Mortal Kombat 11 And Aftermath DLC Review

Many gamers especially like me who lived their childhoods in 90s know that why Mortal Kombat is one of the most popular fighting video games in the world. To summarize for those who don't know, Mortal Kombat is a fighting game that contains lots of blood and brutality, especially allowing you to apply death moves called "Fatality" to the character you defeat at the end of the fight (which is the most striking point and the feature that makes the game popular). The game which was first released by the Midway company in 1992, has been so successful that it has created a fan base of millions of gamers who have played this game both in arcade halls and on their home consoles all over the world. Due to the support of this wide fan base and the success of the game's designer and lead programmer Ed Boon in the management, more than 10 Mortal Kombat games have been developed until today, with two movies named "Mortal Kombat" and "Mortal Kombat Annihilation" inspired by the 1st and 3rd games of the series. Also a tv series called "Mortal Kombat Conquest" was filmed later.

Main story of Mortal Kombat series is based on a sacred fighting tournament between Outworld troops that want to conquer the Earthrealm and some talented warriors that will defend it. Fate of the Earthrealm will be determined according to the winner side of tournament. Story has been expanded a little bit more after the third game but at each game after it, story became more complex and as a result, this made the fans a little bit alienate to game including me. The producers were probably aware of this and they started a new series with the Mortal Kombat 2011 (also called Mortal Kombat 9) which they focused to main story and re-tell it from beginning by coorperating with the NetherRealm Studios. This was also a good news for the people who new to the game. The new series also started to be developed with a new game engine (Unreal Engine 3) and a very successful job was done in terms of both graphics and gameplay.

Story of new series continued with the Mortal Kombat X (2015) and its expansion pack Mortal Kombat XL games where more features of the same game engine were used and the graphics were improved a little bit more. Finally in 2019; with its graphics, cinematics, gameplay and script, Mortal Kombat 11 which is the best Mortal Kombat made so far according to the majority of Mortal Kombat fans, has been released. Especially the impressive details in the gestures of the characters show how much the Motion Capture (application of physical movements to digital characters) technology has been progressed.

The subject of the story in this third sequel of the new series is as follows; Kronika, the mother of Shinnok (the lord of the Netherrealm who was defeated by Cassie Cage (daughter of Johhny Cage) at the final battle and killed by Raiden in previous game (Mortal Kombat X)) and the ruler of the "time and fate" decides to restart history arguing the balance of the good and the evil has been destroyed with the death of Shinnok. In this way, she plans to bring Shinnok back and keep the endless wars between the good and the evil. However, since she does not have the power to do this alone, she creates a "time quake" to bring back the champion fighters who have died in previous games, who will help and serve her for this purpose. With the effect of this time quake, the past and the present come together and as a result of this, both the dead fighters of the good and the evil sides return to life and the youth of some fighters face their current states. To stop the Kronika, Raiden asks for help from the Earthrealm defenders Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Sonya & Johhny Cage with their daughter Cassie Cage, Jax and his daughter Jacqui Briggs and the princess of Outworld (which previously been in war with the Earthrealm) Kitana. Kitana is also asks for help from some Outworld warriors like Jade, Kotal Kahn, Sheeva, Baraka and the whole Outworld army. She will become Outworld's new empress ("Kahn") by killing her stepfather and emperor of Outworld Shao Kahn who wants to destroy her, and will try to ensure the unity of her people in Outworld, which is divided within itself. On the other hand, next to Kronika; her daughter Cetrion the goddess of virtue (very so, really (!)), her obedient and immortal servant Geras, the zombies (Revenants) of Liu-Kang, Kung Lao, Kitana, Jade and Kabal whom her son Shinnok made his slaves them when in life, and some fighters like Erron Black, Kano, Sektor, Frost, Skarlet, D'Vorah and Kollektor she has drawn to her side from Earthrealm and Outworld. Noob Saibot (the first Sub-Zero called Bi-Han killed by Scorpion at the tournament with the instigation of Quan-Chi who was later killed by Scorpion in the previous game) created by Quan-Chi, Shinnok's chief servant, is also next to Kronika. The chain of events between all these groups progresses by playing character by character in the story mode and each character tells its own story. In short, a highly engaging and action-packed journey that every detail carefully thought out including appropriate references to previous events that creating a complete integrity awaits you. If we talk about Fatalities and Brutalities, i can say that they're really creative and satisfyingly "wild" as always. :-)

I don't want to give too much details about the Aftermath DLC (Downloadable Content - Expansion Pack) which released in 2020 because of it will give spoilers about the ending of previous story. All i can say is that the story is based on a deception plan of Shang Tsung (sorcerer of Outworld and also the first boss character in Mortal Kombat history) and full of exciting, intrigue events as much as previous story. In this journey, Raiden's brother god of winds Fujin and an Earthrealm fighter shaman called Nightwolf who had important roles in previous Mortal Kombat games accompany with Raiden. The producers of game concluded Aftermath's story with an open door to the story of the next game to come.

One of the new features i most liked in Aftermath is the Friendships. As the name suggests, Friendships are the friendly joking movements you perform when you beat your enemy at end of the fight which comes from old Mortal Kombat series. But in this game, friendships has become much more creative and funny with the support of advanced technology. In addition, game mechanics and combos seemed easier than previous games to me.

Spawn, Joker, Terminator and Robocop are the characters that have been added to Aftermath DLC later.

As a result, i liked the game very much. As i said before, this is the best Mortal Kombat ever made in my opinion with the quality of scenario, atmosphere and the gameplay.

You can buy the game from Steam platform for your pc or stores for your console. If you don't have time or chance to play the game, you can watch the whole movie consisted by in-game cinematics in YouTube. But before to do this, i strongly recommend that you start watching from the first game of new series (Mortal Kombat 9) which whole story is restarted. You can even find the movie with this trilogy on YouTube.

One last note; lead actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who was as Shang Tsung in the first Mortal Kombat movie which i watched in my childhood in 1995 is at same role again in Aftermath with his own voice.