Mortal Kombat 1 Players Are Furious With Inclusion of Paid Fatalities

Mortal Kombat 1 players are finding themselves quite upset this week following the announcement that paid Fatalities will soon be coming to the popular fighting game. With the last few Mortal Kombat installments, NetherRealm Studios has added paid content that players can choose to purchase outside of the main game. Not only has this additional content taken the form of DLC fighters and story expansions, but an in-game storefront has also been established that gives players new cosmetic options for various characters. Now, with Mortal Kombat 1, NetherRealm is tucking exclusive Fatalities behind a paywall too, and it’s not going over well with fans. 

Upon the release of a new Mortal Kombat 1 update earlier this week, NetherRealm noted that it would soon be bringing a “Halloween Finisher” to the game’s Premium Store. Buying this Fatality makes it accessible to all in-game fighters within MK1. And while at face value, releasing additional Fatalities post-launch is something that virtually all MK1 players would want, asking fans to pay more money for it proved to be a step too far for many. 

Soon after this paid Fatality was announced, Mortal Kombat 1 players on the game’s official subreddit began expressing their concerns and frustrations. Some fans were annoyed that in-game “Seasonal Koins” couldn’t be used to buy this Fatality, while others acknowledged that many casual Mortal Kombat players would likely snatch up this add-on, which will send the wrong message to NetherRealm. Conversely, others just said that this was nothing more than how all modern video games work as titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty have made in-game purchases incredibly common. 

“People really need to vote with their wallets and not buy this, or it’ll set a really bad precedent,” said user FistoPuncherelli in the subreddit’s expansive thread on the topic. “The more people that don’t buy, the bigger the message. […] I can’t in good conscience support these predatory microtransactions, and I hope more and more people will eventually catch on.”

For the time being, NetherRealm itself hasn’t responded to this growing sect of Mortal Kombat 1 players and their early concerns. Additionally, it’s not known how frequent paid Fatalities might become in the future. After all, Mortal Kombat 1 has already been out for over a month and this is the first instance we’ve seen of it for the time being. Still, if this ends up being a form of paid content that NetherRealm ends up releasing quite often, it could prove to further aggravate many longtime Mortal Kombat players.