Mortal Kombat X is going to be brutal

The original trilogy of Mortal Kombat games is easily one of the finest games ever made. Tight, focused and downright gruesome, each successive game also experimented with new ways to paint your 16 bit screen with red pixels of a viscous nature. The original Mortal Kombat introduced fatalities, with Mortal Kombat 2 then adding Friendships and Babalities to the mix. Then Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 took things a step further with the ridiculous Animalities and the thumb-breaking ultimate finisher: The Brutality. And that infamous finisher is making a comeback in Mortal Kombat X.

Brutalities haven’t been seen since the Sega Megadrive days of Mortal Kombat. But in a livestream today, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon revealed that they would indeed be back, as finisher attacks with a gory end. In order to pull a Brutality off though, players will need to meet certain requirements such as finishing a match without blocking or finishing a match by throwing an opponent. From there, players will be able to throw down a combo that isn’t only gruesome to watch, but brutal as well.

While Brutalities won’t end up with you blikseming your opponents into giblets, they will be unique and have an appropriate name as well. In short, pulling off a Brutality won’t be as difficult as it was in previous games, but setting them up will still be a challenge. Here’s what the old school brutalities looked like:

And here’s what they look like now, thanks to GamesHQMedia capturing the stream:

According to Boon, there’ll be over 100 Brutalities to perform and discover, each one with their own level of challenge. Kind of like Where’s Wally then, but much, much more gruesome. Brutalities were a neat part of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and the Trilogy collection. They were an extra dash of salt in the wound, the ultimate way of showing off your Mortal Kombat skills and humiliating an opponent. And I have a feeling that I’m going to be on the receiving end of many of them.

Last Updated: February 27, 2015