The Mortal Kombat 11 grind is something that developer NetherRealm Studios is well aware of, according to the game’s most recent Kombat Kast. The early Mortal Kombat 11 reviews all seemed to fixate on the game’s lengthy amount of grinding towards its cosmetic rewards as the one most obvious flaw in a game that was otherwise praised as being one of the best in the series.
Mortal Kombat 11 trailers have focused primarily on the game’s many fatalities, characters, and bizarre situations, and according to critics, the title follows through on the promises that attention has made with an experience that is quintessential Mortal Kombat fun. Despite enduring a number of high-profile roster leaks along the way to the game’s eventual release, NetherRealm Studios has nevertheless managed to win fans over with a carefully crafted title that rewards players for being fans of the series or fans of the fighting genre, balancing nostalgic fun with a mechanically-sound offering that will entice players to give online ranked play a shot. The only consistent complaint has remained about the Mortal Kombat 11 grind.
Mortal Kombat 11 launches today, so it’s unclear if NetherRealm Studios will have made the change to the Mortal Kombat 11 grind prior to that, but on Kombat Kast yesterday the developers acknowledged the issue and promised that a behind-the-scenes adjustment would be made to lessen the lengthy experience. The developers noted that it would only be a minor tweak that the studio can accomplish in the background of the game, and that such an adjustment wouldn’t necessitate a patch or the update notifications that typically come with those: one day, the grind will simply cease to be, at least in its current iteration. It’s unclear when that will be, but at the very least, it’s being addressed as one of the biggest issues facing an otherwise great game on launch day.
The Mortal Kombat 11 grind isn’t dissimilar from the many other iterations of microtransaction business models we see in the industry today, but the issue stems from the fact that the developer has been so adamantly against loot boxes and other predatory practices. Hearing that, it was reasonable for fans to assume that Mortal Kombat 11 would not have any elements related to those business models, but unfortunately, despite only affecting Mortal Kombat 11 cosmetic items, the grind is a very real problem: either fans must spend hours upon hours unlocking cosmetic items or they must instead shell out cash for Mortal Kombat 11’s in-game currency to purchase them.
Fan and reviewer feedback unanimously criticizing the practice has seemed to work, as the Mortal Kombat 11 grind is already being addressed by NetherRealm Studios. It’s a win for players of the game and for the studio’s PR, and it leaves us wondering—if the fix is really that easy, and vocal fans can be heard within a day of issues arising, why is NetherRealm Studios’ move praise-worthy instead of the norm?
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Source: Kombat Kast
