shao Kahn and Sindel to obliterate and enslave most of the heroes as well as help take down Cetrion and Kronika, then betrays his former masters to claim the crown for himself. To complete the icing on the cake, the Bad Ending has Shang defeat Fire God Liu Kang and absorb his power, meaning no one is able to ever stand up to him again. In the final scene, Shang, now with both Kronika and Liu Kang's power, has re-written the universe in his own image and sits upon a massive throne as Raiden and Fujin, now his loyal soldiers, conquer Earthrealm in his name. Have a nice day, indeed.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Sindel. While some fans were looking forward to playing as her with a revamped moveset, those who ardently follow the canon of the games were very annoyed at her being retconned into being Evil All Along. However, there's also a camp that actually likes the new Sindel, some saying that it makes her seem less of a damsel, to which those who dislike the retcon respond that the fact she rose above being a damsel to in turn save her daughter from Onaga in the original timeline was why they liked her character, while some simply like it for sexy reasons or her chemistry with Shao Kahn. There's also a middle-road camp that evil Sindel is good on paper and theory or as a different character, but dislikes the fact that the writer puts that characterization on a character like Sindel, which heavily contrasted her character and disrespectful of the old lore.
  • The Joker is probably the most polarizing Guest Fighter in the series to date. Some were thrilled at his announcement, saying that the fact that he loves committing murder and random violence solely for the fun of it makes him a perfect fit for the franchise. Detractors have cited the fact that he’s already been featured in the series as well as the fact that he is from DC Comics as reasons against his inclusion. Not helping is the fact that the game files appear to indicate that Joker's roster spot was apparently originally intended to be filled by Ash Williams, with many being upset about the latter being replaced. Prior to his gameplay reveal trailer, many also speculated that he would play identically to how he did in Injustice 2, accusing Netherrealm of laziness and reusing old assets. This was rectified when it was revealed that Joker would play differently than in that game.
  • Robocop divides players in a different way from the Joker. While many players were excited for Robocop and happy he was voiced by Peter Weller, others found that he wasn't really asked for compared to Terminator, Joker, or Spawn and that he was a rather boring addition to the cast due to his very similar looking cosmetics and for being a standard fire-arm based zoner in a game that already had many. There's also the factor of many finding a lot of his police brutality related quotes and finishers to be either poorly timed at best, or ignorant and insensitive at worst.
  • The Kollector, while he does have his fans for his interesting design and chaotic gameplay. Many others consider him to be a ‘wasted character slot’ due to his characterization coming off as a one-note ‘greedy merchant/thief’ archetype and his role in the story proving to be minuscule even when compared to other villains, which only cemented views that he shouldn’t have been on the roster. Then there’s a third camp, who believes He’s an okay character, but would have worked better as a NPC rather than a fighter.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • New to Kotal Kahn in this game is the ability to transform into a jaguar. Not only is this new ability given no explanation, but none of the other characters comment on it either.
  • Sindel now has a purple "spirit" version of herself that leaps out of her a bit when she screams. This is not explained in the slightest.
  • Rain's second fatality starts out seriously with him blowing two holes in his opponent's face and torso...then abruptly cuts to a shot of him doing a Bohemian Parody with Reptile, Smoke, and Ermac appearing behind him before he resumes killing his opponent.
  • During the story mode, if one keeps a close eye out while Jax and Raiden are talking on Kharon's ship, you can see what is clearly none other than the recently deceased Grandmaster Hasashi fighting the Cyber Lin Kuei on the upper deck. It's quite possible they just used the wrong character model, but still.
• Broken Base:
  • The Tamer and Chaster costumes for the female characters. Either they are step up from the Stripperiffic nature of previous games, most notably MK9, and look more interesting, distinct and practical (the women have distinct design elements as opposed to being palette swaps, Cassie Cage dresses practically) or they are bland, take away from the character and are way too covered up (the primary outfits for Jade, Skarlet and Cassie being the worst offenders). Arguing for one opinion or the other is a pretty much a guarantee for a long debate. Then there's those in the middle of both extremes who don't mind the default costumes, but prefer some of the skimpier alternative outfits. There are also some who find the default costumes sexy in their own way (most notably Kitana's) and argue that while the costumes cover up more, the game itself has many, many more sexual innuendos, most notably via Shao Kahn and Sindel wanting to turn the entire Earthrealm cast into their sex slaves.
  • When Mileena was finally put into the game, people either wanted Mileena's much more attractive MKX look and were upset when her MK11 look was more towards her klassic look or were perfectly fine with it. There's also a third group that while they're fine with Mileena's current look, they definitely would like the option to have her MKX look. There's a fourth that just likes both looks.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • For Shao Kahn fans, the Aftermath expansion gets this. In the main story, Kahn is reduced to a joke, easily beaten and blinded by Kitana, a rather humiliating end for one of the franchise's de facto Big Bad. Aftermath lets him go on a revenge tour, obliterating the heroes without really breaking a sweat and showing just why he was as feared as he has been for the last 10,000 years.
  • Seeing Sindel and Shao Kahn get massively outplayed by Shang Tsung, getting their souls stolen and reduced to dried out husks after all of the terrible things that they've done in the Aftermath expansion. Can double as a Take That, Scrappy! in Sindel's case for those turned-off by her retcon.
  • After all the horrible, monstrous things that Shang Tsung has done throughout the series, seeing him reduced to trying to vainly crawl away from Liu Kang, absolutely terrified as he ceases to exist, is definitely terrifying, but very satisfying to witness.
• Common Knowledge:
  • For a while around the game's release, the game was often criticized for being full of Bribing Your Way to Victory. This seems to stem from multiple separate criticisms being mixed together by poor journalism: the game did have microtransaction store at launch, progression required a large amount of grinding as earning currency for the Krypt was slow, and the Towers of Time mode in which some gear is earned was poorly-balanced and had Fake Difficulty. However, microtransactions could not help one progress faster through either the Krypt or the Towers of Time, as only a handful of items are available in the Time Krystal store at a time, all of which are cosmetic. The Augments and Konsumables which help players complete Towers of Time could only be earned by playing, and only work for a few modes, which doesn't include versus or online modes. Post-release patches made the Towers of Time easier and increased the rate at which currency is earned, but the rumors of MK11 being a "greedy" game had already tainted its reputation, and it took some time for it to recover.
  • On the internet, it is a conmonly parroted "fact" that NRS only obtained the rights to reference Terminator: Dark Fate when it comes to the T-800. In actuality, the only aspect of the Terminator directly taken from Dark Fate is his default appearance, which can easily be changed to resemble his younger look from the first two movies. Even beyond that, when it comes to Mythology Gags in his intros, outros, dialogue, moveset, animations, etc., they are almost entirely borrowed from the first two films, especially Judgement Day, with very few direct nods to Dark Fate, which, it should be noted, hadn't even been released yet when the Terminator DLC came out. There's also the fact that the Terminator's rights were licensed from Skydance Productions, the owners of the Terminator franchise IP, meaning that while each of the films has been distributed by a different studio, the franchise and the character overall is still owned by a single company, meaning that any assumed legal issues with referencing the individual films are nonexistent.
• Complete Monster: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Contested Sequel:
  • While critics praised the game's story and combat, they criticized the progression system as being "grindy", resulting in a lower (but still mostly positive) scores than previous entries. And, to keep it brief, the MK fandom is less charitable especially toward the story and writing. In terms of fan reception, it is also quite possibly the most divisive game in the whole series. While some do praise some parts of the story such as Past Liu Kang's Reconstruction as a character and Past Kitana becoming the new Kahn of Outworld, others such as Kronika being responsible for every issue in the past game is seen as either a noticeable retcon at best and a cop out at worst.
  • Among the competitive community, this is enforced by how a good amount of their population prefer the faster and loose-feeling gameplay MKX brings, which was not helped by a controversial amount of balance changes (or outright lackthereof) to the meta of MK11 that soured most players to the point of dropping it.
• Continuity Lock-Out: If you haven't played the story modes of MK9 and MKX, the story for this game is borderline incomprehensible without prior knowledge of the previous two games or the lore of the rebooted timeline. Without familiarity of the previous games' stories, most mentions of Shinnok's death, Cassie's defeat of Shinnok, or Shinnok in general, will go over newcomers' heads. Mentions of other characters' deaths (Baraka, Mileena, Shao Kahn, etc.) will also be completely foreign to new players. The revenant characters, the existence of offspring from Jax and Johnny Cage, the Sub-Zero and Scorpion chapters, the entire story about the Cyber Lin Kuei, and Liu Kang and Raiden's conflict will hardly make sense to anyone who hasn't been following the franchise since MK9.
• Creepy Awesome: Shang Tsung's portrayal by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has been highly regarded by fans as one of the definitive portrayals. He's got a creepy demeanor to him in his cutscenes, yet his charisma tends to steal the spotlight. It arguably takes dialogues between him and Spawn to give him a run for his money. It also helps that Shang Tsung is willing to admit to failing twice, even to Shao Kahn, suggesting he's also formidable due accepting mistakes and not allowing pride to weaken his judgement.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • One of Johnny Cage's Fatalities is him trying to knock the head off of his opponent, but botches it, just unhinging the jaw. Cue a filming crew deciding to do a retake, which apparently goes up to 19, before Johnny gets the opponent's head stuck on his hand, throws it at the camera and flips the bird to it as well.
  • Johnny's other fatality is him digging his hand into the back of his opponent and kicking their lower half off. He then performs stand-up ventriloquism with the opponent's upper half as the dummy, complete with a mocking high pitched voice and awful pun:
    Opponent: Not what I meant by the splits!
  • One of Cassie Cage's fatalities is hilarious just from concept alone: kicking the opponent's crotch so hard that their skull and spine pop out of their bodies. The screen freezes in perfect timing to make it look like the skull is yelling in pain, even!
  • Cassie's other fatality has her kicking her opponent's heart out of their body, making a big hole in their chest. She proceeds to jam her hands in the chest sides to make a hand heart right where the missing heart was.
  • One of Jax's Fatalities is him playing baseball with the opponent, using their arm as the bat and their head as the ball. What pushes the finisher into this territory is the use of an organ to play the Charge fanfare.
  • The Joker personifies this trope. He clobbers his opponents with his own goons on wheelchairs, uses a pair of cartoonishly-large boxing glove guns, and shoots a gun sticking out of a Batman puppet, among other darkly humorous moves.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The Krypt features these in the literal sense, with giant fire-breathing spider enemies. They’re not too tough and will die in a single hit, but the hit must be timed perfectly; if you’re a fraction of a second too early or too late, You Are Already Dead. They’ll aggressively pursue you once they’ve caught sight of you, and more often than not they’ll see you before you see them, meaning that it’s very common to turn around and come face to face with one of them, with no time to react properly before you get incinerated. This is mitigated somewhat if you use the Vial of Protection konsumable, which renders you invisible to them and allows you to walk right up and kill them without any hassle. However, the konsumable only has a duration of about one minute, meaning that you’d better have a lot of them on hand if you’re planning on going anywhere near their areas. Not only that, but even if you do kill one of them, they respawn much too quickly, with some players reporting seeing them respawn mere moments after killing them.
  • There are also the spirits that attack the player on occasions upon donning Kenshi's blindfold. These, too, must be timed near perfectly, as they rush at the player moments after spawning, as well as making a very loud noise that is sure to scare them. Fortunately, unlike the spiders, they only spawn upon donning the blindfold, so once one appears and you kill it, you're safe until the next time you wear the blindfold.
• Disappointing Last Level: Kronika has received flak for her boss design as a final boss. Kronika can't crouch, or fall down. This means she can't be combo easily, which tends to be a big core pillar of the franchise. But these same traits mean she's immensely easy to cheese. Since she cannot crouch, projectile attacks completely wreck her. She's also easily stun locked by any short ranged move that hit stuns. It's often pointed out that when she leaves and summon other characters to fight, these characters tend to be more difficult to fight than she is.
• Dry Docking: Due to Kung Lao being more attractive than his previous iterations, Jade (his most popular female pairing) being paired with Kotal and the excessive dog-piling he gets in the story, his fans have taken it upon themselves to ship themselves (or their OCs) with him.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • This game marks the return of Mortal Kombat to Nintendo systems more than a decade after Armageddon was ported to the Wii. Naturally, given how relatively close the game launched after the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, fan speculation about whether or not the likes of Sub-Zero or Scorpion will make it into Smash as part of the Fighters Pass has become even more common.
  • Considering that Khameleon was an exclusive character for both Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the Nintendo 64 and Armageddon for the Wii, many people are expecting that she would do an appearance in this game as well.
  • With the story ending with the promise of another Continuity Reboot, many have speculated that this was done in order to allow Ed Boon to finally make his long desired Mortal Kombat game with a completely new cast of characters, as this is something he originally wanted to do following the release of Armageddon.
  • The ending may support the above bullet point, as Raiden's last words to Liu Kang is "Until we meet again, in the next timeline" and Liu Kang responds with "Then I will not say good-bye", indicating that we will see them again.
  • Sindel's retcon into being Evil All Along has people theorizing that her change had to do with either future plans for the character in a future game, or that her portrayal in the live-action movie reboot will involve her being a major villain. Her being secretly Evil All Along is a plot point in Aftermath.
• Estrogen Brigade: The game's redesigns for the male cast were rather... positively received. The three main fangirl (and boy) magnets of the cast are Kano, who bears a striking resemblance to Austin Aries, Kotal Kahn, whose Heroic Build is growing equally memetic due to taking roughly five levels in Hunk from his debut game, and Kung Lao, whose Awesome Ego and younger, more handsome and muscular look (not to mention him being Unintentionally Sympathetic) have gained him some fans.
• Fanon:
  • Kung Lao typically is written with self-esteem issues due to people constantly putting him down or comparing him to Liu Kang.
  • Mileena/Scorpion fans interpret the teddy bear Scorpion hugs in his Friendship as a giant-sized version of the teddy bear Mileena tried giving him in MK9.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Because of how unpopular Sindel being Evil All Along is, she is typically depicted in fan works as being Brainwashed and Crazy like she was originally written. Several fanfictions that have been known to follow this trend refer to the Sindel in them as 'Good' Sindel.
  • Don't be surprised if you see fan works depict Mileena with her MKX design instead of her more klassic look.
  • Due to how Mileena is often perceived by the fandom, her being Beyond Redemption is often removed and since this is a story about time-travel, she's often taken to the good guys' side (or at least becomes an Anti-Villain).
• Fan Nickname:
  • Because of YouTube heavily hitting uncensored videos, the Sea of Blood stage has been nicknamed the "Sea of Demonetization".
  • In the game's story mode, when some of the characters disappear after being covered by Kronika's sand, some players refer to them as being "Thanos-snapped".
  • Following the Aftermath DLC reveal, due to their lack of official title, the team-up of Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, and Fujin has been commonly referred to as the "Shang Gang". Another is "The DLC Squad".
  • "Time God Shang Tsung", for the look Shang Tsung gets once he puts on Kronika's crown, as a counterpart to Fire God Liu Kang.
  • The Krypt's main playable character was mostly referred to as the "Krypt Guy" and the like. Even with the reveal/usage of the Descendant of Apep, some people still use the moniker.
  • Kano has been given the moniker "Kane" by streamer Sikander555, with fans comically treating him as the ultimate villain of Kombat League.
  • "Twindel" for the NetherRealm timeline Sindel who turned out to be an Evil All Along character and a far cry of her original characterization. Basically, because a lot of fans refused to believe that the original timeline Sindel could be the same character and made headcanons that this is somehow an Evil Twin, despite NetherRealm already stating that it's a retcon.
  • Similarly, many fanfiction call Sindel (if she ever breaks out of her brainwashed state and goes back to being a Noble Mama Bear): 'Good' Sindel.
  • Sonya Blade in this game is often referred to as "Ronda" in reference to her voice actor's lacking performance and her moveset being especially stripped down compared to the rest of the cast to the point that she doesn't even feel like the real Sonya Blade.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite Mileena being paired up with Tanya, you're more likely to see Mileena paired up with Scorpion. This is due to her being his Distaff Counterpart and also they're both people who had rough lives who are vengeful towards the people they think ruined their lives (Sub-Zero and Kitana, also Distaff Counterparts). The fact there is intro dialogue between Rain and Mileena, that suggest Tanya was using Mileena doesn't help matters.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Dead or Alive 6. Their respective series are controversial for different reasons, but the two games are compared over their Tamer and Chaster female character designs. The former's reason is to allow the game to be played in the tournament scene, while the latter's is to be more "mature and respectful". Then there's EVO Japan's Core Values incident, which got both sides and other people arguing over Gorn being acceptable while Fanservice is perceived as offensive. Funnily enough, both games have also gotten flak for the large amount of real world money needed to buy every cosmetic item.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Joker being excited to fight Liu Kang, who mentioned not having any problem taking his life, becomes this as in Mortal Kombat 1 a mirror match between the latter would imply that... Let's just say that The Joker gave Liu Kang one bad day.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • The French "Christopher Lambert" ad starred the man himself playing as Raiden while happily admitting familiarity with him, and its been known that Raiden was a role that Lambert enjoyed playing in the movie. Thanks to the Movie Pack, he finally gets to play the Thunder God again, and in an official game no less.
  • In Kitana's Friendship, Mileena runs up to her, playing Pattie Cake, and gives her a hug. In Mortal Kombat 1, Mileena is her older twin sister, and the two has a sisterly love that never falters, even after her Tarkat infection takes hold of her appearance.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • Scorpion has again shot himself to this status, thanks to his Spear and Teleport moves making it all but impossible to keep away from him, while also being able to amplify both to start a combo up from any range. Due to Scorpion's smaller selection of moves this time around, expect both to be spammed constantly.
  • Erron Black is even more spam-happy than Scorpion, thanks to having a rifle that he can fire shot at after shot with that he can reload at will anytime his opponent is zoned out. Even worse are his slide and drop kick, with hit low and overhead respectively and have similar start-up animations, forcing players not paying close enough attention to guess which move he's going for or get hit. And if you guess wrong and block low, the drop kick is a Crushing Blow. It's a common tactic online to just spam these two moves endlessly to cheese rounds, causing many players to groan when they see their opponent pick Black.
  • Sub-Zero is considered this as well, while far from among the strongest characters in the game, players still dread facing against him online due to some very spammable moves. His ice slide is fast and hits low, and if amplified three times, triggers a damaging krushing blow. His overhead combo string is also very fast and hard to react to properly, which can result in some players trying to attack and then getting punished for it with another krushing blow. Just like Scorpion, because of the more limited moveset he has this time around, expect Sub-Zero players to make use of these two moves a lot.
  • Sheeva has undergone a severe case of this. While considered a very well-rounded and strong character in both casual and professional scenes, she has become a notorious Troll magnet online for the sole reason that her signature jumping stomp has become more powerful in the environment of 11's physics, attracting waves of players that solely spam the move with some unpredictability thrown into the mix. The move itself is so infamous it's garnered some flak even in professional play.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• I Knew It!:
  • Fans of Richard Epcar knew that a new Mortal Kombat installment was in development when he posted on social media back in the summer of 2018 that he was doing some voice recording at Warner Bros. This was all it took to know that the game was in development at a time when it wouldn't be officially announced for another few months.
  • Frost was a very popular guess as a playable character even before the leaks were revealed. Sure enough, she was the last officially revealed character in the game mere hours before the game was released.
  • Due to her lack of appearances in the trailers for story mode, many assumed that Present!Sonya would be killed off in the first chapter by sacrificing herself. They were right.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The Terminator being added was well received, but a fair number of people hate how he is basically just a retread of Jason from MKX, complete with the same Implacable Man type of gameplay, with the only thing that makes him truly unique being his Shotgun. Once players discovered his Endoskeleton move was just a worse version of Jason's "Killing Machine" ability, the complaints increased greatly.
• Jerkass Woobie: This game sheds a lot of sympathetic light towards Mileena and Rain.
  • Mileena's desire for affections and acceptance, especially that of Kitana's, is thrown into more detail here. As shown in her intros and ending, she wants to be loved and seen as more than just a monster. While this doesn’t excuse her crimes, it is quite saddening for people to reject her because she looks like a monster. It's even worse for Kitana, who not only rejects her for that too, but because she sees her as a perversion, a being created without her consent. There's also the fact that her two allies, Tanya (who was her lover) and Rain are no longer by her side as the former was caught and killed by Kotal and latter's plan to betray her was revealed. To twist the knife deeper, it's even implied that Tanya may have been planning to betray her too and she may have been conniving with Rain about that.
  • As noted above, Rain is incredibly disloyal and untrustworthy, but his Arcade Ending gives him some pity points when a secret of his past is revealed. He was the product of an extramarital affair between Argus and a mortal woman named Amara. To prevent his affair from being outed, Argus fooled Amara into thinking Rain was stillborn and gave him away before killing Amara himself. The revelation of this destroys Rain, and he immediately seeks out to murder Argus' sons Taven and Daegon in front of their mother as revenge for killing his mother and giving him away. Oh, and what did he want the most? The true story of his parentage. Not a throne to sit down on, a kingdom to rule, nor ultimate power. He wants all of those, but not nearly as much as he wants to know why he was conceived.
• LGBT Fanbase: The men of MK11 have been getting a lot of attention from gay/bi men on social media, due to the very attractive male facial models they used for the fighters. Kano especially has emerged as something of a fetish fuel station attendant. The number of partially and completely shirtless men also helps.
• Love to Hate: In the Aftermath expansion, Shang Tsung is more despicable and power-hungry than ever, but many fans consider him to be the best part of the expansion's story, with many admiring his creepily charming personality, cheesy smug grin, and Manipulative Bastard qualities. Being played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa certainly helps.
• Low-Tier Letdown: For a variety of reasons, Shao Kahn had long been unanimously seen as the single worst character in the game by a huge margin, bordering on Memetic Loser. In comparison with other initially negatively viewed characters such as Kollector and D'Vorah that eventually found success, Shao Kahn earned a spot for himself on every professional tier list as the absolute worst character with no competitive results whatsoever in the game's entire lifespan. It took until the very final balance update for his reputation to turn around, with his newly-improved combo options and higher damage finally lifting him out of bottom-tier status.

M-Z

• Memetic Badass:
  • Fire God Liu Kang, a being so badass that just after ten seconds he first appeared, he's been declared the most powerful kombatant Mortal Kombat has ever had. Aftermath shows that even he can outplay Shang Tsung in the manipulation category.
  • Shang Tsung has been seen in this light thanks to playing everyone like a fiddle during the Aftermath, including Shao Kahn, Sindel and Kronika. He can potentially even defeat fellow badass Fire God Liu Kang in one of the endings.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Kotal Kahn became one after his Kombat Kast accidentally showed Jacqui's reveal trailer instead of his own, resulting in him getting brutally dominated and killed by her in what was supposed to be his big showcase. His presence in Story Mode turns out just as badly for him, given how he is paralyzed by Shao Kahn halfway through and abdicates the throne to Kitana, sitting the rest of the story out. And in Aftermath, while he does play a part in the final battle this time, Shao Kahn easily bests him and he is decapitated offscreen.
  • Due to YouTube's heavy age restriction and demonetization of videos that feature the game's realistic blood and gore, many compilation videos of Fatal Blows and fatalities show them being performed on D'Vorah, whose blue blood seems to allow YouTubers to bypass this. This doubles as an unintentional Take That, Scrappy! for some.
  • Spawn and Robocop are common back-up choices to demonstrate finishers, although unlike D'Vorah above, it is mainly for their unique blood colors (green and black, respectively).
  • Due to the constant humiliation he suffers in his depiction this time around and absolutely abysmal state as a fighter even into 2020, fans regularly like to rag on Shao Kahn.
• Memetic Mutation: So many, so much, it has its own page.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The game provides potentially two examples for Kronika, depending on how you react to each scene. The first example comes midway through the story, when she approaches Present Jax after the death of his wife and manipulates him into joining her side. She specifically plays on his remorse over his years spent as a Revenant and his reluctance over seeing Jacqui enlist. However, as Jax eventually learns, Kronika is indirectly responsible for the time he spent as a Revenant. The second example comes near the end of the story, when any possibility that she wanted create a better world is thrown out the window when she has Cetrion turned into little more than Human Resources for some extra energy to help finish her plan.
  • Revenant Liu Kang in the penultimate act wields Shang Tsung's sorcerous arts to steal his past self's soul for a power boost. The shameless Evil Laugh he pulls while doing so simply underlines how far he's fallen in his quest for revenge. Raiden is horrified, even describing the act as a perversion of nature.
  • Frost kidnaps many of her former Lin Kuei comrades to forcibly transform them into robo-ninjas for Kronika's army and imposing her own will on them so they won't revolt. Frost deliberately did it to spite her former teacher for "abandoning" her and allying with the Shirai Ryu, something which she considers to be "an act of cowardice," when it was the other way around. When they notice what she has done, Raiden, Sub-Zero and Scorpion look visibly disgusted at what Sub-Zero's former pupil had become.
  • Sindel well and truly crosses it in this game. While in MK9, said character had the possible excuse of being brainwashed, this game establishes that it was all a lie, she was Evil All Along. It is when she murders Sheeva in cold blood, even after the latter went through a lot of trouble to bring her back is when said character becomes totally irredeemable with no turning back, and it all goes downhill from there.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The reaction many had to the triumphant returns of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung, Keith David as Spawn, Peter Weller as RoboCop, and Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, all bringing their badass voices to their iconic characters, resulting in their lines sounding much cooler than they already were. A RoboCop announcer pack was even released for those who never knew they wanted to hear Peter Weller announce their Fatalities!
• Narm:
  • The announcement trailer's use of a 21 Savage song, which many consider to be very unfitting for a Mortal Kombat trailer. Given the otherwise grim nature of the trailer, many people saw this as distracting.
  • Ronda Rousey's acting is so-and-so, but one of her Pre-Mortem One-Liner sounds a bit off, specifically "thanking" Kano for reminding her of the rules.
  • Jade and her Osh-Tekk warriors' attempt to sneak into the Tarkatan war camp, in which they just kind of run in as a group while barely making any attempts to hide or disguise themselves and get caught almost immediately because Jade blunders into a civilian woman. The multiple Tarkatans who completely fail to notice the large group of brightly painted, heavily armed warriors running around their camp make for a hilariously bad showing from both sides.
  • The moment in which Liu Kang briefly loses his faith and fights Raiden in Chapter 11 is supposed to be tense, but Liu Kang's "WHOOO!" sound right before the fight begins is more likely to make the moment lose any kind of seriousness than anything else.
  • The fact that Kronika can turn into Guest Fighters during story mode can lead to some truly ridiculous situations. It's hard to feel immersed in the narrative when the ultimate battle for the fate of existence turns out to be Liu Kang vs. RoboCop.
  • The sheer amount of Artistic License – Gun Safety in the game can be off-putting to some. While it’s expected for characters like Erron Black and the Joker, there is no excuse for trained soldiers such as Cassie Cage to be twirling her guns around while she’s loading it. This has been an issue in all Nether Realm Studios games, but it’s most present here.
  • In one of their intro dialogues, Rain says to Sub-Zero that only he can control the rain. Sub-Zero retorts with "when rain freezes, it becomes ice." It's obviously meant to sound like a cool Pre-Asskicking One-Liner, but the way such an obvious statement is delivered with such seriousness makes it sound silly.
  • Some of the taunts and animations look pretty badass, but at the same time, look abnormally goofy in certain stages, bordering on a Mind Screw, such as the Terminator's time bubble causing bits of paper and plastic cups to blow around in places like Outworld or the beginning of time itself. Or Erron Black shooting a bird out of the sky inside a Special Forces base or the beginning of time itself. Or Robocop coming to aid a human police officer... who is somehow trying to stop a crime at the beginning of time itself.
• Narm Charm:
  • Noob Saibot, for unknown reasons, sounds exactly like Dr. Claw in this game, even though he spoke relatively normally in MK9. This particular example is lampshaded by Erron Black. In spite of this, many fans have been noted to love his new voice. A lot of his dialogue is also comically edgy, with some lines literally sounding like they came from My Immortal:
    Noob: Welcome to my darkness world.
    Cetrion: May virtue's light guide me.
    Noob: Virtue? Everything is Evil!
  • Fire God Liu Kang sounds absolutely ridiculous because of how lazy the name seems but it doesn't stop people from labeling him as one of the biggest badasses in the franchise.
  • Mileena's Rolling Attack fatality where she turns into a bladed whirlwind of death that violently shreds her victim in two is rather gruesome and awesome in concept, but the visual of Mileena actually doing this is kind of ridiculous (in a fun way) once you see it in action. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who's seen it and didn't compare it to a much Bloodier and Gorier version of Sonic the Hedgehog's spin-dash.
  • In Shang Tsung's ending of Aftermath, he appears gargantuan to his minions, Raiden and Fujin. Seeing a gigantic Shang Tsung would seem ridiculous, but it doesn't detract from the horror of the ending.
  • Christopher Lambert's already raspy voice has somehow become pure sandpaper by the time of the Klassic Movie Skin Pack. Either you honestly start to worry about Lambert's health, or it sounds oddly appropriate for an impossibly old god of thunder whose very voice seems to crackle with electricity.
  • Young Johnny's relatively tame (if still crude) comment about "tapping" Sonya bringing an entire mission control center to a standstill can be a bit hard to take seriously, especially for real-life military or police veterans who may hear far worse jokes on a frequent basis. The scene only really works because of older Johnny's far more realistic reaction and the fact that older Sonya recently died.
• Nausea Fuel: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• No Yay:
  • The moment Kano meets his future self, the two start admiring each other in a way that feels like they're just about to make out on the floor of Kronika's Keep. Screw Yourself is in full effect here, doubly so for just how uncomfortable everyone else in the scene is.
  • Sindel and Shao Kahn are retconned to be consensual and in love, but a lot of people still found it gross, considering it's built on a retcon when she used to be in a forced marriage, the fact that Shao just calls her "Wife" like he's a caveman barely grasping English, and Sindel's own arcade ending just has her throw that subtext out the window and make him her slave. There's also the fact that he still had her revived under mind control, now for seemingly no reason, making him look a prick to his supposed lover too.
  • Skarlet is Shao Kahn's adopted daughter who, in the intro dialogue, also wants to be his wife and queen. Yeah, pass the Brain Bleach.
• Older Than They Think: A large majority of websites reporting the game's "Mercy" feature speak of it as if it were newly introduced in this game, when in fact it was first seen all the way back in MK3.
• Player Punch:
  • Sonya's Heroic Sacrifice in Chapter 1 of Story Mode. To rub salt in the wound even further, Kronika uses her powers to undo the damage the explosion did to Revenant Liu Kang's fortress. Sonya died for nothing.
  • Present Scorpion getting fatally poisoned by D'Vorah and dying in his past self's arms.
  • Finding Kenshi's body in the Krypt for those wondering why he isn't playable in this game. Even more so when it's reveal Shang Tsung took his soul after he died.
  • Almost as bad is witnessing Ermac's death in the Krypt when the entering the lower section of the pit for the first time only to see them suddenly fall from the upper lever and get impaled.
  • Remember two games ago, when you had to go through the pain of seeing several of your beloved heroes suffer because of Sindel? How would you like to relive that again, only this time, you're the one in control of her? As an added punch to the gut: this results in characters dying, being forced into slavery, being brutally crippled and, in the case of Kitana, breaking her heart as you beat her into submission and make her watch as her entire world falls apart with sadness in her eyes.
• Polished Port: Some longer loading times and a significant graphical downgrade aside, the Nintendo Switch version of the game actually functions really well gameplay-wise despite the less powerful hardware, and has the added benefit of portability going for it.
• Porting Disaster: Early reports of crashes and performance dips have surfaced for the PC version, almost as a repeat of the original release of MKX on the platform.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Ronda Rousey as Sonya is generally considered a bad choice, as her performance is very wooden and makes Sonya stand out like a sore thumb when interacting with other characters. It's very obvious that she's not used to voice work. Ronda retweeting Sandy Hook conspiracy theories only intensified this feeling.
  • The Dimitri Vegas costume for Sub-Zero. The costume itself isn't bad, but the voice acting is considered to be absolutely horrendous, to the point of making Rousey's voice performance look lively.
  • Chris Cox, the Terminator's voice actor. While many don't consider him a bad voice actor and he does a decent impression of the Terminator, some still wish that Arnold Schwarzenegger voiced him here instead. Cox being The Other Darrin to Arnie is justified given the latter was busy with Terminator: Dark Fate and even helped choose the former, but it is especially unfortunate as NRS managed to get Peter Weller for RoboCop, Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, and Keith David as Spawn, while Arnie did end up lending his own voice to another character of his, Dutch, in Predator: Hunting Grounds.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • While MK9 started out by fleshing out Liu Kang as a Broken Ace, it took this game to complete the transition. This game emphasizes much more his status as The Chosen One, with his past self being a very humble warrior who fights to the end despite knowing his fate. He provides an excellent contrast to the more egotistical fighters, and when history was about to repeat itself during a fight with Raiden, it instead causes them to reconcile and, much later, allow an awesome moment where Raiden sacrifices his godhood to make Liu Kang the new Protector of Earthrealm and Keeper of Time. Finally, his status as more of a Supporting Protagonist compared to the other games (where he is clearly The Protagonist) has also been received positively, as he doesn't bloat out much storytime from other characters as in the first four games.
  • Kotal Kahn is more of a base-breaker in this regard. While he had his fans in MKX, some people didn't appreciate his Blood Knight and Chronic Backstabbing Disorder tendencies, his hypocrisy, appeasing behavior Shinnok when he is freed, and tendency to grab the Idiot Ball. In this game, he has some very notable Character Development as he now recognizes his flaws as a leader, gives up the throne of Outworld, and sets out to do better. He is also given a very heartwarming relationship with Jade. Sadly, Shao Kahn kills him in Aftermath, more unfortunately offscreen until the moment they arrive to the Keep.
  • Skarlet was considered to be a somewhat one-note character in MK9, as she only appeared as a DLC character out of nowhere. Here, she is significantly more fleshed out, having a Freudian Excuse, an interesting new look, and a deeper, fascinating relationship with Shao Kahn.
• The Scrappy: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Brutalities have to be unlocked in the Krypt and Towers of Time in order to use them. Unlike Fatalities, which are doable as long as one knows their input commands and the required distance, Brutalities can't be performed even if you know the requisite commands unless they've been unlocked. While this was also the case in MKX, the Krypt had fixed locations where you could unlock them. MK11's random Krypt loot, periodically rotating Towers of Time, and grind-heavy Character Towers make unlocking all of the Brutalities an utter chore.
  • The fact the the entire game relies heavily on the servers in order to use most features and get rewards. While it's understandable why the online mode and Towers of Time require to usage of the servers, it gets ridiculous for these other modes. If you aren't connected to the servers when you play story, or Klassic Towers, or any mode, you get no rewards for doing so. Not to mention the fact you could lose your progress in the Klassic Towers if you disconnect and have no access to the Kyrpt with barely any justification for it. This is especially bad if you're playing on the Nintendo Switch while on the go, as you could travel to a place with no wireless, or have to put the game down for a while, which drops the connection.
  • While the game does include ping displayed during a match and labels for players using wireless or wired connections, online matchmaking offers no filters based on location nor connection speed despite being a common feature in other fighting games. This drew the ire of the competitive scene particularly with the launch of the initial season of Kombat League.
  • Many silver tiered players and up still found themselves matching up against bronze tiered players, leading to situations in which winning the match rewarded far fewer points than losing would take away. While this is a common issue within ranked modes in online fighters, the tier system this game includes was intended to prevent such an issue from happening when coupled with the large playerbase compared to others in its genre.
  • Breakaway has been a point of contention since launch, with the main complaint being that the mechanic is too powerful of a reversal, especially if the attacker is stuck in a combo string when the breakaway happens. Even if the attacker anticipates a breakaway, the most they could hope for is a down+2 (or other similarly damaging single hit) or the situational Fatal Blow, which breaks armor. This is in contrast to other fighting games with a similar mechanic (e.g. Guilty Gear and its Burst system, or even some of the older MK games) which knocks the attacker a fair distance away and resets the neutral game, keeping it fair for both sides. The developers added universal armor breaking moves in Aftermath to address these criticisms, an idea they first tested with Spawn. Not all of these moves do the same thing — Scorpion, for example, gets a launcher with his while Sub-Zero's is a damaging Krushing Blow with hard knockdown and corner carry — but they're generally designed to be an easier and more effective response to breakaways. Over time, criticism also began to extend to its usage as a defensive move, as activating it requires the character to be in the air. This ends up making Breakaway a significantly less consistent defensive option as some characters can pull off meaty combos without letting the opponent's feet leave the floor while others can't even get their bread and butter combos started without a popup. Fighters like Jaqui and Johnny Cage end up having more-or-less unbreakable ground combos for days while characters like Skarlet and Sindel are left in the cold. A lot of players were left longing for the old fashioned Breaker, which Mortal Kombat 1 ended up returning to.
  • Fatal Blows make their debut in this game as a Comeback Mechanic (as well as a cinematic quasi-Limit Break to supplant X-Ray Moves), but they've been criticized for a few reasons: while they're only able to be pulled off once per game and can technically be whiffed or blocked by the opponent — with the balance hinging them around requiring a calculated risk for potentially high reward — their startup is fast and grants armor during most of it, making it very difficult for the opponent to actually punish someone using a Fatal Blow. Additionally, even if a Fatal Blow is unsuccessful, all the player has to do is wait between 5-10 seconds and try again, and considering it costs no meter, it will almost always be an option that their opponent must account for at all times once it's available. Combined with the oft-criticized Overly Long Fighting Animations, Fatal Blows ultimately slow down the pace of gameplay pretty dramatically.
  • Armor Breakers themselves get this to a lesser extent, due to how much they can vary in usefulness from character to character. Most characters either get to continue the combo after an armor breaker, or get a highly-damaging krushing blow, but a few others get very little aside from a little extra damage. For example, Sonya's Forward 3 is slow, weak, and a hard knockdown, ending your combo immediately; this means that you are actually better off not using it at all, and instead just uppercutting the opponent because that will deal more damage even without being able to break armor. Some armor breakers (such as Kotal Kahn, Baraka, and Spawn) are also variation specific, either requiring you to equip them, or to not equip any moves that would replace them, which can limit your choices significantly in making a variation.
  • You can buy Frost as DLC, even though you can also unlock her by playing through an early part of the story mode. The Steam store reviews of her DLC page are overwhelmingly negative, with some outright calling it a scam.
  • Linking to the mobile game has been a scrappy mechanic since the predecessor. However, it is discovered to be worse as if you link the wrong accounts by accident, you are unable to fix the mistake at all without deleting your data. Hope you didn't make too much progress in the console game or plan on keeping the app.
• Shocking Moments: The launch trailer, and the final Story Mode chapter for those who missed it, has one right at the end: Liu Kang fused with Raiden's powers, and established in the story as a Fire and Thunder God. It was a jaw-dropping reveal that people did not see coming.
• Signature Scene: Raiden realising that he and Liu Kang have been manipulated into fighting against each other, not just here but in every conceivable version of events, all set to ominous organ music and a rolling montage of their battles in previous games and erased timelines.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • As detailed below under Visual Effects of Awesome, the gore is frighteningly realistic. However, Jax's "Still Got It" Fatality^note In which he rips off the victim's arm, uppercuts their head into the air, then uses the severed arm to hit the head like a baseball as it descends sticks out like a sore thumb, as the final hit instantly knocks off all of the flesh from the victim's head in a single patch of skin that both lacks any semblance of facial features and is clearly too small to have been able to cover their entire skull. The victim's eyes and tongue also seem to mysteriously vanish, leaving behind a mostly pristine, if bloody, skull. Given that this fatality is already rather goofy, what with the impromptu baseball jingle and stadium cheering, this may have been a case of Stylistic Suck.
  • Characters and skins with long hair (Cassie and Cetrion being the most glaring examples due to having long hair with their default skins) often lose most of their hair when on the receiving ends of Fatalities that involve their decapitation. In some cases, it can be justified by the hair possibly being cut off in the process (such as Scorpion's "You're Next" and Kitana's "Royal Execution"), but others (such as Shao Kahn's "Back Blown Out" and Liu Kang's "Belly of the Beast") have no such justification.
  • Shang Tsung's normal/default intro has him enter the screen looking like whoever he is fighting before turning into himself. It looks cool but there is a noticeable problem with the models not matching up. On characters roughly his build and height like Johnny Cage, it's a seamless transformation, but on characters taller or shorter than him, he either growths or shrinks when he turns into himself, causing his face to awkwardly emerge from either on the previous characters body, or just out of thin air.
• Spiritual Successor: The Terminator shares more than a few gameplay mechanics with Jason, having similar normals and grapple-heavy specials. Variations also grant both characters a teleport, super armor in exchange for some mobility, and a resurrection ability. It helps that in its debut, the Terminator was a sci-fi flavored slasher villain.
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • In Aftermath, Sindel is revealed to be Evil All Along. Under normal circumstances, this plot twist would be shocking. However, Sindel's true nature had already been revealed via promotional material and her release as a playable character prior to Aftermath's release, which sucked out the shock of said twist.
  • Frost's presence in the story is built up to as a surprise with her being cloaked, in shadows and out of heavy focus up until the moment of her reveal along with not being part of the default cast. All of this buildup is shattered before it even gets the chance to build up however due to the game not only offering a DLC unlock for her but also giving you a pop-up ad for the DLC in the main menu, potentially as soon as when you first fire up the game.
• Squick:
  • Kano's Ladder ending has Sonya and Cassie dressed in Stripperiffic outfits in a cage battle for his pleasure. Given they're mother and daughter while Kano is omnipotent, the No Yay, and Fan Disservice is high in this one.
  • Kollector's default win pose is him kidnapping the defeated opponent. This gets infinitely worse when many intros have him say that he has plans for slavery and dissection in mind when he wins.
  • One of Frost intros can be disturbing to some, as it shows her head and spine attaching into her cybernetic body.
  • Kano's default opening for a fight is peeing on the stage, which he’ll also do after inflicting a Brutality. It can get very monotonous when playing his Tower Challenge.
  • One of the Joker's intros has him cut his finger to draw blood and paint a smile on his face with it. It certainly can unsettle some people.
  • One of D'Vorah's intros has her carrying a large maggot, then opening her abdominal area in half to insert said maggot into her body.
  • The past Johnny Cage mentioning he would "tap that" to the past Sonya... right in front of the present Johnny Cage, Sonya, Cassie Cage, and others. It was embarrassing enough to get the present Johnny Cage to yell "OUT!" and pull his ear.
  • Speaking of Johnny Cage, there is a pre-battle quote that involves present Johnny Cage saying "What's cookin' good lookin'?" to Cassie Cage, only to realize what he just said.
• Strangled by the Red String: Jade's almost entirely defined by her relationship with Kotal Kahn, which was never mentioned before. She even manages to forgive him for attempting to commit genocide on the Tarkatan race.
• Strawman Has a Point: Raiden's paranoia about Past Scorpion and (in Aftermath) Shang Tsung is treated as a sign that he's falling into the same destructive mindset that defined Dark Raiden, but in both cases, it's hard to argue that his distrust is unwarranted: Scorpion had been working for Kronika, admitted that his future self was dead, and by his own admission, brought no proof of his goodwill outside of his word (which he had previously broken to Raiden by killing Bi-Han), so it's really not surprising that Raiden, especially under the strain of fighting Kronika, would be less than willing to trust him. His treatment of Shang Tsung is, if anything, even more justifiable, as the sorcerer is a perpetual backstabber who lies practically every time he breathes, even putting aside his sudden but inevitable betrayal later in the story.
• Stress-Relieving Gameplay: Just like with Freddy in MK9 and Jason, Leatherface, Alien, and Predator in MKX, you can finally pay the Joker back for everything he's done both in the proper comics and in the Injustice series. Doubly so for the fans who had been waiting since the last time Joker was in Mortal Kombat to perform non-watered down fatalities on him. You can also perform some of the series' most violent and painful fatalities on Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, Sindel, and D'Vorah.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • The reveal that the female designs were going to be Tamer and Chaster, which continued the trend from MKX. This was heavily discussed, especially in light of some developer statements regarding design realism.
  • Mileena's exclusion from the roster annoyed many fans. The reveal of Kitana showed that she was given her sai and some of her moves, like her teleport kick.
  • The revelation via a PC Gamer article that NetherRealm put their employees under horrible crunch time and paid them dismal wages for years has led to a massive backlash for the company as a whole. Some have also noted that their statements on why the female designs are Tamer and Chaster are hypocritical due to the allegations that they treated their female employees like garbage alongside said crunch time. Further criticism followed when employee complaints of the mental toll taken on them from extended viewing of reference material for the game's gore effects surfaced.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Hsu Hao, being a character who's not well-liked by fans and despised by the creators, has a few of these.
    • One of Erron's intro animations has him present Hsu Hao's head.
    • One of Fujin's intro dialogues with Kano has the former compare Hsu Hao to the latter:
      Fujin: There is nothing here for you. Begone.
      Kano: Rack off, Raiden Lite.
      Fujin: Have it your way, Hsu Hao.
    • Surprisingly enough, this actually gets subverted with Joker's arcade ending where he forms a new squad. Considering that Hsu Hao is put next to the likes of Havik and Mileena, that's a pretty high accomplishment for him.
  • Sindel was hated when this game retconned her into being Evil All Along, so it's satisfying to see her not only be outplayed by Shang Tsung in Aftermath, but have her soul stolen and reduced to a lifeless husk.
  • An tower consumable named Kobra's Gloves has a description that says your blows will suck. In context it means that each hit will force an opponent to come closer to you, but the wording made it clear that this is a jab at Kobra.
  • According to the Krypt, Drahmin escaped the Netherrealm and tried to return to Shao Kahn as his loyal enforcer. Instead, he was unwelcomed in Outworld and was unceremoniously killed off by Shao Kahn.
  • Now that Mileena is in the game, players can make her get revenge on D'Vorah in the most brutal ways possible.
• That One Level:
  • The Tower known as "Arkham's Best". Think fighting the Joker is bad? How about fighting five other opponents before him?
  • One of the toughest towers is named "The Mightiest Test", and it certainly lives up to its name. The gimmick is you face a Terminator who can only get stronger if you jump, but the floor will occasionally be electrocuted, forcing you to jump and making the Terminator stronger. It doesn’t help that he also has a huge amount of health- or that this exact tower is repeated for the "Twitch Rivals" towers' final battle.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Players who enjoyed the fast-paced combo-oriented gameplay of the previous two games have expressed dissatisfaction with the switch to a more pressure oriented style.
  • Tricia Helfer being replaced with Ronda Rousey as Sonya Blade, a casting change that is considered a step down and controversial thanks to Ronda Rousey's polarizing image.
  • Quite a few fans have expressed disappointment at the fact that Raiden no longer yells his famous gibberish when performing his Electric Fly move.
  • A press release revealed Sindel's bio, which revealed that she was retconned from a tragic character to a evil, power hungry dominatrix. Many fans expressed anger at NetherRealm for the massively negative change in her character. Her arcade ending flat out retcons it as well into being that she lied to both her people and Kitana about the situation, which made things worse for fans as what was once a tragic Anti-Villain was now a Hate Sink who married Shao Kahn to save herself and tries to seduce everyone with no characterization beyond that. One could think that this is an Adaptational Villainy case where the writers tried to justify on how Sindel could murder the majority of the heroes without remorse in MK9 without treading the past timeline where she was much more sympathetic, but because they didn't address the fact her death in Mortal Kombat 9 created a barrier that prevented Shao Kahn from invading, it comes across as a lazy attempt. A writer later admitted that the retcon came more from not wanting to keep her "tragic abused trophy wife" backstory, and believes that making her an Evil All Along Visionary Villain makes her a more interesting character, but it's widely seen as backfiring. This new characterization was cemented in the Aftermath expansion as she's reveals herself as a major antagonist during the story.
  • Many players felt this way about Geras' blood going from blue to the generic red, as many felt his Alien Blood would've made his gore stand out more among a cast of red-blooded characters. It also would've helped show off Fatalities on YouTube.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Outside of Frost, none of the characters introduced in Deadly Alliance and Deception were brought back for this game.
  • The Stinger of MKX sets up hints that Raiden (now as Dark Raiden) was straying towards becoming a Knight Templar, building him up as a possible secondary antagonist for the next game, and this game's prologue starts out with him being uncharacteristically callous and obsessed with destroying Netherrealm. He ends up as an Advertised Extra who gets erased when the time periods are merged, thus nothing comes of it after the younger Raiden is brought into the timeline, apart from him expressing nervousness over the possibility.
  • Despite the new Shirai Ryu received much shilling from Hanzo and a major driving force behind Scorpion's Heel–Face Turn none of them (not even Takeda) appeared.
  • The older Erron Black fights for Kotal's forces, but has no lines whatsoever and less than 30 seconds of screentime. All the focus is on his villainous younger self. The Aftermath expansion gives him more time on-screen, but he still disappears after his fight with Sheeva.
  • The Kollector appears in Chapter 2 as Shao Kahn's previous greed-driven tribute collector, ready to be executed by Kotal Kahn. After the time merger, nothing else about his backstory with Shao Kahn comes after that; it doesn't help that, unlike Skarlet who was portrayed with a deeper backstory with Shao Kahn, Kollector's character is only comprised of his greed. His lack of involvement in the story is often seen as a wasted character slot as many find that he would have been better as a generic NPC.
  • Shinnok is reduced to just a head, but he's still around on an altar in the Bone Temple. For that matter, his amulet is still in Raiden's possession. However, once the intro ends Shinnok plays no role in the unfolding story, and the corruption of Shinnok's amulet means Raiden avoids using it for most of the story and when he eventually does, it's very briefly.
  • Ermac is an unusual case, less to do with plot and more of implementation in the game itself. Unlike other characters who were revealed to have died offscreen in the Krypt, Ermac is not only shown dying on-screen, he's also sporting a new and significantly different design to any previous version of his character. When compared to the likes of Reptile (who shares the same amount of screentime in the Krypt to confirm that he's alive, but still recycling his MKX model), it makes you wonder what happened that led to NRS going through the work of redesigning and modelling Ermac, only for him to not even be part of the roster.
  • The previous game heavily setup Cassie as the new hero of the story, with implications of her being the main character going forward being clear by the end of the game. Although Cassie is still treated with importance here, she's far less used here compared to X, with Liu Kang and Raiden being the main characters from as soon as their past selves enter the scene. She's also referred to constantly as Raiden's new "Chosen One", which is almost never used in the story at all.
  • Kabal makes a return as an angry Revenant that does nothing memorable, and while he has a past counterpart, he still serves the Black Dragon rather than being the reformed cop from 9. Considering Kabal was very different in life, the fact he shows up as a jobber displeased quite some fans.
  • Bi-Han, as Noob Saibot, has it worse than Kabal. Though he returns in his wraith form, he doesn't get a "past Sub-Zero" counterpart to contrast with. Noob only appears in two scenes in the base game, one opposing Scorpion and Sub-Zero and the other ambushing past Jax and Jacqui, ending up as a jobber in both and the former scene only establishing his mutual hate for his old nemesis and younger brother. As seen in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot below, many fans fans lamented the lack of a conclusion to Hanzo's and Bi-Han's rivalry in life.
  • While Mileena was eventually added to the game as a DLC character, plenty of fans wished she was part of the roster from the beginning so she could be part of the story. Since time travel is a major element of this game, many fans think she could have been redeemed (whether as a hero or Anti-Villain), especially since it's shown that she just wants to be loved (as shown in her Arcade Ending, where she spares everyone other than Kitana).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many of the Arcade endings of MKX were clearly meant to foreshadow future events and characters (as some were set after the events of Story Mode). However, due to the change of writers and direction of the story, none were used/acknowledged in the story.
  • The fact that the story ends with the timeline erased, erases (no pun intended) any interesting future stories it could had with the post-timeskip characters.
  • The rivalry between Scorpion and Noob Saibot is barely mentioned during Story Mode, save for an optional bunch of lines when choosing the former to fight the latter at both Scorpion's and Sub-Zero's chapter. During Scorpion's solo chapter, D'Vorah is the one who gets the final shot on Hanzo before disappearing before his revenant counterpart kills her. Many fans have pointed out that Bi-Han could have appeared instead and be the one to kill Hanzo, serving as the embodiment of the latter's biggest mistake coming back to bite him; having seen where his path of vengeance could end, this could've also added more motivation for the revenant Scorpion's Heel–Face Turn, avenging his future counterpart and starting his path to redemption. Instead, their rivalry is left without a conclusion and Hanzo's death only contributes to D'Vorah's hated status (intentionally or not); it doesn't help that their rivalry does get a mention on an intro with Bi-Han and D'Vorah, where the former attacks the latter because he did want to be the one who ended Hanzo's life.
  • Though Mileena eventually returned in the DLC, many fans were disappointed in her lack of involvement in the story, given Kitana's major role. On that topic, in MK9, Kitana displays Fantastic Racism when she calls Mileena an abomination and refuses to acknowledge her as family even when she hasn't done anything yet; some people lameneted that Kitana could have gone back in time to rectify this and bring her to her side.
  • Takeda and Kung Jin never once appear and are only mentioned in pre-match dialogue int
  • Taven, the protagonist of Armageddon, is freed in Takeda's MKX arcade ending, leading many to believe that he would play a role in the next game. However, he's never mentioned in the game and neither the prophecy of Armageddon or Blaze play a part in the story outside of a flashback where Dark Raiden and Zombie Liu Kang fight each other in the Pyramid of Argus.
  • Takeda and Kung Jin disappear from the roster despite the previous game setting them up to be as important as both Cassie and Jaqui in terms of importance. While Kung Jin was a Base-Breaking Character, Takeda was one of the more popular characters introduced in X.
  • A major plot point of MKX is the heroes' attempts to restore the revenants of Liu Kang, Kitana, Kung Lao, etc. back to life after Raiden accidentally restored Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Jax. While Quan Chi's death and Shinnok's decapitation at the hands of Dark Raiden seemingly made this impossible without the time merger, it still would have been interesting to the see the older characters try to find a new way to restore the souls of the revenants. In particular, this easily would have given all the Revenants a motive for following Kronika rather than the game's vague reasons for them doing so, but it never gets addressed.
  • The fact that Kronika can pull people from different timelines is only used to justify past versions of the characters appearing in the story, and nothing about this idea is used more than that, nor is the reasons he did so even explained. While some intros do bring up examples of the alternate selves meeting, this never is used in the main story, and Kronika for some reason only ever pulls people from a specific point in time for no stated reason.
  • Various Arcade endings imply or outright state that Kronika's attempt to change time was born out of a genuine desire to help people, but she slowly went mad as a result of how difficult the process was. This not only gives her a layer of depth and tragedy that previous main villains lacked, but it also makes her more intimidating since the fact she did so anyway shows how focused she is on her path. Despite this, the main story never once uses this plot point at all to try and make Kronika's actions more sympathetic, and instead she comes across as just as evil as previous Mortal Kombat main villains.
  • Many fans feel Jax's ending, which involves ending slavery, would be a better fit for Geras, who is essentially a black slave to Kronika.
  • Despite the fact that Terminator's intros reference Schwarzenegger's filmography while Joker's references other DC characters, there's not a single reference to Mr. Freeze between either of them.
  • Despite his appearance in the trailer, Shinnok is nowhere to be seen. It would have been interesting to see him interact with Kronika and Cetrion, given the former's role in shaping his role and the latter's Sibling Yin-Yang relationship with him.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: No Mortal Kombat story is a picnic, but Aftermath takes things to the next level, presenting a far darker timeline where almost all the heroes all end up dead or maimed, their plans to oppose Kronika ending in total failure. Even worse, the player is the one controlling the primary three villains and making it all happen. The only saving grace is Fire God Liu Kang suddenly appearing at the end of the story to reset the timeline...unless you choose to fight against him, which results in Shang Tsung ruling the universe as an evil dictator for all eternity.
  • The game's story in general is often criticized for how depressing it comes off feeling with deaths for popular characters around every corner, incomprehensible twists that come out of left field, and a Big Bad that pushes the omnipresent Evil Only Has to Win Once aspect of the series so harshly into the forefront that it ends up making the whole effort feel a lot more tiring than it intends to be.
• Too Cool to Live: Granted, he doesn't die, but Johnny Cage (his present self at least) was so damn awesome in his chapter, they had to bench him by shooting him in the leg.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Possibly because of the Art Evolution, the faces of the characters don't have the same stylization as previous games, giving them a somewhat unsettling detail. Characters like Sonya and Johnny also look legitimately aged, ^note MKX went somewhat light on the aging features for their older characters with details like furrows and crow's feet.
  • A patch has allowed Kabal's Screamer Brutality to be uncensored and the results show cartoony eyes popping out, making it look completely freaky.
• Underused Game Mechanic: The game has mechanics that allow players to tag in and out of matches and call other fighters in for assist attacks... and both are exclusive to the Towers of Time mode. Players hoping for the two-on-two matches from MK9 to make a comeback are in for a disappointment.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Skarlet's return is met with some of this, considering that prior to her reveal, she was only a DLC fighter in MK9 and a minor character in the comics.
  • Despite NetherRealm's stance on Hsu Hao, fans have spotted him making a cameo in the club stage.
  • More like unexpected name drop, but infamously unpopular Joke Character Mokap has his name referenced on a number of Gear items such as one of Cassie's pistols and as the owner of the mocha company Cassie gets her drink from in an intro. He even makes a larger cameo as one of the people Cassie can text with in her fourth intro.
  • While a popular choice as a returning character, the fact that Frost makes her return as a cyborg threw everyone off.
  • Fire God Liu Kang, a character from the What If? Arcade epilogues of MK9, becomes a Canon Immigrant and 11th-Hour Ranger in Story Mode.
  • Nobody was expecting Kabal to marry Sareena in his arcade ending, who has usually been granted Ship Tease with both Sub-Zeroes and has no history with him otherwise. The closest connection to this would be Sareena's alliance with the Special Forces (Jax and Kenshi) against the revenants in the Netherrealm, but not even that scratches the surface.
  • Gemini, No Face and Tasia from Mortal Kombat: Special Forces are among the many characters to have assists dedicated to them, making this the first time their existence has been acknowledged by the main games. Special mention goes to No Face, as the comics relating to the series have also refused to use him, unlike the other two.
  • Hydro from the Malibu comics appears as an assist, despite having never appeared in the games.
  • Meat appears as an assist, making his first appearance since Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.
  • Two trade items in the Krypt are mentioned to belong to Jarek, who also hadn’t been mentioned in the games since Armageddon, bar an appearance in the comics for X.
  • Havik, Hsu Hao, and Mileena (as well as Hotaru, who gets killed) make cameos in The Joker's arcade ending as members of his new squad.
  • While it was well known that there would be guest characters in the second wave of DLC fighters, no one expected RoboCop to appear in the game. Even more unexpected being Peter Weller reprising the role.
  • There's another wave of characters! And the Guest character there is... John Rambo?? In a MK game??
  • The Great Kung Lao finally makes a physical appearance in a Mortal Kombat game.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Kung Lao is similar to Johnny Cage in that while it's intended for the dog-piling he gets to be deserved, many disagree and feel bad for how he constantly gets insulted and compared to Liu Kang.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Past Sonya is told her future self performed a Heroic Sacrifice on a mission. She then reads part of the report and suddenly thinks Cassie abandoned her. Not only did she not bother to read the full report before assuming the worst of her own future daughter, but she seems to have completely forgotten that Cassie explicitly told her Present Sonya gave her life for the mission. The fact that this misunderstanding doesn't impact anything in the story and yet it is given focus as a character arc didn't really charm a lot of people.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The announcement trailer has beautiful and detailed visual effects thanks to the now even much more modified Unreal Engine 3.
  • All of the Fatal Blows look equally awesome and gruesome, despite not showing internal organs like X-Rays, which they overtook as super moves.
  • The fatalities have taken a cue from Injustice 2's end-of-match win poses: instead of ending with the opponent falling over dead, they end with a freeze-frame slo-mo right after the coolest part of the fatality, letting you see the damage in depth. It's a welcome change.
  • The gore is so realistic, YouTube's automated content filters actually mistake it for real blood, causing much annoyance to YouTubers who have their videos containing footage of the game demonetized and age-restricted.
  • Taking a page from Injustice 2, the facial animations for the characters in cutscenes, fatalities, and pre-fight banter are amazing.
• The Woobie: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • Skarlet's default costume is this for some. While many fans were eager to see Skarlet return as a part of the main roster, it is doubtful they were wanting her to come back looking like a mix between Lawrence of Arabia and Amelia Earhart. For many it comes across as looking silly, out of character, and as if NetherRealm was trying way too hard to compensate for her Stripperiffic design from MK9.
  • Cassie's skins were criticized for consisting nearly entirely of military-style flight suits. Though it makes sense for her to have such outfits, given that she's a Military Brat, her fans also expressed disappointment at the lack of more casual clothing options, which she had in MKX, which could highlight the "rebellious teen" aspect of her character. Even Jacqui here noticeably has her don a modified ballgown to serve as a change of pace from her usual military fatigues. This would be addressed when Cassie got new outfits via DLC.
  • The female outfits in general are this for many fans. Ignoring the Tamer and Chaster design philosophy, there are those who feel that the costumes the female characters have are overall too samey and generic, especially in comparison to the male costumes.
  • Joker's appearance in the Kombat Pack trailer raised more than a few eyebrows among fans, with many saying he looked much too young and handsome to come across as a credible interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime and came across as someone cosplaying as the Joker instead. However, some believe this is Truer to the Text compared to Injustice 2's version of the Joker, in that this one wears the usual Badass Longcoat with an undershirt compared to just the former. These concerns were alleviated following his teaser at the Game Awards, where his in-game face was shown to look far closer to his comic book counterpart.
  • Jacqui's Female Spawn skin is outright hated for the Unintentional Uncanny Valley it invokes. The model itself is great, but her face is still animated like normal, unlike Spawn who has no lips. The result is a very unnerving face and model combination that people quickly turned against because of how just off it looked.

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