Mortal Kombat 1 | Summer Game Fest Hands-On Preview

During Summer Game Fest Play Days we got our hands on roughly 30 minutes of Mortal Kombat 1. The game doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it offers fans of the series a new way to engage with the characters, world, and sheer brutality. 

The most distinctive feature of Mortal Kombat 1 is the introduction of Kameo Fighters, which if you’ve played a tag fighter before, you’ll be familiar with the concept. Call in a character from a separate roster to perform an anti-air, projectile shot, or grab to extend your combos or put up a defensive breaker. 

Mortal Kombat 1 | Summer Game Fest Hands-On Preview

While the roster available to us only consisted of Katana, Kenshi, Sub-Zero, and Liu Kang, it was enough to get a sense of the ebb and flow of Mortal Kombat 1. If you’ve played any of the recent entries in the franchise before, you’ll be right at home with your combos and pacing of a fight. 

Kameo fighters push the sandbox in ways that my small brain will not always be able to grasp, but the system seems near limitless with possibilities. During a presentation before the hands-on portion, we got a glimpse of higher-level combo strings that used Kameo fighters to extend the same combo more than once. Learning the most effective route to have your fighter hop in for a quick hit can make or break your experience in a match. 

The meter in the top left of your screen shows when these fighters are available for a move. Holding a different direction on the pad while calling in the fighter will change what move comes out. 

For instance holding back and R1 brought Kano out in his classic ball attack. However, this could be held for a delayed release to not only apply pressure to my opponent, but also for a quick release mid combo to extend the duration and move my foe across the screen and put them in the corner. 

Using the Kameo system in this way gives Mortal Kombat a fresh coat of paint, but only time will tell how deep this system truly goes. 

The Kameo Fighters we had access to in our build were Sonya Blade, Jax, and Kano. The team has said that some fighters will appear on both the main and Kameo roster, but we don’t have any confirmation on if any of the ones we saw in our demo will be included in that. 

Kameo Fighters will also join in on Fatal blow moves, adding a sense of a tag team wrestling match where the two fighters come together for an ultimate show-stopping move. Watch Kano shoot a laser through someone’s skull while Liu Kang kicks in their rib cage. It’s just as over-the-top and gory as you would expect from the franchise. It’s clear the teams at NetherRealm have not shielded away from the brutality of Mortal Kombat.

The stages are dense with detail. From NPC characters roaming around in a background to a destroyed mansion littered with broken objects and a couch that looks pretty comfy. The visual density doesn’t draw away from the action of the fight, but at least if you’re being beat to a bloody pulp, you have something pretty to look at.

It might be a reboot of the universe, but the Fire God Liu Kang didn’t make a less bloody world by any means. 

Fatalities are back and are just as gruesome as ever. I watched Liu Kang rip Katana in half with two dragons before pushing her skull through her body and onto the floor. It was terrifying, disgusting, and the same old Mortal Kombat.

It might have a 1 at the end of the title, but Mortal Kombat continues to iterate on the franchises legacy and position itself to fit right in with all of the other fighting game juggernauts releasing this year.