The imperfect balance of Mortal Kombat 11’s Character Chapters
A princess becomes a hero, the Shaolin monks are avenged, and a bodyguard gets her due
The Mortal Kombat franchise has played host to an impressive amount of characters, most of whom were introduced around 1997. For as long as the franchise has been around, there is a character for every person who has spent a weekend with one Mortal Kombat game. However, for all its quantity, most characters were more gimmick than they were personality (Bo Rai Cho comes to mind).
Most characters are only present to expand roster space, and typically had little bearing on what was considered a plot for the time. Like any fanbase, the Mortal Kombat community didn’t take well to a lot of them on the pretense of “It’s not the original roster.” So, slowly, but surely, over the 3D Era of the franchise, the giant cast was whittled down to relative non-existence in favor of maintaining the Arcade Era roster.
While the multiplication of the cast began as early in the Arcade Era of the franchise, most were famously (if not affectionately) named, “Color Swap characters” (Ermac, Noob Saibot, Smoke, Mileena, Jade, Tanya, etc). It was to the fortune of some color swap characters that they later became individual identities, but it rarely helped their standing with anyone who wasn’t already a fan of that character.
Most of the Mortal Kombat cast is fairly forgettable (Stryker, Smoke, Fujin, Li Mei), or too derivative (everyone’s in a clan, everyone wants revenge, everyone’s a ninja, somebody’s set up to be “the next Liu Kang”). The grand majority saw no true realization, were mere vehicles for outlandish Fatalities or reappeared so long after their first appearance that there’s little chance that they might become something worth investing your time. Other characters embody Mortal Kombat’s exploitative racism (Yellow Peril Hsu Hao, Mystic Shaman Nightwolf). The rest were terrible ideas (Tremor, Jerek).
The Reboot Era tries to make better use of its characters, but Mortal Kombat 9 and Mortal Kombat X don’t split the narrative evenly between what they clearly meant to be an ensemble cast. Much like MK9 favored Raiden (Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage) just a little too much, MKX affords too much time to the Cage family and their broken dynamic (later put on the mend by the climax of the narrative). MKX is also just too divided on the Cage’s and its newer cast members to create an imperfect balance that benefits everyone present in the story.
The characters that suffer the most are Jacqui Briggs, Kung Jin, and Takeda Takahashi. They’re new characters meant to take places of Jax Briggs, Kung Lao, and Liu Kang. But, they don’t have the fortune of Cassie Cage, whose parents are the focus points of the narrative. So, they don’t have that significant a role in the game outside of player fodder.
Jacqui Briggs suffers the most as a character who gets a chapter near the climax of the game. The immediate story beat at hand — Cassie saves Earthrealm — is unrelated to her story thread. What gets crammed in there is more about Jax and his maiming by Ermac. That’s not an argument you can make with Takeda and Jin. While the game stops dead in its tracks to highlight their backstories, their struggles are unique to them. As far as MKX is concerned, Jacqui has no problems. She exists only to solve the ones Jax has.
Characters like Sub-Zero, Kotal Kahn, or characters who starred in earlier 3D games, are afterthoughts within the story. Their role in the character chapters is often that of a temporary antagonist before becoming an ally. For example, Kotal Kahn deciding to kill the Kombat Kids to appease Shinnok comes out of nowhere and just sets up a gameplay moment. There’s a lot about how MKX handled it cast that did not capture an ensemble story about a conflict on multiple fronts.
2019’s Mortal Kombat 11 doesn’t address every bygone character introduced in the series like MKX bravely, if not foolishly, attempted to as it continued to build the rebooted universe (thank god). Instead, MK11 makes a more concentrated effort to split the narrative a little better across the cast that matters to the plot. It focuses on fourteen characters established in the first act, all with major roles in the narrative’s progression as time rolls backward by the hand of Kronika, the game’s central and only antagonist.
MK11 separates its plot across twelve chapters. Three of the chapters — “Shaolin Monks”, “Fire and Ice”, and “All in the Family” — focus on two characters defined by their relationships (blood or otherwise). The chapters are episodic character moments, meant to close the ‘arc’ of specific characters, that could be an entire game in their own right, before the big undoing of everything.
Each character’s chapter concludes with an interlude checking in on the progress of Kronika’s part in the story, which sets up the next character’s chapter plot. It’s to the benefit of MK11 that the narrative focuses on one and not multiple antagonists and conflicts as it was in MKX.
We begin with the Cage family (Cassie Cage, “Next of Kin”) who sets the tone of the game. The Cages are largely, and blessedly, regulated to the background as the moment-to-moment storytelling focuses more on the past iterations of the undead or retired characters. There are four chapters before the focus returns to them (“War on the Homefront”, Johnny Cage), and another before their final chapter (“Fight Club”, Sonya Blade). The Cage Family chapters after the first slow the narrative to a painful crawl. When it’s not about establishing Cassie in a position of military leadership, much of it is fighting to bring Old man Johnny and Cassie’s “Death of [Old] Sonya Blade” arc to a close. Their primary conflict is with a young Johnny and Sonya. Neither iteration of Blade and Cage want to deal with a future daughter, a humbled and gray-haired future-self, or the realization that they end up together in the future (can’t blame ’em on that).
Outside of Cassie playing team leader in chapter interludes, much of what the Cage family does is disconnected from more pressing events. The two Kano’s and their rivalry with Sonya Blade is so unrelated to Kronkia’s plan (beyond running interference), that, when he’s killed by a genre-savvy young Sonya, it’s a relief to see him go. But with Kano’s death, so goes Sonya and Johnny’s relevance to the plot. They’re put on a bench after reconciling with Cassie and each other, then disappear from the narrative by the climax. Their absence also minimizes Cassie’s role considerably outside of exposition moments because she has no real connections with anyone else in the game.
But, for me, that’s no great loss. NetherRealm’s creative casting choice for Sonya Blade in MK11 doesn’t do much to aggravate my indifference toward the character. Johnny and Cassie are less aggravating as characters to me, primarily because they’re taken out of the spotlight. The minimization of the Cage family is probably the best thing about MK11’s story structure overall. It moves the story away from the White Protagonist Syndrome of MKX and back toward its cast of Asian, Brown, and Black-coded characters.
For as long as Kitana has existed, she was always a sort’ve Dragon Lady stereotype whose descriptor, “deadly assassin, long lost princess”, never saw a proper payoff. Most of what made Kitana a ‘character’ was flavor text in games that rightly prioritized its fighting mechanics over the narrative. The description itself is interesting, but that’s all it ever was. Kitana serving as a sort’ve unhelpful mentor figure to Liu Kang (who also kinda fancied him) in the Mortal Kombat films was probably the most interesting the character had been at that point in the 90s.
Mortal Kombat’s 3D Era had a real opportunity to make something of Kitana’s colorful backstory. And, for the most part, her role in those games — as they got progressively worse — seemed… fine. On a surface level. Kitana and her mother finally become the rulers of Edenia, build alliances with neighboring factions (Centaurs and Shokan), and lead an army into battle. Yet, every time Kitana’s character is put into a position of authority, her role is immediately undermined.
A narrative cheat allows Shao Kahn to defeat Kitana without fighting her, so their conflict is never resolved. She never gets closure on that end. And from there she ran into a seemingly endless barrage of being kidnapped, mind-controlled, mentally impaired, or killed, all before the reboot. Whenever they took a step forward with Kitana, they took several steps back. It was frustrating, because, for all the effort made, you could sense a particular disinterest in the character with how she was being handled. Original Kitana had problems, but she also had promise.
MK9 and MKX do more harm than good to the character. In MK9, things happen to Kitana, and she reacts to a lot of things. She’s told to do a lot of things that will initiate the plot regarding her true identity, but almost nothing within the narrative is initiated by her. When the story has the opportunity to set her up as independent character, she’s killed and reduced to an undead slave. In MKX, as a slave, Kitana has no real role in the game and doesn’t regain her agency until the very end. She spends most of her screentime as a henchman catching hands from the Kombat Kids.
Kitana was a character the plot happened to, she was a damsel in distress, and then she was just cannon fodder for background fights. The reboot Kitana was a barely a shadow of the Kitana of the original continuity — where how she discovers her past is less important than what she does with that information in a plot that required that she was not just a reactive party to events, but a participant as well.
So, the complete reversal of reboot Kitana in MK11 is like an apologetic attempt to bring her closer to the “deadly assassin” persona that dominated so much of her presentation in the Arcade Era. At the expense of the Empress Kitana of the Netherrealm, who never elevates past the undead henchman status of MKX (one missed opportunity of many), Princess Kitana’s role is bolstered and prioritized. Immediately after her introduction, the plot divorces her from Liu Kang and Raiden, keeping her rooted in Outworld with Jade and Kotal Kahn. Her mission statement is to overthrow Past Shao Kahn (of what is effetely her present), prevent him from seizing power in the future, and avenge her people. The latter was a thread that was not even present in Kitana’s MK9 story, so she’s already the better character.
Much of Kitana’s role in MK11 is playing the strategist. She reluctantly works with Kotal Kahn in the hunt for Shao Kahn, all while questioning if Jade’s affections for the man are clouding her typically clear judgment. Come her chapter level, “Coming of Age”, Kitana is handled a little like Injustice 2’s Harley Quinn, who denounces every aspect of her relationship with the Joker. Kitana’s every action revolves around rising above the oppressive ideas of her father figure, damning his every action, cutting down his supporters with not only words but action the player also plays a part in. In so many words, Kitana outs Shao Kahn for the abuser he is. Calls him out for harming her, dehumanizing her with the creation of Mileena, and driving her mother to suicide. She doesn’t pull her punches.
Much like in the original continuity, she wins the favor of warring factions (the Tarkatans and Shokan) on the stipulation that she wins them equal power with Kotal Kahn, ensuring they are no longer slaves and surfs to the otherwise absolute power of a Kahn. And finally, the revenge narrative that she should’ve been hers two decades ago is effectively fulfilled when she goes against Shao Kahn himself. While writer Shawn Kittelsen clarified that Kitana only blinded Shao Kahn following his defeat, the scene contains enough of the game’s trademark violence and brutality, that many believed the attack was lethal enough to kill him. The ferocity she meets him with speaks volumes about the finality of his part in her story arc. He is rendered powerless by the woman he abused for thousands of years.
Past Kitana gets the Rebel Princess™ storyline that should’ve been her arc from the word go in the series. For a character with the perfect setup for a revenge narrative, NetherRealm Studios’ inclination to treat her rebooted self like an ineffectual sexy lamp was fairly egregious. MK11’s determination to remedy her narrative woes is admirable. In a few short hours, Kitana becomes Kahn (ruler) of Outworld, the leader of an army that rescues Liu Kang and the realms, and the guardian of a new timeline. I could not have been happier with how they handled her role in the game. This was a long time coming or Kitana.
If there is a downside to Kitana’s story, it’s that she and Liu Kang, once again, barely get to develop their relationship beyond an introductory friendship. Where Jade and Kotal seem to get the lion’s share of romantic schmoozing and the Cage/Blade relationship was a given (I blame the movie for this), Liu and Katana don’t even get to interact on a casual level in the time they share the screen together.
MK11 illustrates their affection for each other in a manner that feels genuine, but it relies on your history with the characters. I buy that Liu Kang endears himself to this woman so that she feels comfortable hugging him, but he hesitates out of respect for her person. I buy that Kung Lao sees the attraction enough that he jokes about how either of them is out of each other’s league as the story progresses.
But, in a lot of ways, it feels like one element of John Tobias’ early story plans for the characters that Ed Boon and co. hang onto because it’s a legacy element. That, or they’re that gung-ho about the “right person, bad timing” shtick they worked into the relationship since, like, MK4. If I wasn’t invested in their dynamic, either as a friendship or a romance that just can’t seem to get off the ground, I doubt I would’ve been all that moved by the closing moments of the game’s ending (that’s requires you win two rounds against Kronika with zero losses) that feels earned without a shadow of a doubt.
Before MK11, Jade really wasn’t anything to talk about. Her position in the story as Kitana’s friend and a spy for Shao Kahn lent itself to interesting places, but nothing more. She was just another version of the Kitana template like Mileena, but one that had the least amount of work put into her after Tanya. Come the 3D Era, she felt like an excuse to design yet another scantily clad woman in a ‘costume’ that progressively got worse. If there was a small victory that she was a Black-coded character (albeit whose sprite was just a white woman with her skin inverted to look like dark skin), the aforementioned issues diminished it greatly. She often played subservient roles to characters like Sindel or Tanya (her would-be rival) in the absence of Kitana (who was either kidnapped, brainwashed, or both). Otherwise, she was never a major player in the original continuity.
The 2011 reboot (MK9) didn’t do much in the way of improving her place in the new continuity. The role of Kitana’s bodyguard is interesting, but nothing is done with that beyond establishing a rapport between Jade and Kitana. Like Jacqui, the chapter supposedly meant to focus on her is about everything but her. In MK11, if you consider the Kitana of this game is closer to her Arcade Era persona than the wet towel she was in MK9, then the recreation of Jade into a character that is not only Kitana’s most trusted aide but also equally invested in the liberation of Outworld, is a personality that never existed within the game’s old or new canon before now.
The Past Jade of MK11 is a fair-minded woman who listens to the opposing sides of the people closest to her (Kitana and Kotal Kahn) and tries to dole out the best suggestions for their circumstances regarding Shao Kahn’s tyranny. Much like Kitana, Jade’s role is more focused on planning and strategy, taking risks where necessary. Meanwhile, the undead Jade is a ruthless enforcer for Emperor Liu Kang and Empress Kitana. Though she blames Empress Kitana for her death, she also shares in the desire to see their deaths avenged with Kronika’s help. Jade’s friendship with Kitana is such that she willingly accepts the doom her undead counterpart suffers because she values her that much.
Much of Jade’s screentime is spent with Kotal Kahn, whose introduction re-contextualizes Jade’s Arcade Era history with a romantic relationship that was established before the events of Mortal Kombat II (in which Jade was a hidden character). While an out-of-nowhere romance typically does little for the development of the characters it represents, this was done to give Jade something to chew on as a character. It works. The earnestness in which Jade and Kotal Kahn’s affections are portrayed in the narrative sell the dynamic perfectly.
It also helps that the romance is secondary to the goals of the characters, which are at odds. Kotal’s lack of mercy and his willingness to commit genocide go against her ideas of justice. She takes him to task over his genocidal actions against the Tarkatans and accidentally facilitates the circumstances that lead to her and Kotal’s capture at the hands of Shao Kahn. She accepts the circumstances as is, even if it means she gets killed for her troubles.
MK11 Jade is such a radically different character and fantastic to boot. There’s no point in comparing her to her Arcade, 3D, or MK9 iterations. They pale in comparison. Jade’s romance with Kotal Kahn acts as a bookend, not only for her part in Kitana’s story but Kotal Kahn’s. It goes a long way in moving him away from his fairly one-note depiction in MKX. Besides Kitana, Raiden, and Liu Kang, Jade is the breakout character of the game with what they manage to do with her in the story, both as a henchwoman and heroic character.
On the more fan servicey side of the narrative, we get two chapters dedicated to the dynamic of Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Sub-Zero and Scorpion. The goal of their chapters is watching how the characters play off each other as they face old foes. Their friendships are the centerpiece of a nostalgic subplot, ruminating over where the characters might’ve started out at the beginning of the franchise, either as enemies or established allies.
“Fire and Ice” is a reiteration of Sub-Zero and Scorpion’s friendship in MKX, which has reached its logical conclusion as trusted allies who rib on each other’s hearing (or lack thereof). The chapter is more focused on bringing to a close the strife between Sub-Zero and Frost (who has sided with Kronika), who despises him over his alliance with Scorpion. She shows that she is a full-on antagonist, unwilling to reform.
Yet, for all its highlights, like mildly different outcomes if the player chooses Scorpion (over Sub-Zero) to fight Noob Saibot, Frost, Cyrax or Sektor, the chapter runs long in the tooth. It loses sight of the intended dynamic. Every time the chapter seems ready to end, it hits the playing audience with every bit of Subscorp fan service it can recall before closing on a bit of a flat note (Subs and Scorps staring awkwardly at Cyrax’s prone body).
The chapter “Shaolin Monks” shows a stronger, healthier dynamic between Liu Kang and Kung Lao. While it’s still not any closer to their original dynamic of the pre-Shaolin Monks (2005) era, it’s still a fun dynamic nonetheless. Kung Lao was probably one of their better realized characters in the original continuity before Shaolin Monks upended his entire personality. Despite his original characterization being the stronger personality, NetherRealm is really in love with the version of Lao who is jealous and petty toward his contemporary. MK9 tried to tone down the aggression but maintained Kung Lao’s envy of Liu Kang. MK11 never gets the chance to be consistent with the petty characterization of Kung Lao outside of his undead self, and at least one moment before a fight (“go fetch the vials, chosen one!”).
To MK11‘s credit, Kung Lao is still fairly mellowed out. Most of his aggression and suspicion is understandably directed toward Raiden when he learns the god gets him and his best friend killed. He’s nowhere near as close to his original iteration, but this specific version isn’t terrible either (he’s just meant to be Liu Kang’s sidekick, which sucks).
Unlike the “Fire and Ice” chapter, “Shaolin Monks” is more economic about the fan service it wants to use for the chapter’s plot. It goes with callbacks to dungeon crawling, the differences in Liu and Lao’s temperaments as students, and deadly traps that Liu casually says inhabit the Wu Shi Academy like another day at the office.
Where the PS2 Shaolin Monks game contained stilted performances from all parties involved (on top of a dumpster fire plot), Liu and Lao runneth over with personality in this game. They practically jab the premise of the game as Lao laments the absurdity of their circumstances while Liu just deals with it quietly, hoping Raiden will have the answers. They grin at each other’s accomplishments, and they play tag-team when confronted with a dabbing Scorpion. Being able to choose which Monk you want to control will have one of them squaring off against Scorpion when Jade, walking with all the swagger of a bad bitch, enters the arena with all the intent to beat them.
The Shonen Jump-esque friendship comes off less like a shallow rivalry retrofitted into their backstories, and more like two men who know each other too well to take things like Lao’s extreme pessimism, or Liu’s stalwart belief in Raiden like a great betrayal. Their chapter perhaps illustrates best the consequences of what are Raiden’s shortcomings as a mentor in the undead forms of Liu and Lao, who try to convince their past selves that Raiden will betray them.
In terms of a Point of View Character, Raiden is the closest thing to a narrative protagonist in the game after Liu Kang. Most loathe that Dark Raiden gets jettisoned so quickly from the story. As a game that’s trying to move away from the actions of the previous games, Dark Raiden’s absence sets up a much later element of the story, and is an otherwise solid use of “show don’t tell”. So much of the MK11’s story has Past Raiden trying to mend the damage of his erroneous future self, and fearing his own decision making, that it’s like Dark Raiden’s not even gone.
Dark Raiden’s absence, however, goes a long way in humanizing Raiden again after MK9 and MKX made it possible to disconnect from him through his perceived errors. Raiden’s arc sees him learning to trust in his own decisions and take responsibility for decisions he has yet to make, but made before the climax comes full circle with the restoration of Liu Kang in a new role that closes out the rebooted trilogy.
(Fire God) Liu Kang as the surprise protagonist of the final act (“End of an Era”) pulls the story together. The newborn god and protector of Earthrealm fights the primordial titan of time (Kronika) to save his past and present. Liu Kang and godhood is an idea that that was teased in the arcade endings of previous Mortal Kombat games (or just MK9) but never treated as a legitimate narrative path for the character since he ceased to be the central protagonist two decades ago.
Much like Jade, Liu Kang undergoes a radical character reconstruction that sees him brought closer to his heroic roots than the aimless characterization of the 3D and early rebooted Era when it was clear there was no plan for him or the franchise. Killing him twice in two different continuities was kind’ve dead give away.
If there is any negative to the overall cast dynamic, most of the returning jobbers (Skarlet, Erron Black, Frost, Kabal, Noob Saibot) or new jobbers (Cetrion, Geras) aren’t afforded any time to be anything other than aesthetically pleasing or cool, with brief moments that may endear you to them. While that’s their role in the story, it’s still kind of irksome that characters like Cetrion and Geras, who should’ve been a major story focus, are present so little or enters the plot near the climax (with no time to stretch her legs).
The only villains in MK11 that get anything particularly interesting to do or say are Kano and Baraka. Kano eats up most of the villain screentime with his hostile antics in the Cage family’s three chapters. He’s a distraction, but anyone who loves Kano will get their miles worth out of his presence. Baraka, within Kitana’s chapter, at the very least gets to make a case for the Tarkatans as individuals with a mildly more shrewd and leadership focused role. Brief as his time to shine is, what he’s given goes a long way to make him more than a wild henchman of a monster that just kills and murders people.
The Briggs family still gets the short end of the stick with the chapter focus. How NetherRealm handles the Briggs family interpersonal drama versus the Cage family is so tellingly bias it’s hard not to be mad about it. If the subplot was just about an older Jax Briggs choosing to work with Kronika hoping to get a new lease on life, then the conflict between him and his younger self would’ve been direct, focused. But that’s not the case. There’s Jacqui to consider.
Jacqui was dealt a bad hand in the latter Mortal Kombat stories. In MK11 she’s a far more personable character than she was in MKX (where she was just the Black Best Friend), and her redesign improves on her unremarkable looks if we’re not talking about her hairstyles. Megalyn Echikunwoke’s performance overall does more to provide a far more realized personality for Jacqui than Danielle Nicolet (the original voice actress for Jacqui) was allowed.
NetherRealm had a second chance to do anything with Jacqui, but they keep choosing to tie her up in some misbegotten quest to ensure her father’s happiness at the expense of herself. Again, the stakes in their shared chapter aren’t about her. Jacqui is nothing if not a character completely defined entirely by her relationships, not who she is separate from them (which, I guess, is nobody). Her chemistry with her father’s past self is amazing. It’s fun, easygoing, and you because of how young they both are they treat each other as equals. There’s a lot you can do with that dynamic, but outside one cinematic, we don’t get fun. We get this weird self-deprecating subplot instead.
The chapter briefly touches upon Jacqui’s fears that her existence is contingent on the suffering of her father, which established the circumstances for Jax to meet his wife (Vera). I loathe the idea of a Black woman’s existence being contingent on suffering. Jacqui’s self-sacrificing character is a fairly baffling angle that the writers take to the extreme in Jacqui’s arcade ending, which takes the cake for needlessly cruel.
That the elder Jax Briggs (who is working with Kronika to see her plans through in exchange for a better life for Jacqui) accidentally confirms Jacqui’s fears of her irrelevance through his actions (despite his younger self trying to bolster her self-worth) is a devastating choice in the narrative that never gets a proper resolution. Outside of a quick moment (an apology and a hug), it’s largely pushed to the side for the greater plot as the story draws to a close.
MK11’s decision to prioritize character over plot spectacle goes a long way in shaping the story. It structures much of the dynamic between the characters like dialog-heavy scenes in a film. How it’s framed emphasizes performance over anything else. (Taken alone, without the gameplay, the story mode is about three-to-four hours.) It’s what makes the awkward spectacle scenes (like tank vs. jet, Cetrion sweating to keep a bridge up when she could’ve rented out her mom’s luxury cruise, or Sektor taking an eternity to blow up off-screen while everyone has a chat) stick out all the more.
MK11’s cast of characters feel like genuine people instead of flashy archetypes in wild costumes. They don’t cease to be the latter, but now there’s some life to go with the aesthetic. The realization of the characters is contingent on the mostly stellar voice, animation, and motion capture performances, all of which is aided by a fairly consistent direction. The only exception to that rule is Ronda Rousey, who’s one-note delivery makes you appreciate the quiet steel of Tricia Helfer’s MKX Sonya all the more.
It’s to my understanding that most players in the MK community aren’t fans of the character-based chapters, largely because it structures the narrative and gameplay mechanics in the player’s favor character (the protagonists and supporting characters). The villains are never allowed to win outside certain cinematic moments, like a lot of stories outside of fighting games. There are complaints about character strengths, about how this character shouldn’t be able to beat that character, so and so forth.
I think the character chapter structure makes for a sharper and more decisive narrative when you tell it only from one or two character’s point of view, and you know exactly where you want to go.
MK9’s primary issue with its narrative, aside from trying to summarize three games under two hours, was the choice to give focus chapters to some irrelevant characters who ultimately did nothing to move the plot forward (Stryker, Smoke, Kabal, and Nightwolf). The other problem was having major events required to push the story forward happen off-screen, or rush through major events. (It’s almost like they should’ve just made three games again.)
Using a lazy shorthand in certain story beats undermines a plot already in a hurry to get to the end. Things like Shao Kahn dying and walking it off on the flimsiest excuse because there’s still that Armageddon scene to reenact, undermines the consequences of his actions against Kung Lao. Sindel killing everyone is never properly built up because she’s introduced so late in the game’s climax. Everything going exactly as planned for Quan-Chi (and Shinnok) only highlights how unnecessary they are to the plot. If you remove them and nothing changes. All the aforementioned elements honestly harmed a plot that could’ve worked if the writers were invested in something other than driving the plot forward at the expense of its characters.
MKX’s cast was smaller, but it tried to tackle too many conflicts at once while remaining indecisive about its new characters. MK9 and MKX’s primary problems were the fact that the writers prioritized plot over character. The characters were an afterthought to the larger moments in their given plot.
MK11 picks which characters it deems important to the larger narrative (Kronika, Raiden, Liu Kang, Kitana, Scorpion, Jade, Cassie), but remains invested in their overall chosen cast until it’s time to put them on the bench. The plot isn’t necessarily secondary to the characters, but it works more in service to them.
MK11 refines the character chapter structure, shows that can work with a more explicit focus on how interpersonal drama can work in harmony with the conflict of the plot. Can it be better? Absolutely, but this model — as it is in MK11 — is a far cry from how they used to present their story modes (an afterthought of a gameplay mode).
So, I hope the writers and the development team take what they did here and sharpen it in their next Mortal Kombat installment. And I hope the development of said game, once they come off their break has the dev time to do it.
This story is part of a four part series focused on Mortal Kombat 11’s story mode.
