For those who missed it, following the bloody finale of Mortal Kombat 1's story, which saw Liu Kang and the gang dispatch the Deadly Alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, a version of PS2-era jobber Havik discovered that not only do other timelines exist, but that they could all use a little more chaos. This brings us to the new storyline, which sees him invade Liu Kang’s timeline, and kidnap Geras to infuse his MacGuffins with the power to take over all timelines.
For those who hoped the timeline crap would come to an end after Mortal Kombat 11, we’re afraid it’s at its peak here, as we’re treated to different variants of all the cast, including a Council of Kangs-esque amount of Havik. However, the other – and far less tiresome – side to the story involves our trio of DLC fighters: Cyrax, Sektor, and Noob Saibot. We deal with the aftermath of Sub Zero’s betrayal of Earthrealm and how it has affected the robo-enhanced duo, with Cyrax in particular being the heart of this storyline (until she disappears for a big chunk of it, as is tradition for good characters).
One problem we had with the original game’s story was Johnny Cage, who treads the line of being a good character and a pop culture spouting machine, and this time around he is unbearable. Every line out of his mouth is basically a reference, including one that is almost literally "this is just like Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 9". A majority of the humour in the expansion falls completely flat, but Johnny is the worst.
Which is weird, because this expansion also includes Animalities for every character, which are generally quite funny. While you don’t need to pay for the DLC to get the Animalities, they are new with this update. There’s some obvious ones like Scorpion turning into a Scorpion (not a Penguin this time, sadly), and some more out there ones like Quan Chi’s. Meanwhile, Johnny Cage and Peacemaker get the best ones by far.
While the Khaos Reigns expansion does come with a full Kombat Pass 2 (including the guest fighters later down the line), the story is only around two hours long, making this expansion's price – which is almost on par with an entire game – a little questionable. And it doesn’t do anything to change the glaring flaws already present in Mortal Kombat 1 such as the terrible Invasions mode or the overpriced cosmetics.
Comments 59
I've been an MK fan a long time but MK1 was a big step back IMO. I know they're trying to do an alternate universe, but most of the changes are worse IMO. Cyrax and Sektor look completely uninteresting.
Get back to the dark feel of MKX.
I enjoyed playing through the story but invasions seemed lacking. The dlc characters are not for me and I would much prefer they make more original characters or use some of the old ones but playing as The Terminator has about as much appeal to me as playing as Bruce Lee in the UFC games or some non-wrestling celebrity in a WWE game.
There's so many other fighting games, I don't see the point in going back to this although the gameplay was good at the time.
I'm just going to wait for a price drop because even if this dlc was a 9/10 It still doesn't justify almost being the price of a new full game.
I’m loving the new dlc but I also really enjoy mk1. The gameplay itself is by far in its best place it’s been since launch and the same for can be said for the modes like invasions. The twisted timeline stuff can be hit or miss but it does lend well to the random fights in invasions. I guess $50 is pricey but many other online games have $40 battle passes and basically only provide cosmetics. I guess if you don’t like mk1 to begin with then you’re gonna be disappointed when the dlc doesn’t “fix” the game.
lol yeah no *****. I watched the story on YT. Anyone paying 50 bucks for that is insane lmao. Story is short, weak, super predictable and worst of all just literally the same story as the main game with a bunch of added characters. Even with 6 additional characters the price is greedy AF and the half baked story they delivered is not even worth half of that.
Once DLCs start costing as much as an entire game, I am not playing ball anymore.
I learnt after MK X to wait for the complete editions.
I would have got it, if one of the new characters were either jade, skarlet, sareena. Gender swapped robots is just lazy.
MK takes itself way too seriously.
What they have done to this much beloved IP in terms of the absolutely insane and brutally obnoxious monetisation of even the slightest thing is a long, long way beyond unacceptable. And that was the case before they decided they could sell THIS for £50…
@MrPeanutbutterz I agree. It peaked with “Cooking with Scorpion”.
@Jedihillis true that, we need an mk with the gameplay of X, the roster of 9, and the tone of MK2/MKX/Deadly Alliance/MK4
mk needs its identity back
@KillerBoy Why do people always call them robots ? Did you even watch the trailers ? Thats like saying Iron Man is a robot. They are human, they just wear power suits. Please educate yourself before spouting nonsense.
I mean Towers of Time has been added, Invasions is actually pretty fine now as most of it is optional now and Cage is pretty funny.
As for the skins they're pretty cheap by modern standards and you get more for less compared to what SF6 charges for its skins. Anyway the game has giving out plenty of free skins this past year and still is so 🤷♂️
@Totheteeth Its actually £40. Its £50 for the entire game and all the DLC.
@nomither6 MK1 Roster > MK9 Roster. MK9 roster is good but it relies too heavily on MK1-MK3 and you can't even fully play as Shao or Goro. MK1 roster celebrates the entire series not just the 90's games.
Meanwhile SNK and Capcom are now exchanging characters left and right with now Street Fighter characters entering Fatal Fury. MK1 (and highkey Tekken 8 also) has had some rough DLC this year.
@Deoxyr1bose Rough? What's been rough about the MK1 DLC characters? Wanna know what's rough? £100+ to give every character a new costume in SF6 or £100 for all of the TMT stuff. MK1 isn't perfect but monetization wise SF6 is easily the worst of the big 3.
Meh. I like Mortal Kombat, but I'll just watch the Expansion's cutscenes and endings on YouTube.
The Invasions Seasons eventually felt more like a second job, I realized I wasn't having fun anymore. MK1 is good, but it feels like a step back from MK11.
@DennisReynolds shh don’t bring facts into the equation they just want to be mad and don’t care for the truth
@Deoxyr1bose saying MK has rough dlc when SF dlc is outrageously priced lmao
Weirdly enough MK1 is actually my favorite of the modern 2D MK games. Though I would really like a return of Konquest mode over the short story mode. SF6 World Tour mode reminded me how much I loved Konquest mode on Deception.
The PS2 MK games were the best imo. So much content and immense depth with the style switching. I'd buy a collection of those in a heartbeat!
@DennisReynolds Tekken 8, MK1, and SF6 all have really bad monetization practices. They all have overpriced costumes and animations and stuff like that. Doesn’t excuse Capcom at all. However, just from the sheer excitement factor of the characters themselves it feels like SF has just kinda left MK1 and Tekken 8 in the dust this year.
Looks like what I assumed. A character pass with a bit of story thrown in. Cost is definitely too high for what it is, but the guest characters intrigue me (especially Ghostface) so I’ll wait for a sale to snag it. I still have plenty to do in MK1 as it is with all the characters I have yet to use very much haha
Why do they prefer to ruin their unique story and characters with that stupid idea of multiverse? That's some bs started by Marvel and it's not funny at all 😒
@SilentBluntman You meant Komplete Edition, right? 😜
I saw the list of animals the characters turn into. Why are they all mostly from earth just at larger sizes? MK usually has cool and unique creature designs in the stage backgrounds so why didn't they tap into those for the non earth characters animalities? I turned a blind eye to this back in the day but now there's just no excuse for creative laziness.
@2here2there Because it's Warner Bros. and they use this game as little more than an advertising platform.
@MrPeanutbutterz it definitely doesn't do that.
MK is just an online service. Remember, all of this is disposable to WB. Spend accordingly.
@DennisReynolds I can still play MKIX on my Vita or PS3/5. You won't be able to say that about 1 in a few years. Honestly, could be sooner. This price is extortionate and NRS is in hot water already. Bad signs when it's a WB studio.
@3Stock_Samwise I really don't care what other games do with this im looking at the product and this is to expensive for what you get.
@DennisReynolds So what im not comparing the worst of worst and say yeah but its not as bad as that.
DLC is going way way to far it's at the price of full games. They are selling you a skeleton and making you buy the rest it's getting out of control.
The only reason this is happening is because they can't keeping on growing in any other way they are reaching the sealing of their profits.
@jrt87 Gaming is now only for profit their is no soul left in the industry. It's such a pity because there was so much passion in there. Now they destroy their talent and bleed them dry just for that next part of more profit.
@ManaOwls that’s the one. 😉
Yeah didn't like the character roster with Kombat Pack 2. I'm sick of seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in these games now and Ghostface just seems really out of place too.
I'll wait for a Sale I think.
@Flaming_Kaiser If you think gaming is only now for profit then it's safe to assume you never hung out in arcades in the 80s and 90s.
@Yousef- He'd just burn that cake!
@jrt87 Street Fighter didn't have character unlocks in the 90s. Ditto MK. You wanted new characters you bought the next full game. Tekken served up lots of model swaps. If you go back to Tekken 2, King, Armour King, Rodger and Alex are all effectively the same character. Ditto Jack 2, P.Jack, Ganyru, Kuma.
Tekken 8 base roster dwarfs the fully unlocked roster of those old Tekkens, and the movesets are far more detailed. Street Fighter 6 launched with the highest roster count of a new mainline entry. Again, all those characters and mechanics are far more detailed and finely tuned than the older games.
There's a big-ass story mode in Tekken 8. Street Fighter 6 includes a full-blown RPG mode.
The idea that fighting games back in the day were better value is patently untrue (especially when adjusted for inflation).
@Waluigi451 Good idea...I personally buy every MK DLC at launch, but always just play as the base roster characters in the end, haha.
Like for Khaos Reigns, I was torn over if I should main Sektor, Cyrax, or Noob because they're all so cool, but suddenly I'm obsessed with playing as Rain!
I'll be picking this dlc up in a year when it's 70% off.
@stinkyx Glad I’m not alone haha. I still haven’t used half of the first batch of DLC characters very much. So at the moment I’m just enjoying Animalities and the new Towers while leveling people up. If I ever get bored of that then maybe I’ll spring for the new guys. But that’s why I’m trying patience this time around because by the time I’m ready for the new characters, good chance the pass gets a bit of a discount. We’ll see though.
@MrPeanutbutterz Games designed to eat quarters totally weren’t for profit lol
But seriously, don’t forget some of those SNES/Genesis games like Lion King that were intentionally designed to be so hard that a kid couldn’t clear it in a rental period and had to buy it instead. Gaming has always been for profit lol
@jrt87 I get your point but, for comparison, Tekken 3 on console had 21 characters. The base game of Mortal Kombat 1 has 22. And if we’re looking at Tekken, Tekken 8 has 32 characters in the base game. So what you’re getting in the base game today is comparable to the content you’d get in a fighting game years ago, y’know?
This review is just like Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 9
I love mk1, think they did a lot right overall. This dlc though is a bit pricey without a big campaign. Ill just wait for the inevitable 80% off sale.
@Waluigi451 Lol, any time I used to visit the arcade a few towns over, my mother forbade me from playing Metal Slug because my budget for the day would be gone in a matter of minutes and I'd be scrounging more money off her.
@jrt87 Oh my, Star Gladiator was some goofy but enjoyable stuff. Didn't the dude with the lightsaber have a special where he became the size of a building?
Thing is about those games - sure it was cool to be able to unlock that stuff, but the games still had much smaller rosters and content than modern games. Another thing is those old games were deeply unbalanced at times. Like I don't want to buy a modern game with tonnes of characters if a few of them are downright broken vs. the rest of the cast.
As for DLC - that stuff would just not exist. I see people losing their minds that a Tekken series mainstay like Heihachi shouldn't be DLC... well if they handled him the same way they handled Kazuya in Tekken 3, you'd simply be left hoping he comes back in Tekken 4.
They also can't work on the v.1.00 of these games infinitely, otherwise they'd never release. The drip of new characters to Street Fighter 6 has been a revelation for me - it keeps the game fresh, there's new matchups to learn. It also means that having the one base game keeps the player numbers high (which wasn't the case of Street Fighter 4 when Super Street Fighter 4 released).
@MrPeanutbutterz the practice of drip feeding characters is a scummy way to pad out a games longevity by half-finishing it just to charge players for it later . so you pay full price initially just to eventually accumulate an equivalent with buying DLC.
you could argue they basically did the same thing with SF4, but the jump from SF4 to SSF4 was big and the roster was greatly expanded & it only costed $40 -isn’t that the price of only 2 sf6 characters? LOL . SF6 roster is still lacking a year and a half later with its roster; i rather SSF6.
Sf6 roster is awful right now.
MK and SF have been ripping people off with the most basic characters that should be playable from the start and included on the disc. Bring back the glory days of owning a full game instead of drip feeding characters and charging for them
@MrPeanutbutterz Well let's be real here the quality is going down. It's less diverse and everything is monetized to hell. The DLC now is what we called part 2 and yes i 100% believe the value for what you get is totally down the drain. Now is money first, less interest in what fans want, suits that make out every thing. And I never been to the arcades because I had the SNES at home.
@nomither6 I don't agree with you a lot but we agree on this 100%. Base characters are left out because they know they can sell them to players. It's not even like they have a group of new characters it's mostly mainstay characters resold.
I live NetherRealm reiterating on its core characters over and over again, even if I dislike some of it it keeps everything fresh and new. That being said.. WB needs to get to some realistic pricing for MK's content. £20 this is a must buy, £30 I'd buy it with justification it includes all the new characters, £40 is insanity.
WB could create insane amounts of goodwill by backing off the pricing a bit but for some reason they're so obsessed with short term profits that they don't seem to care anymore about alienating a ton of players. MK has been around since the beginning of the 90s - keep the pricing reasonable and there's no reason it can't continue another 30 years.
I fear the day Ed Boon has enough and retires and some corporate bozo comes in and destroys it all
WB/Netherealm with their shameful and overpriced overall content on Mk1 not worth my support.
I bought the pre-order mk1 for $129.00 and it said I would get all the dlc included. But I have to buy this seperate. I guess they are gonna slow release the characters like last time. This game sucks that I will not pay anymore for this garbitch
@nomither6 Again, the game isn't "half finished". If it used the old method of not updating games then you'd have v.1.00 with 18 characters in June 2023, and that's it. It has the biggest base roster of a new iteration of SF. It also has a massive single player adventure, some of the most detailed and robust training tools in a fighting game, and almost flawless netcode. If that's "half finished" then your expectations are unrealistic.
And the new characters aren't padding out anything, they genuinely add to the game. AKI in particular doesn't play like anyone else. And returning characters have been heavily reworked.
No, it's not 40 bucks for 2 characters, it's 30 for four. And you get the new stages and balance updates for free. And the new characters are added into the World Tour mode to use if you buy them or not. SSF4 was on paper a better deal, but it also split the player base.
What's wrong with the roster? Quality, not quantity. I've been playing this series since SF2 in a smokey arcade in 1991, this is the best it's ever been.
You're more than welcome to wait for SSF6, at which point myself and others will have had half a decade of fun out of the game already.
Couldn't even add dlc trophies same with mk 11
@jrt87 Im playing Tekken 7 and the they ask more then a full game for the DLC the worst thing is you have to buy old staples of characters like Nina or complete season with half the crap I don't even want to have at €29. 😢
@Octaslasher they used to be actual robots
I never understood the stilted and choppy combat of these games. It’s almost like the cringeworthy gimmick fatalities are the only thing they have going for them….
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