Highlights
- Mortal Kombat 1 has been well-received by fans for its fresh gameplay, graphics, and characters, living up to the promise of a new era for the franchise.
- The story mode in Mortal Kombat 1 could have been improved by learning from past games and creating something new for the future.
- The structure of the story mode in Mortal Kombat often forces scenarios and focuses mainly on the "good guys," leaving villainous characters as punching bags. It could have allowed players to choose their characters and experience a more unique and mysterious story.
The long-awaited 12th game in the Mortal Kombat franchise, Mortal Kombat 1, has been released to mostly positive reception from fans. Overall, the game is praised for its fresh take on the gameplay, aesthetic/ graphics, presentation, and characters. In many ways, it lives up to the promise of a new era for the now 30-year-old franchise. Even its story mode was generally well received. However, in some ways, the story mode is also a bit of a letdown for fans. Mortal Kombat 1's story mode could have benefited greatly if it had learned a few things from games of the past.
NetherRealm Studios has largely been praised for its cinematic story mode featured in its games. The current format of these story modes originated way back in 2008 with Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. These story modes essentially play out like a movie where players follow one specific character per chapter and fight battles as them between cutscenes. Every chapter focuses on a different character and each chapter contains a certain number of fights players must win. After six games featuring this structure, MK1 should have been an opportunity to learn from the past and create something new for the future.
Mortal Kombat 1's New Story Mode Failed to Iterate Enough
NetherRealm Studios' story modes are classic at this point and have been around for quite some time. Each great installment has included something unique and contributed to an overall incredible package of a game. But they do run into a few cons as well. Due to the fact that every character must have a certain number of fights, there ends up being scenarios that feel extremely forced such as a small argument between friends that leads to a full-scale bloody Mortal Kombat fight.
These were at their peak in the earliest games with this story mode structure, but have persisted to some degree all the way up to MK1. It is clear that the writers/ developers have improved the motivation for the fights in story mode overall, but due to the structure of the chapters, this is inevitable to some degree.
Coinciding with this character issue is the fact that many of the NetherRealm story modes only show the perspective of the "good guys", so fan-favorite villainous characters are often simply used as a punching bag. Of course, this has been mostly addressed in MK1 as now many villains join forces with the heroes and get a more balanced focus.
In Mortal Kombat games of the past players could choose any character they pleased from the roster to be their avatar and achieve victory. In the time before the current story mode, Tower/Arcade Ladder endings were the main source of a character's plot. Mortal Kombat 1 could have learned from this less linear and more mysterious story-telling structure to allow players to choose their characters and play through a unique story centered around them, crossing paths with other characters along the way.
Looking back at Mortal Kombat's history there have been many innovative and interesting forms of storytelling used in each installment. Mortal Kombat: Deception's Konquest Mode was a fully interactive 3D action-adventure game that saw players taking on the role of the young martial artist Shujinko as he explored the Mortal Kombat realms training from each of the main characters of the franchise. Players would get to slowly uncover the mystery of the Dragon King in a story that tied into the Tower endings and the overall plot of the game.
This action-adventure story mode was very similar to the recent World Tour Mode in Street Fighter 6. Mortal Kombat 1 could have seen the return of this mode and The Krypt, possibly in place of the cinematic story mode and invasions, or at least could have taken inspiration from Konquest to formulate a more immersive, nonlinear story mode that would have lent itself well to the "reboot" nature of the game.
Mortal Kombat 1 is available now on PC, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X/S.
