The Mortal Kombat franchise has been ripping limbs off and beating people over the head with them for three decades now. But in 2015, the formula needed some refreshing. Mortal Kombat X was the result, and many hailed it as the best game in MK history.
One of the biggest changes was eight brand new characters. This was a divisive change, as nobody likes to see their favorite character left out. But it showed NetherRealm Studios was not afraid to put fatalities on some of the franchise's sacred cows.
Mortal Kombat X made even old favorites feel new again with character variations. For example, Johnny Cage's A-List variation gave him the ability to charge his normal and special attacks for extra damage. Stunt Double gave him mimics on the battlefield. Ordinarily, veteran players can start formulating their plans at the character select screen. Now, knowing what fighter your opponent has picked was only a small part of figuring out what they were up to.
Even guest characters got multiple variations, and the list of cameos was exciting. We got the likes of movie slashers Jason Voorhees and Leatherface, as well as sci-fi stalwarts Alien and Predator. All these folks are good at murder, so they fit right in with the rest of the ultra-violent MK cast.
This fighter mixed in a lot of new tricks, but also built upon what was an already solid foundation. The Towers challenge mode from MK9 returned as Living Towers. Three towers provided all kinds of challenges for players to overcome, including a Premier Tower with higher difficulty. If you wanted to hone your combo perfection "I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back" status, this was a great way to do it.
The X-ray attacks, also from MK9, did an even better job of showing all the physics-defying damage the fighters were doing to one another. They were so gory that Australia even put an R18+ rating, its strictest classification, on the game. Mortal Kombat, breaking limbs and rules for 30 plus years now.
Destructible environments were borrowed from Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm's superhero-flavored fighting game. I never get tired of knocking an opponent through a wall, volcano and an apartment building, with that only being the middle point of the fight. Don't ever change, Mortal Kombat.
"Let's just get this out of the way. Mortal Kombat X is the best Mortal Kombat, period," IGN's Vince Ingenito said in his review. "It's deeper, mechanically richer, and more fully featured than any of the nine games before it, hands down."
MK X would be the fastest-selling game in franchise history, with more than 12 million copies sold. It's a large reason that while Warner Bros Games is shuttering studios and having fire sales on its content, Mortal Kombat is one of the gaming pillars it still plans to build around. Here's to another 30 years of Get Over Here!