Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Brings Back Friendships and Stage Fatalities

The big news this morning is that NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have announced Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath, a new expansion for Mortal Kombat 11 that is set to launch on May 26th. In addition to all the usual bells and whistles like new playable characters, the latest and greatest version of the fighting game franchise brings back some old staples in the form of Friendships and stage fatalities.

Friendships are basically the non-violent version of the franchise’s fatalities. While fatalities are extremely gory and violent, made only more so in the modern incarnations of Mortal Kombat, Friendships are bizarrely sweet and kind and gentle In one Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Friendship example shown by NetherRealm Studios, Noob Saibot creates two shadow clones to then play double dutch with himself. In yet another, Kano starts grilling. And then there’s Sub-Zero, which you can check out below. There’s frankly no telling what these might look like for other characters at this point, but we don’t have all that long to wait to find out.

“Stage fatalities” are exactly what they sound like: fatalities specifically associated with a given combat stage. The announcement trailer shows off one involving a hook and a pool of acid, but it’s currently unclear just how many might feature in Aftermath. Historically, not every stage has had a fatality associated with it even when they were present in a given game, and there’s no reason to believe that will change here.

In case you already happen to own the base game, or the base game and its DLC, there are several different methods of purchasing Aftermath and its content. The Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Kollection ($59.99) contains the base game, Aftermath, and the previously released Mortal Kombat 11 Kombat Pack in addition to 25 additional character skins. Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath on its own costs $39.99 while Aftermath plus the Mortal Kombat 11 Kombat Pack will retail for $49.99. According to NetherRealm Studios, the physical version of the Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Kollection will be available this coming June in the Americas only.

Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath is scheduled to release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia on May 26th. As previously mentioned, players can pick and choose which version of the game to grab depending on how much of it they already own. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the Mortal Kombat franchise right here.

What do you think about what we’ve seen of Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath so far? Are you looking forward to picking it up when it releases later this month? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!