Mortal Kombat 11 Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

DOWNS

4. A Ludicrously Arduous Grind

Back to aesthetics. You’ll need to accrue coins and spend them to unlock an item of choice. The place you grab almost everything is the Krypt as always, but with so many random pieces of gear out there SOMEWHERE, what used to be an enjoyable mystery box turns into “Yup… I really want a new set of nunchucks or a ninja costume for Sub-Zero, and I’ve wanted this for the last 10 hours”

MK 11 attempts to mitigate this in two ways. One is “Time Krystals” – a premium currency you can earn in-game or for real money, that is said to bypass the entire grind by letting you buy the skin or weapon you want. I say “is said to”, because the whole time I played before launch, this feature just wasn’t in the game. I have to imagine it’ll be there at launch but… yeah.

The second is MK 11’s Living Towers. Carrying forward the same “live element” as Injustice 2’s Multiverse; the idea of random arcade ladders resetting every few minutes, hours or days to give varying rewards, here is where everything you can’t find in the Krypt is waiting to be unlocked.

However, you still can’t specify an unlock path unless you spend a whopping 25,000 Koins to summon a character specific tower, that will let you grind for the gear you want. Even then, the reward it throws up is random.

For example, I’ve banked 40-ish hours in this, and I still don’t have the regular red bandana Liu Kang, as shown in the story. Go figure.