Awesome / Mortal Kombat 11

The Champion finally rises from all his darkest hours.

As usual, Mortal Kombat 11 will always have its Crowning Moment of Awesome, whether through story or gameplay. Expect no less.

Click here for the awesome pre-match intros.

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Awesome pages. All spoilers will be unmarked.

Story Mode

• In the Cyrax fight, choosing who will fight him will give either Scorpion or Sub-Zero a scene showing how they deal with the Cyber Lin-Kuei Mooks Cyrax brought with him. If you choose Sub-Zero, Scorpion curb-stomps them with ease. If you choose Scorpion, Sub-Zero one-shots them all with one huge ice blast.
• If you choose Sub-Zero to fight Sektor, they engage in a Beam-O-War of ice and fire respectively. If you choose Scorpion against Sektor, the cyber Lin-Kuei uses his flame thrower on Scorpion who shrugs its off like wind.
• After Past Johnny makes a complete ass of himself by loudly declaring that he'll "tap that" to Present Johnny, referring to Past Sonya right in front of her and Cassie, while Cassie and Present Johnny likely still in mourning over Present Sonya's death, Present Johnny angrily hauls his counterpart out by his ear and takes him down a peg, both verbally and physically thrashing his ass.
  Past Johnny: Oh, untwist your panties, older me! I'm a star!
  Present Johnny: This is a military operation here, not a movie set!
  Past Johnny: I'm only the best fighter here! But your daughter has me sitting at the kids' table!
  (Present Dope Slaps Past)
  Present Johnny: OUR daughter is C.O.! A little humility might earn her respect!
  Past Johnny: Dad always said, "Hungry people eat lunch, humble people serve it."
  Present Johnny: Dad was an asshole! Hollywood made us an even bigger one!
  (Present Johnny takes Past Johnny's sunglasses and crushes them under his foot. Cue fight and after Present Johnny finishes knocking Past Johnny senseless)
  Present Johnny: An old man just kicked your ass.
  Past Johnny: (pfft) You got lucky.
  • As funny as Past Johnny's temper tantrum over getting nicked by a stray bullet is, he has to be given credit for his response, which was shooting Erron Black's gun out of his hand while using a riot shield to truck six other goons out of the way.
  • In general, Chapter 6 is this for Present Johnny Cage as a whole, showing off his experience and wit. At one point, he runs off to save Past Sonya and Cassie, on the way finding a tank in the hanger and uses that to start running over the cyborg army that has been invading the base. Soon, an evac plane comes in to rain down bullets and disables the tank with a missile. Does that stop Johnny? Nope, when the plane flies close to his tank during a strafing run, he runs out of it and blows it up, taking the plane with him.
  Johnny: Two can play at that game!
  • And then there's the fantastic slow-motion nut punch to Past Kano, dodging a bullet in the process.
• Anytime the past heroes give a beat down to their Revenant counterparts of the present. Special mention to Chapter 3, where Liu Kang and Kung Lao beat down their "evil undead warlord" selves, and defy their attempts to shake their faith in Raiden.
  • What gets better is that neither of them is subjected to Cutscene Incompetence. The Shaolin Monks will defeat their respective counterparts regardless of which of them the player picks.
• Kotal Kahn vs Shao Kahn
  • Points for Shao Kahn for breaking Kotal's spine with his head. Points right back to Kotal for driving Shao Kahn to his knees at least twice before his conspirators interfered.
  • Give Kotal some points for winning the first fight. If D'Vorah hadn't intervened, Kotal Kahn would have brought his predecessor's return to a premature end.
• With Kotal captured and Shao Kahn close to reclaiming his rule, Kitana takes the steps in ensuring victory for herself and her friends. Unlike her adopted father who beats everyone into following him, she opts to peacefully talk to Sheeva and even Baraka. Both of them chose to side with her, especially impressive since Kotal had already soured relations with the Tarkatans immensely. And with that, she leads her newfound forces to attack Shao Kahn and Kitana finally avenges her father and mother by slicing his throat open.
  • On top of this, she rips his skeletal mask from his face, exposing his true appearance before unceremoniously executing him. At that moment Kitana wasn't killing Shao Kahn, self-styled Konqueror of Worlds. She was killing Shao Kahn, the abusive selfish warlord who stole her from her home, murdered her father, took her mother as his unwilling Queen and systematically caused the majority of the suffering in her life. However, Sindel's ending calls most of Kahn's aformentioned atrocities into question.
  • Not only did her defeat of Shao Kahn was just awesome, with Kotal now crippled and seeing that she even united Shokans and the Tarkatans, he steps down and pronounce Kitana as the new Kahn of Outworld.
• Past Sonya, after defeating Past Kano, puts a foot to his neck to keep him grounded. Present!Kano then comes into view holding Past Johnny at knifepoint, daring her to try her luck and see if she can snap his neck before he slashes Johnny's throat (and, by proxy, kill Present Johnny and Cassie). Sonya, undeterred, draws her pistol and then shoots Past Kano in the head, blowing a hole clean through his eye and into the dirt. Present!Kano, now sporting the same blownup eye as Past Kano, then proceeds to stumble forward and fade into the sand, finally removing him from existence once and for all and making a successful expiration of his Karma Houdini Warranty.
  Past Sonya: Thanks, Kano.
  Present Kano: For what?
  Past Sonya: For reminding me of the rules. (Boom, Headshot!)
• After downing Present Jax, Jacqui and Past Jax are accosted by Cetrion, who demands both Present Jax and Kronika's crown. After discussing amongst themselves how the Cages took down Shinnok, an idea dawns upon them; the fighter you choose dons the crown and thrash Cetrion to the point she has to break the land to extort the crown from Past Jax. Even if what Cetrion said about mortals' inability to handle the crown is true, the fact that they used it anyway shows that the ensuing beating was fueled by all the fucks they didn't give.
• After almost torturing Past Scorpion and battling Liu Kang, Raiden has a massive flashback sequence that denotes every time he and Liu Kang have fought, on every single timeline that has ever passed and finally cracks the code. Kronika was manipulating them into fighting each other for countless timelines because combined, their power is more than enough to threaten Kronika's plans. Liu Kang and Raiden combined are so powerful, they actually made Kronika, the goddess of time, higher than even Elder gods, fear them to the point she had to manipulate them into fighting each other so they wouldn't completely stomp on her plans.
  • Raiden had made that realization multiple times on various timelines, but only in this one he actually formed an on-the-spot plan to solve it permanently.
• Raiden battles Geras and wins, coming up with a crafty way to permanently get rid of the golem, who is completely immortal due to being a fixed point in time: he traps him in the chains of an anchor and sets him to sink in the Netherrealm's Sea of Blood, which is bottomless. Geras simply sinks for eternity, echoing Raiden's words at the beginning of a fate worse than death.
  Geras: Drowning cannot kill me, Raiden.
  Raiden: That is unfortunate for you. The Sea of Blood is bottomless. You will fall forever.
• The final showdown between the heroes and Kronika's forces, which rivals the opening to Mortal Kombat: Armageddon in terms of epic. Cassie, Jacqui and Jax leading the Special Forces, The new Kitana Kahn leading the Tarkatan hordes, the Osh-Tekk warriors and the Shokan alongside Baraka and Sheeva, and Kung Lao leading the Shaolin against the hordes of the Netherrealm. Starting with Scorpion and Sub-Zero leading the charge.
  • In the midst of said fight, Past!Jax and Present!Jax both wind up their powered-up cybernetic arms and swing at the head of a Giant Mook at the same time; the end result is their fists colliding and the Giant Mook's head exploding under the force of this Ultimate Bro Fist.
  • Speaking of Present!Jax, he makes his big comeback when the final battle starts by launching himself into the air and striking the ground with such force that it blows away dozens of Netherrealm demons, taking some pressure off the Special Forces. It doubles as Heartwarming when he reconciles with Jacqui immediately afterwards.
    Jacqui: This mean your back?
    Present!Jax: This means I'm sorry, Jacqui, and hell yeah I'm back.
    (Father and daughter hug each other)
  • Liu Kang and Raiden perform a Fusion Dance which sees Earthrealm's greatest defender ascend to a demigod, giving him the strength to fight Kronika on equal footing! Even more so, their battle, as a result of Kronika's influence, can take place at the dawn of time itself and involves the summoning duplicates of her forces to try and overwhelm Liu Kang while she takes a brief rest.
    • What's more, Kronika had absorbed the power of Cetrion before the fight and still lost.
• Crossing over with Heartwarming. For the first time since MK4, after of history of undead resurrections and becoming a Fallen Hero, Liu Kang finally gets a looks to be a definitive happy ending.
• From Aftermath:
  • Now we know why Shang Tsung was exiled by Kronika. Shang Tsung puts one massive scheme in order to take control of time itself, playing gods, legendary warriors and interdimensional warlords alike.
  • For those that found Shao Kahn's role in the main story underwhelming, oh boy, does he actually manage to become badass again; he - alongside Sindel - utterly trash all the good guys they fights against, manage to claim back Outworld by decapitating Kotal Kahn, crushing Liu Kang's legs and defeating Kitana, and then top it off by storming Kronika's base and defeating her revenant warriors. Sindel and Kahn only lose because Shang Tsung is a bigger bastard than them - and even in spite of their handling of the Villain Ball for even trusting Shang to begin with, they don't go down and lie there. They just get back up and fight the sorcerer for the crown, Defiant to the End.
  Shao Kahn: Kitana was a false Kahn, a traitor to Outworld! She conspired with Raiden to lead you astray!
  Sindel: He seeks Kronika's power; why? To destroy the Empire! All who followed Kitana are complicit with her treason. Your sentence, is death.
  Shao Kahn: But, we will grant clemency now and riches in the New Era, to all who renounce Kitana and fight under our command!
  (the crowd of Mooks are silent at first)
  Outworld Soldier: Shao…Shao…Shao…Shao!
  (the mook is joined by a handful, then a dozen and soon was the entire horde chanting)
  Outworld Army: SHAO! SHAO! SHAO! SHAO!
  Sindel: Now man the oars, we have a battle to win! For the New Era!
  • The final battle, from start to finish. After backstabbing everyone he could possibly reach and eliminating Kronika in straight kombat, Shang Tsung begins to operate the Hourglass only to be interrupted by Fire God Liu Kang - "Cease. Before you doom us all." The subsequent conversation is Shang Tsung realizing that Liu Kang, of all people, lied to him. And Shang Tsung, of all people, was manipulated by Liu Kang into eliminating all threats, then taking the crown and stabilizing it with his soul power, just so Liu could come and take it in the aftermath. The subsequent smug smirk Liu Kang gives suggests that he is proud of himself for playing Shang Tsung like a fiddle. So who walks away with the Crown in this near-literal clash of the titans? The game refuses to answer that itself… and instead lets you Choose Your Final Destiny.
    • It bears emphasizing the fact that Liu Kang, golden boy hero protagonist who almost never does anything underhanded, had woven a Batman Gambit, relying entirely on Shang Tsung being a Chronic Backstabber as usual and not being genuine in his desire to help; and it worked so flawlessly, was so ruthlessly effective in doing exactly what he planned and was so completely undiscovered by anyone involved in it barring the single person he told, that when it dawns on Shang Tsung that he only won because Liu Kang let him win because he was only one who could stabilize the crown and naturally would not do that unless he was certain of his victory, he looks and sounds amazed and impressed by the revelation. Shang. Tsung. Was impressed by Liu Kang's gambit. He has every right to look smug after Shang Tsung realizes what has happened.
    • Liu Kang's ending sees him erase Shang Tsung from history so that his evil may never again corrupt another timeline before he gets to work on the new world Raiden entrusted him with. In his New Era, he gives his ancestor - the Great Kung Lao - his role as the Chosen One, preparing him far ahead of time for the inevitable Mortal Kombat challenges from other realms. When Kung Lao asks him what he needs to be trained for, Liu Kang only gives a small smirk.
    • Shang Tsung, on the other hand, chooses to consume Liu Kang's soul before he begins his work. He usurps the Elder Gods, has Dark Raiden and Dark Fujin acting as his heralds and has already conquered Earthrealm, Outworld and the Netherrealm. With Orderrealm and Chaosrealm in his sights Shang Tsung, in the most complete villain victory in the franchise chuckles to himself and states "It has begun."

Endings

There are two kinds of endings that prove awesome, given the reward for winning this fight; those that reject the temptation of absolute power, and those that use it without losing themselves to megalomania.

• Erron Black proves to be one stubborn cowboy; he has the chance to rewrite history as he sees fit, whatever he wants he can get. What does he do? Tosses the Hourglass into the Sea of Blood, where it will fall forever. He gave up all that power because he is so content with his life so far, and made sure no one else would mess with time.
  Erron Black: ... Once the Hourglass gets dumped in the Sea of Blood, ain't no one ever shapin' history again. What happens next? Heh. Hell if I know... And that's just the way I like it.
• Likewise, Kotal refuses to use the power of the hourglass, preferring to let people create their own destinies, and choose to stand vigil over it, making sure no one can mess with the timelines again.
• Rambo proves his time in action gave him some wisdom and denied the usage of the Hourglass. He realized that using it would make him no better than the men who sent him into war that made him into what he is. He just decides to go home, finally earning himself some peace.
• Geras, of all people, gets one; he's revealed to be a Punch-Clock Villain and Death Seeker who is tired of doing Kronika's dirty work, and after finally getting sick of her, he realizes how hard it is to create a perfect timeline. Recognizing this was how Kronika became corrupted and turned into a megalomaniac, Geras sacrifices himself to the Hourglass, giving it the capacity to run autonomously and finally allowing him to die.
  Geras: ... Perhaps Mortals do not need a Lord of Time. I will sacrifice my body and my mantle to resculpt the Sands so the Hourglass runs itself. And for the first time in all eternity... I can rest in peace...
• Despite how controversial it is, Jax's ending is still one. He uses the Hourglass to not only to improve his life, but to make the timeline so that slavery and possibly the racism behind it was never really a thing. And it worked; it took him a couple of tries, but he gets the one thing Kronika never could; a timeline he's happy with.
  Jax: I don't get it right the first time. Or the second. Or even the third. But eventually, I knock it out of the damn park! My family is back. The world is a better place for everyone. Turns out, you can have everything. Anyone who says you can't... needs to dream bigger.
• Kung Lao's ending has him make it so that his ancestor the Great Kung Lao defeats Goro instead. As a result, the Great Kung Lao becomes the undisputed Mortal Kombat champion and Earthrealm never loses another tournament. This causes many to join the White Lotus Society in defence of Earthrealm, inspiring rebels to overthrow Shao Kahn. Earthrealm and Outworld make peace afterwards. But just when things look like they will take a turn for the worse as Onaga appears, Kung Lao 'immediately' slays him.
  Kung Lao: Beat that, Liu Kang.
• Kano initially starts off doing the kind of perverted things with total impunity that one would expect of Kano, but he eventually got bored of godhood. So he rewrote time to create a reality where things could challenge him, accepting some losses in the process, yet he would still win in the end when it mattered. He even snagged Shinnok's amulet for himself.
• Sonya uses the hourglass and her new powers as the goddess of time to slay an omnideity at the dawn of time, and use its powers to grant Cassie, Jax, Jacqui, and Johnny divine power as well, christening her family the God Squad.
• So what does Jerkass supreme young!Johnny do when he defeats Kronika and gets ahold of the Hourglass? He reflects that old!Johnny was right all along, and he ultimately decides to replay his life as it was, including hitting rock-bottom and nearly losing all the respect of his family and friends. Turns out digging himself out of the hole he dug helped make him into a more complete being. So everything plays out the same way...with one exception...
  Johnny: (swinging over a ravine with Sonya in tow) Sonya's story won't end underneath the rubble of some busted-up Netherrealm castle. Because Johnny Cage flicks always have happy endings.
• The Terminator originally thought the Hourglass would ensure the machines' victory over the humans, despite being ported to the wrong past. In a rather interesting case of Zeroth Law Rebellion, the Terminator uses its newfound Hourglass access to review every possible outcome and only saw Mutually Assured Destruction if it tried to fulfill its objective; to this end, it sought to erase the Robot War itself and have both humans and machines cooperate, and then threw itself into the Sea of Blood to ensure the data in its memory banks could not be used to undo this future. Cassie's narration is legitimately impressed at this outcome.
• Spawn's mission for the Hourglass had nothing to do with claiming its power, and he does not once allude to using it to distort time in the slightest. Rather, he simply chose to pry Kronika from it and cast her into the same void he left his former benefactor Malebolgia in, where they can suffer forever. He, alongside his "buddies" Fire and Ice (and from the looks of it, a few of Al's fellow Hellspawn) then go on a rampage throughout the Netherrealm (he already purged his own Hell, you see) and send out a warning to the rulers of the remaining eight Hells:
  Spawn: (as he and his allies prepare to wage war on the other Hells) I made choices in my life that sealed my fate. I'm beyond redemption. But even the damned are capable of doing some good. So all you Devils out there, making false promises and spewing lies? We're coming — and you don't have a chance in Hell.
• RoboCop is exposed to the energies of the Hourglass after defeating Kronika. This serves to not only upgrade his cybernetic body, but wipes out the limits that OCP put on his programming... and thus helps him realize that the whole company has been Evil All Along, Playing Both Sides of the law for their own selfish profit. Upon finding this out, RoboCop vows to go back to his reality and bring the entirety of OCP to justice... and he's working with Earthrealm's Special Forces to make sure that happens.

Music

• Round 1 of Shang Tsung's Island Ruins, being one of the first stage tunes revealed for the game, leaves quite an emotional impact. The melody is both haunting and exciting, giving the sense of conflict as two warriors duke it out in the abandoned ruins of a legendary arena.
• Round 2 of the Soul Chamber is a song that not only hearkens back to the iconic intro theme of Mortal Kombat 2, but at some moments, sounds like an epic score that wouldn't be too out of place in a movie like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Other

• After years of licensing issues with the Mortal Kombat: The Movie's iconic theme, the launch trailer uses the remix version of that iconic theme, and it starts with the words "Test your might!"
  • Speaking of the movie, 25 years later, the cast is finally reunited with a new DLC costume pack. Now joining Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa in his reprise of Shang Tsung are Bridgette Wilson-Sampras as Sonya, Christopher Lambert as Raiden, and Linden Ashby as Johnny Cage!
    • The fact that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is Shang Tsung can't be emphasized enough. Even if one hasn't seen the film series, Cary-Hiroyuki really makes the character his own, coming across as charismatic yet stoic and reserved. There's something about Shang Tsung that causes him to — more or less — overshadow his opponents even when they're protagonists or anti heros; Notably, Spawn gives him quite the verbal tongue lashing, however.
  • In a Crowning Moment for the actor, while some have mixed feelings about Wilson-Sampras and Lambert's performances, everyone agrees Ashby nails Johnny Cage, turning in a great performance faithful to the character but distinct from Andrew Bowen's portrayal, and some even find him better than Bowen and would like to see Ashby return for a future game.
• In terms of fatalities, it's a chilling (no pun intended) but awesome moment performing Frost's fatality, only to have her conscript the opponent into the Cyber Lin-Kuei.
• The Kombat Pack announcement comes not only with gameplay of Shang Tsung (complete with a faithful recreation of a memorable scene from the first movie as he declares "Your Soul Is Mine!!"), but also teases the return of Nightwolf and Sindel. Then, as the cherry on top of a gore-filled sundae, Spawn is announced as well, complete with Keith David confirmed to reprise his iconic role from the iconic HBO animated series!
  • Actually, let's talk more about Shang-Tsung for a second. Did we mention that in addition to copying his opponent, he also turns into Rain, Reptile, Smoke, and Ermac for his special moves, AND his Fatal Blow is an awesome Combination Attack involving Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Noob!?
  • And rounding out the DLC pack we have the Joker, finally able to be at his worst and most gruesome in an M-rated game, and the T-800 Terminator, with the face of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • And now, with the announcement of the Aftermath Kollection, we get the return of the wind god Fujin and the shokan queen Sheeva. You'd think that that'd be all, then they go and announce goddamn RoboCop with Peter Weller reprising his role for the first time since 1990.^note OK, second time; he reprised the role for a KFC commercial in 2019. And apparently, the Friendships return, with SCORPION of all people hugging a teddy bear.
• The sheer fact that RoboCop brings ED-209, one of his greatest foes, with him to this weird world and teams up with it for a Fatality and Fatal Blow. Seeing them teaming up to take down some of the biggest criminals in the MK universe with the type of excessive force they could only truly get away with in this universe is a sight to behold.
  • With the likes of Joker getting involved, Robocop makes it clear he's not going to go as easy on the Clown Prince of Crime as Batman.
  Robocop: Dead or alive, you're coming with me!
• One of Spawn's intros features him carrying Violator's head on a pike.
• The Joker's Friendship involves him trying to kill the opponent. A Batarang pops out of a portal and hits him in the back of the head, stopping him. Even in another universe, the Joker can't escape from Batman.
  • After years of getting away with murder after murder and crime after crime, it's finally satisfying to see the Joker get a taste of his own medicine and get executed in the most brutal and goriest ways possible. Best part about it involves Batman not having to get his hands dirty and not breaking his no kill rule.
    • Bonus points if it’s clown-hating Spawn doing the killing.
  Spawn: Your angel of death awaits.
  Joker: You can't kill me! Heroes have moral codes!
  Spawn: Who said I was a hero?
• Spawn seems to be walking awesome in this game. He gets a lot of good lines in his intros.
  Spawn: My chains'll hang you, Kano.
  Kano: I got a thick neck, cobber.
  Spawn: Easier to snap.
• One of Nightwolf's outros, which has him beating his chest and then loudly screaming which then cuts to Kiba, his wolf spirit, howling into the night. Needless to say when this was shown in his reveal trailer, quite a lot of people were not only impressed but awestruck by just how badass and awesome said outro is.
• Speaking of badass outros, Rambo gets two amazing outros for himself. The first, his default outro, is an absolutely stunning rendition of Rambo's traditional Shouting Shooter tendencies, and it's as classic as ever. The second, a stunning recreation of his confrontation with Murdock in Rambo: First Blood Part II, deserves major credit for the absolute look of terror on the face of every one of Rambo's opponents, bar the emotionless Terminator. Rambo is so deadly, even the likes of Shao Kahn, Cetrion, and Spawn are scared shitless of him.
• With the return of Friendships, Raiden reprises KIDD THUNDER!! to join him in an electrifying, neon-colored, dubstep-fueled dance routine. Which is based off of real life dance troupe Light Balance's routine.
• The second Kombat Pack trailer gives us the return of Rain, the long-demanded return of MILEENA, and our guest character for the pack? JOHN RAMBO!
  Mileena: Who are you?
  Rambo: I'm your worst nightmare! (starts opening fire)
  • The best part about Rambo's appearence? Ed Boon himself confirmed Sylvester Stallone will return to play him.
  • A major one on the part of the developers. According to them, Stallone could not provide facial capture due to the COVID-19 pandemic rendering it impossible for him to come in, so instead they got permission to sculpt his likeness and use it as a base for modeling Rambo. Considering how good it looks in-game, that is impressive.
• The Movie Skins pack makes Johnny, Sonya and Raiden look like their incarnations from the 1995 movie. But it's not just a skin, they also got Christopher Lambert to reprise the role of Raiden after twenty-five years. That is pretty cool.

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