One of the cool things about Mortal Kombat 11 – and indeed previous versions of the famous fighting game series – is that it’s packed with secrets.
There are loads of things to unlock in the game. Some of this stuff is pretty straightforward – in fact the game will tell you where to find certain items, such as specific cosmetics. Some of this stuff is not straightforward. How to unlock brutalities, for example.
Brutalities are particularly brutal round enders (the round-ending blow must involve the special brutality input command) that are typically shorter than a fatality. They must be unlocked by finding them somewhere in the game, for example the Krypt or in a Tower of Time. Once you’ve unlocked a brutality, you can use it in a match. But even then you have to meet certain conditions during the match before they can be used to end a round.
Some of these conditions can be tricky to meet in a competitive match. Take Shao Khan’s Charging Through brutality, for example. To be able to use it to end a round, Shao Khan must be below 40 per cent health, the player must hold forward at the end of the input command for the shoulder charge special move, and the final hit must come from the shoulder charge. Not impossible, or unlikely, just tricky.
Developer NetherRealm recently added an additional brutality victory pose for every character via an update. This is the pose your character does after performing a brutality. But it also added several new secret brutalities for players to discover.
What’s interesting is how players are discovering them. The new secret brutalities are not mentioned in the game’s command lists or in customisation – sorry! – kustomisation, and there’s no hints as to where to go in the game to unlock them. As mentioned, in Mortal Kombat 11 you can’t perform a brutality you haven’t unlocked, so players are spotting the AI, which, naturally, has everything at its disposal, perform brutalities they’ve never seen before.
YouTube channel Nick and Autumn captured gameplay of a raft of new brutalities by letting the AI pummel him for hours on end. The result is the compilation video below:
I’m fond of Johnny Cage’s groin punch brutality, which hits so hard it pops his opponent’s head off their neck. Shao Khan’s secret brutality, which sees the Shadow Priest appear to rip off his enemy’s head, is another standout.
Players are now trying to work out the conditions that must be met before these brutalities can be performed by watching the AI closely. They’re also wondering where in the game they’re hiding, waiting to be unlocked. Until we know more, keep an eye on the AI. It may surprise you.
