“So that’s where Mortal Kombat X is caught, between the cheaply amateurish (yet sickeningly pleasurable) blood-and-guts spectacle of its origins and the means of overbearing IP owners who wish it to be broadly inclusive entertainment. Mortal Kombat only works one way and it is not the way Warner thinks it does. To detach Mortal Kombat from such ancestry is defeatist. Of course it was born for profits, but it was by accident. Unexpected. Mortal Kombat X, by comparison, is too glossy. The blood is more real, the brains more bouncy. All of this happens because dollar signs command it to, not because a handful of developers spent their time pushing social acceptability. It now feels dishonest, pandering even.”
Matt Paprocki 