Every single Mortal Kombat game is absolutely rammed with unique and depraved ways to dismember, disembowel and decapitate your foes and occasionally your friends.
Mortal Kombat 11 has been impressing the fan base lately and sating the bloodlust with some of the most graphic and downright nasty fatalities the series has ever seen. No duffers made it through the test phases this time (Quan Chi’s neck stretch anyone?) and the death comes fast and heavy in this latest entry! After test driving every murderous finisher in the game I’ve decided to catalogue my five favourites in the game. There’s no order here and they range from the hilarious to the near vomit inducing!
Everything about the insectoid Sarah Kerrigan cosplayer, D’Vorah is pretty much disgusting… With a body full of bugs and weird spiney arms from her back, she’s a pretty gross person to come across… Or hive I guess? Either way you’d expect Miss Creepy Crawly to have something pretty damn horrifying as her finisher and you’d be right but you’d also be severely underestimating her. During New Species, the yellow wonder vomits a bunch of maggots into her opponent’s gullet and lets them fall onto their back, after a fair amount of twitching you’re treated to 4 gigantic insect legs bursting from the torso and slowly lifting it into the air. The camera zooms in on the limp head as it shakes rapidly before splitting into to be replaced by a fresh new bugs head… And thus your nightmares become real. It’s certainly not the most violent in the series by oh my is it the most disturbing. There’s been plenty of talk online about this particular move with most agreeing it’s made them uncomfortable!
Way back when in Mortal Kombat 1, there was a glitch during movie star Johnny Cage’s uppercut Fatality where Johnny would perform the devastating punch and somehow knock off THREE heads! It was clearly a bug, but it later inspired another Fatality for the Jean Claude rip off in MK Trilogy where he would perform 3 uppercuts, each removing a head! Nice touch. Now all these years later we’re treated to a HD rendition of that classic glitch with a hilarious new angle thrown in. During this move Mr. Cage will perform his classic uppercut, but instead of removing the head he just smashes their lower jaw in, immediately the fourth wall is broken as a boom mic falls into shot and Cage turns to the camera to confront his director. This is followed up by a film clapper board being held up informing us of it being fatality take 2! One more uppercut and more crushed face later a pissed of Johnny can be heard yelling “WHO HIRED THIS GUY!”. Take 3, this time the head comes off but remains stuck to Cage’s fist, so in frustration he launches it at the camera. A perfect Fatality for a comic relief hero like Johnny Cage, I love anything that breaks the fourth wall so aggressively and think that NetherRealm have seemingly nailed it with Cage’s character this time round.
Anyone who played Mortal Kombat (2011) will probably remember that shadow wielding hell spawn Noob had maybe the most brutal fatality going. So when he was announced to be returning for MK11 (And now sounding like The Claw from Inspector Gadget for some reason…) we were all fairly keen to see what depths of violence we’d see from the older Sub-Zero sibling. No disappointment here… Split Decision is all the brutal and wince inducing excitement you’d hoped for. During the fatality, Noob rips open his opponent’s stomach and, as their entrails slip to the floor, he fills them with his own shadows. As they woozy and wounded enemy stumbles back, a pair of hands emerges from their mouth and rips their body in half from the jaw down revealing Noob where their torso used to be! All this is accompanied by the sickening sounds of bones snapping and flesh ripping! If it doesn’t make you wince in faux pain then there’s probably something wrong with you but my god does it feel good to do to someone online after they’ve given you a difficult battle.
Introduced in MK: Deadly Alliance, Frost is the bratty student to the wise master that is Sub-Zero. She’s always been a bit of a nothing character relegated to cameos and inside jokes rather than the actual roster but with her return in MK11 she’s undergone a substantial make over and now resembles something from Ghost in the Shell. Robo-Frost seems to think that she needs an army too, if her fatality is to be believed. During The Cyber Initiative Frost uses her powers over Ice to freeze her enemy before laying a solid haymaker which shatters the upperbody but leaves their spine and brain intact. She then rips this nervous system free and hands it off to a waiting drone, a swift cut to black and suddenly we watch has said brain and spine is shoved into a waiting cybernetic shell which then awakens with a start. Sure it’s not the most violent thing to watch especially since with their frozen body the foe doesn’t actually bleed all that much, it’s still definitely interesting to watch and a unique take on what makes a fatality. I mean technically the enemy doesn’t even die here; they’re just in a different form!
Master criminal and poor Aussie impressionist, Kano has an infamous reputation thanks to his Heart Rip Fatality back in the first Mortal Kombat, I brutal move by anyone’s standards. Over the years and games Kano has become gradually less of a threat and more comic relief. So come the latest entry the violence and comedy has finally crossed over and Kano’s Last Dance fatality is all kinds of vicious and hilarious. Starting off, the terminator cosplayer pulls out a bottle of beer and necks it before smashing it over his enemies face, once they’re dazed, he takes the now shattered bottle and jams it in their neck, leaving it there as blood pours from the open end of the bottle and they fall backwards. Could end there as a fairly decent death scene, but no, Kano is far too showy for that. He grabs the dying sap by the wrist, pulls them in close and performs a brief waltz with his foes corpse as ballroom music plays. It’s nasty and hilarious to witness and just sums up Kano as a character so well!