NetherRealm has had some fun with Mortal Kombat 11 community, trolling dataminers who leaked the identity of DLC characters.
Dataminers leaked the entire set of DLC characters included in Kombat Pack 1 before Mortal Kombat 11's official release date in April. That explosive leak revealed Shang Tsung, Joker, Nightwolf, Terminator, Sindel and Spawn, all of whom were subsequently confirmed by the developers.
Now, NetherRealm has trolled the Mortal Kombat 11 dataminers by adding a "Kombat Pack 2" Easter egg in one of The Terminator's outros.
In the movies, The Terminator's catchphrase is "I'll be back." In Mortal Kombat 11, however, the catchphrase arrives with a twist.
Win a match and The Terminator, which features Arnie's likeness from the upcoming Terminator film, says, "You won't be back." Brutal.
NetherRealm's Terminator is packed with references like this to the Terminator movies. Each intro and outtro is a direct reference to a moment in Terminator 2. One intro, for example, sees the Terminator walk forward, taking his trademark shotgun out of Johnny Cage doll box, which is a recreation of the iconic shotgun scene in Terminator 2 when Arnie turns up to save John Connor.
UPDATE: NetherRealm has released the official gameplay trailer for The Terminator - and it does not disappoint.
The video below shows off The Terminator's raft of special moves, as well as his Krushing Blow and his Fatality. His intro is a reference to The Terminator's box of flowers scene in Terminator 2, and if The Terminator suffers a Krushing blow to the head, you see his metal skull underneath his skin.
Brilliantly, The Terminator can resurrect as the T-800 skeleton, which seems to ignore attacks as it walks forward. There's some super cool shotgun action. And his Fatality sees him create a time travel portal that closes in around his foe for dramatic effect.
Mortal Kombat 11 characters will each get a third variation in an upcoming patch, NetherRealm has announced.
In a developer livestream, NetherRealm said the patch would be out soon.
Character variations are a controversial feature of the fighting game because ranked play limits players to choosing from two developer-created movesets for each fighter.
Early August 2019, Evo - the world's largest fighting game tournament - concluded on a tragic note. What should have been a weekend that ended with celebration was instead tarnished by reports of sexual harassment and spiked drinks at the event's afterparties.
What followed was a surge of support from many of the most prominent voices within the fighting game community (FGC). Victims spoke out about their past traumas, and there was a collective call for action. In what can be interpreted as the FGC's very own Me Too movement, well-known figures in the community, such as competitor Leah "Gllty" Hayes and photographer Chris Bahn, had allegations raised against them, resulting in public apologies from the pair and a ban forbidding them from entering some of the USA's largest tournaments.
This recent turmoil has raised uncomfortable and important questions about the FGC, on whether those guilty of these actions are simply bad actors, or whether the FGC has a deep-rooted problem at its core. I talked with women in the community who've worked in this environment long enough to know the reality of what it's like at these events, about their thoughts on the culture, recent allegations, and what needs to change.
Mortal Kombat 11 is famous for its fatalities - but there's another round-ender that sees your opponent explode in a shower of blood and bones: the quitality.
A rage quit visual effect has been in previous versions of NetherRealm's fighting game franchise, but the release of Mortal Kombat 11 has seen a boon in community-sharing of perfectly-timed quitalities online - and some of them look fantastic.
Quitalities trigger on-screen at the end of combos, so those that trigger then aren't particularly noteworthy, even if they do sometimes look cool. The remarkable quitalities, however, occur at just the right time so that they work with an existing move to create something unique. Since Mortal Kombat 11 came out in April, I've been collecting eye-catching quitalities, and thought I'd share some of the best.