Last month, Mortal Kombat 11 fans took to the game’s official subreddit to voice their frustrations about the lack of information on the unreleased MK11 DLC characters. Ultimately, NetherRealm Studios acknowledged this frustration by promising that it would “be better” at providing details about the Mortal Kombat 11 DLC characters moving forward. This promise materialized yesterday with the release of a Mortal Kombat 11 Kombat Pack trailer, but the information provided by this brief video has not been fully successful in appeasing frustrated players.
Indeed, some fans are now taking issue with the somewhat protracted release schedule that is outlined in the MK11 Kombat Pack trailer. This schedule continues the trend of releasing a Mortal Kombat 11 DLC character approximately every two months, which was previously established with the launches of Shang Tsung and Nightwolf, and it means that the final MK11 Kombat Pack character will not release until almost one full year after the game was first made available.
“Those release dates are a brutality,” one fan says of this newly confirmed Mortal Kombat 11 DLC release schedule. While there is a certain amount of levity in the tone of this particular statement, it is emblematic of a sentiment being expressed by a number of fans — a sentiment that suggests that a full year is a painful amount of time to wait for the entirety of Mortal Kombat 11 Kombat Pack 1.
While the staggered release dates assigned to the Terminator, Sindel, and the Joker have certainly played a part in the formation of this opinion, it is the release date for Spawn, the last of the Mortal Kombat 11 Kombat Pack fighters, that has seemingly become the primary target. More specifically, Spawn’s MK11 release date is now set for March 17, 2020, and this has triggered some less than enthusiastic responses from the playerbase.
“That's just flat out ridiculous,” an unhappy Redditor writes of Spawn's March release date, and this feeling is reflected in the words of many players across a variety of forums. While NetherRealm has previously indicated that it plans to support Mortal Kombat 11 for years to come, waiting nearly a year for the completion of Kombat Pack 1 is not what some players seem to have had in mind.
To provide a bit of context, the first Mortal Kombat X Kombat Pack contained four DLC characters, and they had all been released within approximately three months of the game’s launch. By the time that Mortal Kombat X was a year old, two full Kombat Packs had been released, which made a total of nine DLC fighters available in the game. While this is not extremely different than the six DLC characters that will be available when Mortal Kombat 11 reaches its one year anniversary, it is at least notable.
However, where the current situation with the MK11 DLC characters really distinguishes itself from what occurred with MKX is in the fact that all of the Mortal Kombat 11 characters in discussion are part of Kombat Pack 1. This means that by the time that Spawn releases players that pre-ordered the Mortal Kombat 11 Kombat Pack will have been waiting for more than a full year to receive the content that they paid for.
Furthermore, some players are concerned about the position Mortal Kombat 11 will be in by the time that Kombat Pack 1 has been fully released, with some suggesting that interest in the game may have waned by the time that Spawn is available. That said, other players are quick to point out that additional skins, new Mortal Kombat 11 Brutalities, and the ongoing Kombat League will provide content to keep fans occupied while they wait for the DLC characters.
While these types of post-launch offerings might not be on the level of brand new characters, they are certainly something, and much of this content is being made available to fans at no additional cost. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to keep the community active, but it does seem that NetherRealm has a plan to keep fans engaged in between the releases of the MK11 Kombat Pack 1 characters, and the game appears to be well positioned to have a healthy life span.
That said, a speculative future for Mortal Kombat 11 may not be enough to satisfy those that are currently frustrated with the MK11 DLC character release schedule. Hopefully for these fans, there will be something in Mortal Kombat 11 to keep them satisfied as the Kombat Pack 1 fighters are released over the next seven months.
Mortal Kombat 11 is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One, with a Stadia version in development.