NetherRealm Studios has been pretty good at keeping fans informed about Mortal Kombat X. The game will hit the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC on April 14, and we already know a good portion of the cast, as well as plenty of new gameplay mechanics. Some of these mechanics are entirely new, while others made the transition from previous Mortal Kombat games or Injustice: Gods Among Us. Let’s take a quick look at everything we know about Mortal Kombat X at this point.
Characters
The most recent character select screen had room for 26 character boxes. At present there have been 14 confirmed characters for the game, including: Cassie Cage, D’Vorah, Ermac, Ferra/Torr, Goro, Kano, Kitana, Kotal Kahn, Kung Lao, Quan Chi, Raiden, Reptile, Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Ed Boon, co-creator of Mortal Kombat, has said multiple times that MKX will feature more new characters than any previous MK game. Out of the 14 confirmed characters, only four are new, which means fans are in store for a few new characters before all of the reveals are done.
Each character in Mortal Kombat X has three different fighting style variants. You select the variants immediately after you select your character. While some trademark attacks are featured in every variant, they may have different properties from variant to variant. In addition, each fighting style variant has a unique set of attacks in order to set each variant apart from the next. Simply finding a character you enjoy won’t be enough. Now you’ll have to also determine which fighting variant of the characters you want to play as.
Gameplay
There have been quite a few gameplay changes made to Mortal Kombat X over the last few months that haven’t been quite as publicized as the character reveals. There’s now a Run feature similar to the Run button found in Mortal Kombat 3 and Ultimate MK3. To go along with the Run button, there’s a Stamina Bar at the top of the screen. This controls your character’s ability to use Breakers and Run.
If we delve deeper into the Stamina Bar, we find that it’s broken into two sections. This is a bit different from the normal meter at the bottom of the screen, which has three separate sections. You cannot use the Run button unless you have at least half of your Stamina Bar available. As you run, the bar depletes, which means the more Stamina you have, the longer you can run.
Performing a Breaker still requires your normal meter in addition to the Stamina Bar. In the most recent build of the game, it took half of your normal meter (that’s one and a half sections) to use a Breaker, plus you needed at least half your Stamina Bar and a Breaker completely depleted your Stamina Bar when used. That means using a Breaker drains your Stamina Bar completely, half of your normal meter, and prevents you from using the Run function until the Stamina Bar refills to at least 50 percent again.
With the Stamina Bar having an impact on using Breakers and the Run ability, players will have to keep a close eye on their Stamina usage. Taking a closer look at Injustice, it seems clear that NetherRealm was trying to add more value to Breakers so that players wouldn’t be so quick to use them. The developers took that idea one step further in MKX by limiting your movement options immediately following the use of a Breaker, and leaving you with no more than 50 percent of your normal meter.
In the coming weeks, NetherRealm will show off Kitana and Reptile, as well as provide more information on the story mode in the game. We know the game picks up right after Mortal Kombat 9 and spans the 25 years that follow. We also know that Kotal Kahn rises and falls from power during that time, and that Shao Kahn’s soul resides within Ermac. We also know that there will be online factions that vie for supremacy, but very little information has been shared concerning the online aspects of Mortal Kombat X.
Stay with Prima Games as we continue to provide new information on Mortal Kombat X as the April 14 release date draws closer.
