Fight. Die. Repeat.

How Netherrealm Is Drawing From Its Bloody and Gruesome Past for Mortal Kombat 11.

- Adam Bryant

When it comes to fighting games, nobody does them quite like NetherRealm. From its spine-ripping fatalities that’ll leave even the most hardcore splatter film enthusiasts wincing in their seats, to the accessible but hard-to-master combat, Mortal Kombat has always stood out from the crowd.

The series has long been a popular choice among fighting game fans, and it is one of the most well-known videogame franchises of all time. In its 26year history it’s even managed to spin-off outside of videogames, with varying degrees of success in film, television and comics. Now Mortal Kombat is back once again, and it looks like Xbox users are going to be treated to the most gruesome, most brutal and most visually shocking combat they’ve ever seen.

Given NetherRealm’s recent track record of fantastic fighting games, including the Injustice series, we know we’re going to be entertained. Each game in the Mortal Kombat series somehow manages to out-do the last in terms of combat and pure shock value, but the big question is, just how will the eleventh game be different to any of the previous entries in the franchise?

Although convoluted, the story of Mortal Kombat has become more of a focus as the series has gone on, and we’ve seen NetherRealm’s narrative capabilities improve exponentially to what now seems like a dramatic leap in quality over the previous games. The studio set a new standard when it came to telling a story in fighting games with Injustice 2, and it seems that those same narrative sensibilities have been brought across to MK11. This is evident from the cutscenes we’ve seen so far, which are deliciously cinematic. This is thanks to a combination of superb direction and exceptional motion capture.