
With Mortal Kombat 11 launching earlier this week, the franchise has reached a new zenith. The last few instalments have made great strides in terms of mechanics, as the series has come to transcend its reputation as "the fighting game with all the gore" to become a damn good game in its own right.
While sister franchise Injustice has no doubt allowed Ed Boon and the team at NetherRealm Studios to flex their combat design free of the expected glut of dismemberment and decapitation, that series has rubbed off on the now 27-year-old Mortal Kombat series. Injustice 2 added a loot system which allowed customisation of the DC roster of superheroes and supervillains, making each unique to the player. While there were some concerns that this system was too overpowered in multiplayer battles, the stat bonuses present in Injustice 2 would not be a part of Mortal Kombat 11 outside of the Challenge Towers (more on those later).
In an interview with Game Informer in April of 2019, less than a month before the game's release, Ed Boon stated explicitly that there are no loot boxes. As it turns out, semantics are very important in this statement.
Mortal Kombat 11 has not launched with any loot boxes that can be purchased with real money, but the game is absolutely stuffed with dozens of them that must be opened with in-game currency. On paper, unlocking things with currency earned from simply playing the game is no issue at all. Unfortunately, in this case, these boxes are randomised, designed to keep players returning again and again to spend their Koins (or one of the other convoluted currencies) in order to open boxes in the hope that something inside is worth working towards.
These storage boxes (which are definitely not loot boxes) are found in the Krypt, a surprisingly large area which can be explored in third-person. A lot of work has clearly gone into the area, as it's filled with hundreds of nods to the franchise's storied history. Unfortunately, it also offers a glimpse into games in 2019.
Of the hundreds of chests to open, many have arbitrary currency requirements. One box may cost twice the amount of another, but for seemingly no reason. While Koins are easy to come by, some other methods of opening the boxes seem haphazardly doled out at random. Once you've opened every chest in an area, you can use a Time Crystal (a microtransaction) to essentially restore all open chests with more randomly stuffed loot. (A brief note: during our review process, as we noted, there were no micro-transactions available in the PlayStation store.)
If every chest opened was allowing for a new skin or fatality, things would be different, but the loot pool is diluted to the point of being comical. It's easy to spend all of your Koins in the Krypt and come away with reams of concept art and a handful of consumables.
These consumables are designed to help you navigate the game's Challenge Towers, gauntlets against overwhelming odds. Some fights are impossible without using a consumable to boost your damage, for example, but those without that item will be forced to grind away in another game mode to earn enough currency to open a crate that may have said consumable inside. Thankfully, consumables only apply to these Towers, but their inclusion feels disappointing to say the least.
While consumables may be endemic of a problem with the game's balancing, all other items are cosmetic and range from the pointless (name cards for online battles) to the fan-pleasing costume choices for series favourites and new fatalities.
Player mileage will always vary with cosmetics, but for a fan of the franchise such as myself, I feel disheartened to grind constantly so that I can pit retro renditions of Sub Zero and Scorpion together. With the game's story feeling like fan-service, the Krypt feels like anything but, turning a celebration of the franchise into a slog by holding nostalgia hostage behind a paywall.
Thankfully, it seems NetherRealm is listening. Ed Boon tweeted that fixes are incoming. If Mortal Kombat 11 truly is to be supported by the developer long into the future, then this is a huge step in the right direction.
My argument would be to distill the number of currencies, and boost the drop rate of items such as skins and fatalities. There's no harm in keeping items like concept art in there as a bonus, but items that actually feature in gameplay terms should be there first and foremost.
Arguably, this is the biggest shame of Mortal Kombat 11. The story mode is a blast, the fighting has never felt better (or more unique), and despite some disappointing roster omissions, it seems to be stacked with content. Here's hoping that with some tweaks, Mortal Kombat 11 can save itself from an embarrassingly self-inflicted fatality.
Are you playing Mortal Kombat 11 yet? What changes would you like to see made to the game's economy? Get over here and have your say in the comments below.
Comments (19)
It's bloody sad that it's come to this because the rest of the game is great. If they stuck with the Injustice 2 system that would have been fine. Tbh it's in all likelihood that it's WB's fault and NRS are just doing what they were told. You'd think after Shadow of War they would have got the message.
Here’s an idea. Developers stay away from anything that could remotely considered a loot box in any form and just make a good game.
Love how developers keep testing the water with stuff like this, then acting like they're all nice and thoughtful by going "we're listening, we're going to tweak it".
Maybe just don't do it in the first place?
Yeah, pretty sure it's wb doing since there's a clear pattern throughout all of their releases.
Similar to what Dead or Alive 6 did with their whack way of unlocking costumes. Along with their outrageous season pass price. Also not launching online lobbies. Hopefully these developers will get it right someday.
At the end of the day it’s about money for WB and I bet they will make more with a few Mikrotransaktions in the mix than they will from an extra point in a PushSquare review. Just the way it is unfortunately.
Glad they are changing it. I’ve preordered. I want the retro skins and only play solo modes. I hate games that make you grind and cheap you out with loot boxes/card packs. I love NBA playgrounds 2 (I know I know) and I’ve sunk 40+ hours into it but I’m miles off unlocking all the cards coz 3 of the four player cards are always dupes. It’s just cheap - I can pay £7 to unlock it all but I wanna just play and be rewarded fairly.
Everyone talks about EA and Activision but everyone forgets that the WB are the worst when it comes to lootboxes. Miles worse than the rest.
Someone did the maths on this over on Reddit, and it worked out at something like $6400 to buy the entire clothing collection.
https://old.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/bguuzb/in_mk11_it_will_cost_you_6440_to_buy_every_skin/
@Cassetticons Fifa and Madden are pay 2 win. Fact. That's as bad.
Warner bros are awful though.
MicroTransactions need to go. When you buy a game you should be given an option to support a game through an expansion later down the line or have some kind of kick starter early doors with gated additions so everyone gets the extras. Contrary to that it is all bs at the moment, testing the water with money grabbing crap and nerfing progression in single player modes. Withholding levels with super duper digital version etc etc. This has never been console gaming.
Free or not it's just a very poor and lazy system that in no way makes a game rewarding to play and generally just flat out discourages people from playing. I was quite interested in this game but after reading about how it handles unlockables I have no interest I'm buying it anymore. Life is too short and my time is far too valuable to spend it grinding in the hope I may get something useful to me
Ed Boon is yet another gaming personality who can't be trusted. The short list shrinks ever more.
@AdamNovice It goes to show how much this stuff can weigh a game down. Gameplay wise, I'm enjoying it more than MKX, but the grind hurts. I think grinding in the original Phantasy Star is better than this.
The towers are dumb in this game. The Multiverse in Injustice 2 was handled fairly I think, but the first tower (The element one) after the tutorial tower was a massive pain. Just saying, you should never have screen blinding in a fighting game, even as an optional challenge. If they also tone down the difficulty of these, that'd be grand.
@themcnoisy FUT is really annoying online. So many games i would have won if my opposition didn’t have a superstar player. Early on they made it easy to to get Eden Hazard through their Squad Builder game, if you paid to get all the necessary players to unlock him. Seriously frustrating because loads of people online had him, and here was I with Danny Wellbeck and Alex Iwobi and other unfashionable players... They make it very tempting to spend money...
i'm glad this is happening, these gaming companies has made me very picky on what i pick up. More money in my pocket...
@Wesker of course it's like that. EA have turned my club into an all encompassing lootbox heavy pile of rubbish whilst the other great modes of old like career or management have been sidelined / binned. It makes them billions of pounds and its a complete travesty.
I quit Fifa a few years ago as I could see what was happening. Its a damn shame as Fifa for the last 10 years has great gameplay.
Loot boxes now represent a billion dollar industry. Publishers will attempt every possible combination.
Strangely, this article makes me want to play Injustice 2.
This is not loot boxes! Did u watch the last stream?! Tyler said that all boxes in krypt are handcrafted and the same for all,but randomly placed for each player! And they are already fixed difficulty in towers of time. This is the online feature and they don’t need to make a huge update of a game for you to see it fixed. They make it yesterday night with small fix. So don’t panic everything is alright with this game!
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