Aftermath DLC Story Mode spoiler discussion

[Jynks]

Guy the more I think about it the more I think this is just the "empire strikes back" of a 3 part story. I bet we will get another dlc story pack at the start of the next season.. something like MK11: Rebirth or something.... that will be about toppling Tsung and restoring the MKverse. Including Radian back to God status.

 

[ItsYaBoi]

Absolutely loved Aftermath. Preferred the story to the main game.

And honestly? I'm psyched that we're looking at potentially exploring the first ever Mortal Kombat tournament. It's an area unexplored by the games, and it makes sense to go back to where it all essentially begins.

They've got a really good chance here too to wipe the roster clean of most characters and start fresh. Boon stated that he wanted to do something like this in an interview just before Armageddon released (or just after), where he said that this was it for most characters and that they'd start fresh in the next game barring a small handful of popular ones etc. Whilst this would no doubt piss off a portion of the fan base, you're going to piss off some of them anyway by inevitably not including their faves.

I personally would love this though, and there's lots of deep lore that they've already established from which they can delve into for both existing and new characters. For example, you could have a younger, leaner Bo Rai Cho (who trained kombatants for the MK tournaments). You could have a young Shang also (originally he was trained by Bo Rai Cho, they could show this in the story and we see Shangs development into a villain). Then there's Shao Kahn, Kitana, Goro and a few other characters that are thousands of years old. In terms of Sub Zero, it's established that the current Sub is a descendant of a race of cryomancers from Outworld. Simply make the new Sub Zero one of these cryomancers, and one of the first to take up the Sub Zero mantle. The poster boy that is Scorpion needs to find a way in obviously. They could either go more grounded and make this a living, random Shirai Ryu warrior who happens to have fire abilities, or keep hellfire Scorpion/Hanzo and come up with some crazy bullshit reason as to why he is 500 years in the past. Reptile could return also, and maybe he isn't the last of his race yet? A combination of this being a different timeline - plus being set 500 years ago - could mean that his race is thriving and he is in the tournament to simply represent Zaterra (which is also thriving and not yet destroyed). This leads on to my next point - have more realm representation. Being the first tournament, maybe there could be a handful of fighters from each realm representing them or something like that? This in turn allows them to delve deeper into the Orderrealm and Chaosrealm - two realms that they've been teasing consistently since MK9. They could also show off Zaterra and a few other obscure realms. This also allows them to add in a new character with a moveset resembling Johnny Cages. In his MK9 ending, it's established that his powers come from his ancestors who were from the Seido realm. You could play as one of those ancestors.

I'm aware that there's potential there for a lot of reskins of popular characters - but hell, it deepens the lore, would be interesting to see, and they then aren't as restricted with the movesets as they can keep elements of them but branch out a little bit as they're different characters.

 

[Kiss the Missile]

When fighting Kronika, did anyone else get Spawn as her partner?

 

[Jynks]

I got robocop... she killed me though and then Frost lol

 

[Chuckyscookie]

I still get mad whenever I see revenant Jade on screen. So many years of mystery, her MK9 ending, her absence in MKX, a bit of a teaser in Kitana's MKX ending... And then there's literally nothing. She comes back from another timeline, and her present self just is a revenant that was absent for some unexplained reason. Stuff like that, ignoring their own set up for what could be highly interesting character arcs really annoys me.

 

[spidey300]

View attachment 17035

i goofed. i meant sonya

 

[spidey300]

Am I the ONLY person that isn't so sexist that I was happy to actually see Kitana get the win over Shao Kahn without Liu Kang to do ALL of her fighting for her? She's 10,000 years old and trained as a warrior-assassin for most of it for fuck's sake. She shouldn't need a 20-something year old monk from Earth to be her savior. It was about time she finally got treated as something other than Outworld's Princess Peach to Kang's Mario. Of course they go right back to her being utterly naive and worthless but just ehhhh. I'm not saying this out of some feminist SJW bull. I'm a straight white male sadly. She's just my second favorite chatacter in the series and it was nice to see her do sonething other than get enslaved.

this sounds like propaganda taken too seriously for a mortal kombat game. relax

 

[Evil Canadian]

I didn't like how Shao Kahn disrespected Shinnok before the fight with Cassie Cage. By the way, Shinnok lost to both Cassie Cage and Johnny Cage in MKX and now Shao Kahn defeated both Cassie and Johnny in consecutive battles... Not cool,

that is in fact, very cool
Shao also got his win back against Liu Kang

Shao finally showing his true power against these weakling fucking nerds

 

[MateoFoShizzle]

I thought it was funny that revenant Kung Lao.. who is super upset throughout the entire two games that he had his neck snapped... died... via another neck snap!

I liked the expansion though. All you complaining about “disrespecting” characters... it’s a game. And a storyline. It’s not tailored to you.

I would really like if NRS really does plan on dropping a few new DLC characters (Havik, Reiko, Sareena, etc.) but after finishing the story - I think IF we get those characters it’ll just be another Kombat pack release, no extra story or anything.

All in all the game feels much more complete with the roster now, variations in fatalities/friendships/etc. Extra story was a bonus.
Good job NRS!

 

[Lord Snotty]

I still get mad whenever I see revenant Jade on screen. So many years of mystery, her MK9 ending, her absence in MKX, a bit of a teaser in Kitana's MKX ending... And then there's literally nothing. She comes back from another timeline, and her present self just is a revenant that was absent for some unexplained reason. Stuff like that, ignoring their own set up for what could be highly interesting character arcs really annoys me.

That was maddening. It seemed like something big was being set up for The Dream Realm, which might have been really exciting. But Shawn decided to write...that.

 

[Lord Snotty]

I didn't like how Shao Kahn disrespected Shinnok before the fight with Cassie Cage. By the way, Shinnok lost to both Cassie Cage and Johnny Cage in MKX and now Shao Kahn defeated both Cassie and Johnny in consecutive battles... Not cool, but I guess that was some sort of revenge, remember that Shao Kahn died in MK9 because of Shinnok and Quan Chi.

Thing is... Shinnok wasn't actually defeated by Johnny. If you watch MKX, Shinnok took on and held off Johnny/Sonya/Raiden/Fujin and he did a better job of it than Kronika. After Johnny took him down, he got back up onto his feet ready to fight again. He might have won had he not been drawn into the amulet. Shao got beaten up by Kitana. Then rejuvenated in The Soul Chamber. Cassie defeating Shinnok was...well, silly. Just like Sindel, they both had power that seemed to do a lot for them without any real explanation. I mean Cetrion held a bridge an entire army crossed and yet Sindel beat her? No. Absolutely not.

 

[Raidenwins]

Guy the more I think about it the more I think this is just the "empire strikes back" of a 3 part story. I bet we will get another dlc story pack at the start of the next season.. something like MK11: Rebirth or something.... that will be about toppling Tsung and restoring the MKverse. Including Radian back to God status.

Now that I am all for. I don't like what they did to my favorite character in this game.

With that said though, I think MK11's story, including Aftermath, is awful. It started going downhill in MK9 with the first timeline shift and now the whole thing is a complete mess. MK has completely ventured into comic books territory now with timelines upon timelines upon timelines, bringing back dead characters ad infinitum, completely twisting (retconning) characters' background stories and appearances, and so on and so forth.

Ideally i would prefer that they declare everything after MK Armageddon non-cannon and continue the original story from that point on in MK12. Plus NO MORE TIMELINES/Time Travel and NO MORE GUEST CHARACTERS.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

I find it joyfully Ironic how a single actor can Carry(Togawa) an entire narrative to a joyful experience even when the writing is so bad it’s embarrassing.
8/10 Too much water

My thoughts exactly.

It started out so good, just like the regular Story with the opening chapter. The first two and a half chapters were solid. Power Couple Sindel and Shao Kahn was more satisfying than I expected. New Sheeva is AMAZING. Cary as Shang Tsung carried the whole thing on his back and made it shine. Watching the bad guys start to win was pretty great.

Aaaaaaaaand then the complete and painful absurdity that is the plot itself unraveled the entire thing, further the transformation of Mortal Kombat as a whole from its own original universe with its own unique identity, to just another branch of the DC Warner Brothers multiverse that happens to be Mortal Kombat.

On a personal note: I've been making a book for about ten years now; its' story reaches the apex with a contest very similar to the MK tournament. It's my life's work and something I take seriously as a heart attack. So from the perspective of someone who writes, makes art, is trying to create his own personal like-minded MK-verse...whoever greenlit and wrote this story should go back to school, because holy shit, what a copout. I get that fighting games don't often prioritize the storytelling, and that this game LOOKS so beautiful and sharp that it distracts from its own intrinsic senselessness...but my goodness. There are more holes in MK11 and Aftermath than a loaf of Jarlsberg swiss cheese. It would be one thing if you completely unmade the canonical history laid out over the games and replaced it with something that, I don't know, fucking made any kind of sense at all...but to undo ten games and almost 30 years worth of events and replace them with the nonsense that has been the "we don't want to write a story that require effort or depth, so we're retconning the retcon we used to retcon everything else" experience of Kronika and the Hourglass, that's some top tier slap in the face to the lifelong fans material, and the example from which I will learn FOREVER what not to do with my story.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Something about the Sindel retcon is puzzling me.


So, let me get this straight. Keep in mind that we're in the MK9 timeline.

Sindel is married to Jerrod and they rule Edenia. But secretly she despises him because of his lack of ambition. Then one day the realm is invaded by Outworld, and she falls in love with Shao Kahn because he's so manly and powerful. So she murders the weakling Jerrod! and marries Shao Kahn.

They fabricate the lie that it was Shao Kahn who killed Jerrod.

Up to this point, it's conflicting with the original Sindel characterization and it's a retcon. The next part is more complicated.

----

As explained in MK9, Sindel commited suicide and by doing that she created a spell/protection for Earthrealm. Something like Lily Potter I guess. The power of love! It sounds corny, but I think it works. It would mean that Sindel was going through intense emotions after having her husband killed, her Realm occupied, she being forced to marry a bloodthirsthy brute and having her daughter taken away. Instead of casting a spell from despair, she does it from the last positive energy that remains within her.

So in order to bypass this and carry on the invasion, Quan Chi travels to where Sindel died and through necromancy (something vile and forbidden according to Aftermath) he revives her. At the same time, he alters her mind to make her cooperate with Shao Kahn.

During the whole scene you can see that Quan Chi has his doubts. He brought Noob Saibot with him, and he was ready to fight before Quan Chi heard from Sindel that the spell worked.

----

However, in this new timeline Sindel was killed by Quan Chi. Why? It's not explained. There's something about Sindel "distracting" Shao Kahn. Lemme stop you right there.

1. Why did Quan Chi care? Shouldn't he be busy in the Netherrealm, doing Shinnok's bidding? Or his own stuff, since he was always more of a lone wolf?
2. How is Shao Kahn so distracted that Quan Chi has to kill Sindel? Were Shao Kahn and Sindel spending time in the park instead of invading realms?
3. Why make it look like a suicide? Who was Quan Chi trying to fool? Shao Kahn?

Of course, this nullifies the spell of protection plot. So what, it was a lie made up by Quan Chi to prevent Shao Kahn from invading Earthrealm?? Was everyone on board to make Shao Kahn believe his wife killed herself?


----

Some comments I've read said that they liked the new Sindel because she "had more agency". Like she was doing things on her own and even manipulated Shao Kahn.
Aftermath debunks all this. She acts more like the trophy wife of Shao Kahn. I've read the writter wanted to make her like Lady Macbeth. I'm not sure if that works when the husband is Shao Kahn, and none of them feel any remorse about what they're doing. In the case of Sindel, going as far as to torture her daughter.
Sindel conspired with Shang Tsung, and then went to help Shao Kahn and stood by his side the whole time. She apparently killed her own protector, Sheeva, to put Shao Kahn in power again.

Good grief, Pizza. I didn't even think of that.

They completely contradicted the thing on which everything between MK3 and now was predicated: the ward of protection that kept Shao Kahn from invading in the first place.

...It's even WORSE than the Battle of Winterfell.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Just beaten it. The Shang Tsung ending, of course.

I have a thing for scheming, magnificent bastards. Had it ever since I watched the Star Wars prequels in the early 2000s (Palpatine rocks). So, having a schemer like Shang take the spotlight was refreshing. I also LOVED Shao Kahn and Sindel's chemistry. They are the evil 1% and I couldn't help but chuckle with glee at their 'not a single fuck was given' attitude towards the heroes.

I too felt this isn't the end. Why take the Cage family captive? Why are Liu and Kitana still alive? Where was Baraka (or Erron) in all this? Felt like they were saving them for a second expansion (the After-Aftermath). If Shang's is the canon ending, Orderealm and Chaosrealm are unconquered, and Shang Tsung says 'It has begun'. You do not end a story saying 'It has begun' (and yeah, I know it's mostly a reference, but still).

I mean, fuck … can you imagine Aftermath 2.0 being about Hotaru and Havik becoming a dynamic (and incredibly dysfunctional) duo and screwing with uber-powerful Shang Tsung?

 

[xKMMx]

So the only real question that Im left with …. is Kotal dead now? Since what happened on Kharons ship was in the past compared to where the story picked up he's legit dead right? Hard to ever know if something is canon or not with NRS and all their magical resurrection shit.

 

[kingjolly]

I remember a video where Ed Boon was being interviewed by Brazilians a few years ago. He discussed ideas of creating an mk game called Mortal Kombat Zero that would serve as a prequel to MK1. EDIT: found it...it’s around the 6 minute mark.

 

[Nickolaidas]

So the only real question that Im left with …. is Kotal dead now? Since what happened on Kharons ship was in the past compared to where the story picked up he's legit dead right? Hard to ever know if something is canon or not with NRS and all their magical resurrection shit.

He could be resurrected in Shang's timeline to be one of his lieutenants. We'll see.

 

[Lord Snotty]

The fact Sonya didn't even speak is just ridiculous. I know some fans don't care for Ronda's voiceover skills, but Sonya Blade is THE grand dame of the franchise. Imagine Street Fighter did the same with Chun Li? No, they wouldn't. Worse, Sheeva is shown as wise and thoughtful and brave and powerful in MK11. Then we get to Aftermath and suddenly she's beyond stupid. Why would be break an oath for Sindel? I know they have a blood oath or something (?) but there's literally no explanation of what that entails. So Sheeva suddenly has to make stupid uncharacteristic decisions because the plot demands it. A real shame.

 

[Lord Snotty]

So the only real question that Im left with …. is Kotal dead now? Since what happened on Kharons ship was in the past compared to where the story picked up he's legit dead right? Hard to ever know if something is canon or not with NRS and all their magical resurrection shit.

I don't think either timeline stands now. The New Era has started and (of course) it'll be Fire God Liu Kang shaping it.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Just beaten it. The Shang Tsung ending, of course.

I have a thing for scheming, magnificent bastards. Had it ever since I watched the Star Wars prequels in the early 2000s (Palpatine rocks). So, having a schemer like Shang take the spotlight was refreshing. I also LOVED Shao Kahn and Sindel's chemistry. They are the evil 1% and I couldn't help but chuckle with glee at their 'not a single fuck was given' attitude towards the heroes.

I too felt this isn't the end. Why take the Cage family captive? Why are Liu and Kitana still alive? Where was Baraka (or Erron) in all this? Felt like they were saving them for a second expansion (the After-Aftermath). If Shang's is the canon ending, Orderealm and Chaosrealm are unconquered, and Shang Tsung says 'It has begun'. You do not end a story saying 'It has begun' (and yeah, I know it's mostly a reference, but still).

I mean, fuck … can you imagine Aftermath 2.0 being about Hotaru and Havik becoming a dynamic (and incredibly dysfunctional) duo and screwing with uber-powerful Shang Tsung?

I agree. And I will concede that both of the endings were the best part of the story; but if there IS more story to come, the Shang ending is going to be the one they run with and end the game on.
Liu going back to train the original Lao means that he in all likelihood defeats Goro in the Ninth Tournament, negating the original events and providing the clean reset. But that's as final an ending as you can get, so I doubt it's going to be where they stop if there's more to come.

Going the other way adds up. MK started with Shang as the end-all-be-all bad guy before Shao Kahn was introduced, so it should end with him as the final big bad. Giving him the Thanos treatment with the crown puts him in the Onaga/Blaze end of the road tier. And with Earthrealm, Outworld, the Netherrealm, and all of their representatives being as fleshed out and conquered as possible, that means that you can go full crazy with Chaosrealm, Seido/Orderrealm, and Edenia, where the Pyramid Of Argus can still rise somewhere in this time-fractured universe.

Geras is still in Chaosrealm, and will almost certainly factor in to how whoever's left to fight will be going about their plans, mad as all fuck because his master is gone.
Johnny and Cassie are canonical descendants of Seido, which is the source of the power both of them used to beat Shinnok, and is almost definitely why they were kept alive, so that gives Hotaru and the Seidan Guardsmen incentive to cooperate.
Finally, if all things began in Edenia with Argus and Delia, setting it all in motion with Blaze, Taven, Daegon and the Pyramid, that's still the only place the whole thing can end.

Plus, look at that last big leak and who it told us were going to be the among the last DLC: Ashrah, Quan Chi, Havik, Daegon, and Kai.
That's the Chaosrealm king we've been waiting for for YEARS; the Son Of Argus and founder of the Red Dragon who, in his head, is destined to be Ruler of All; the last living White Lotus in now-conquered Earthrealm with no Liu or Lao left standing; the Oni Demoness who was saved by a magic Edenian sword and likely used it to escape the now-conquered Netherrealm; and the Peter Baelish sorcerer who set all these insane events in motion, who is probably hiding somewhere in Outworld trying to raise Onaga and his army. Every angle and realm is represented, and they all have three brand new realms to work in.

Going the Empire Strikes Back route makes as much sense as sense can be made out of all of this.

 

[xKMMx]

The fact Sonya didn't even speak is just ridiculous. I know some fans don't care for Ronda's voiceover skills, but Sonya Blade is THE grand dame of the franchise. Imagine Street Fighter did the same with Chun Li? No, they wouldn't. Worse, Sheeva is shown as wise and thoughtful and brave and powerful in MK11. Then we get to Aftermath and suddenly she's beyond stupid. Why would be break an oath for Sindel? I know they have a blood oath or something (?) but there's literally no explanation of what that entails. So Sheeva suddenly has to make stupid uncharacteristic decisions because the plot demands it. A real shame.

WIth regard to Sonya not speaking she was on screen for a grand total of about 60 seconds. This was more than likely made after original story mode and bringing her back in for maybe one to two lines of dialogue would have been a useless expense.

 

[appo]

So the only real question that Im left with …. is Kotal dead now? Since what happened on Kharons ship was in the past compared to where the story picked up he's legit dead right? Hard to ever know if something is canon or not with NRS and all their magical resurrection shit.

he is dead in that timeline but both winners changed it at the end. in liu´s he is not born at that pont of time where the story continues and in shangs...kinda unknown but no matter what his death in the story timeline doesnt mean he cant come back.

i liked the story mode for what it was and i hope they really continue with a mortal kombat during the timeline of the great kung lao.

 

[xKMMx]

I just love that Shang finally stuck it to Fucking every one. I cant stand Raiden he is a total idiot and fucks up everything. You can tell even Fujin didn't want to give him the crown when he thought SHang was him cause he knows this dude is a king size fuck up. And Shang sticking it to SHao Kahns cheesy ass was awesome. It always bothered me in 9 story where they made Shang just another one of SK's bitches

 

[Lord Snotty]

WIth regard to Sonya not speaking she was on screen for a grand total of about 60 seconds. This was more than likely made after original story mode and bringing her back in for maybe one to two lines of dialogue would have been a useless expense.

Why bring her back at all if she's there for sixty seconds? She had a good storyline in MK11. I suppose she might appear in another story dlc expansion pack, but I don't feel that's going to happen?