Nightmare Fuel / Mortal Kombat 11

"There are fates worse than death."

Yeah, you know the drill. Like the series has ever gotten Lighter and Softer. You should've known that'll never happen since the MK2 days. Not even the return of Friendship can diminish the game's horror.

But as every title progresses through its Darker and Edgier plot, this one has eventually reached its Darkest Hour, complete with Kronika the most horrifically evil villain in the entire franchise. As stated, there are, in fact, Fates Worse than Death.

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Nightmare Fuel pages. Also per wiki policy, no meta moments are allowed in moment pages. All spoilers will be unmarked. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned

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Fatalities

The Fatalities are no slouches in this entry, and the way the animations slow down and stop on the final blow only ups the pain factor. Suffice to say that one of the game's developers was apparently diagnosed with PTSD while working on these Fatalities.

• Scorpion:
  • "You're Next", which is featured in the game's announcement trailer, is incredibly brutal and savage, and fitting for Scorpion. Scorpion covers his entire body with Hellfire and lunges towards his opponent, barreling through their midsection in a spray of gore, leaving only their spine intact. As the opponent looks at their wounds and exposed spine in shock, Scorpion unsheathes his sword and decapitates the opponent, then kicks their head into the air and fires his spear toward it, piercing through the forcibly opened mouth.
  • "Chain Reaction" is really brutal as well, and it has Scorpion delivering his heated spear into the opponent's gut. Then he flips over them, dives into the Netherrealm with the chain still attached, then he moves into the position he was still in and leaps out of the Netherrealm, cutting his opponent in half vertically. The fact that the chain was wrapped over his opponent's face, causing them to scream in agony from the hot metal searing into their flesh doesn't help.
• Sub-Zero:
  • "Frozen In Time" is yet another gruesome spin on his classic Spine Rip Fatality. First, he creates an ice clone wielding a spear and ice slides into the opponent, knocking them over his head and impaling them on the spear. He then punches into the opponent's chest and tears their spine out through the front, taking their head off with it. Not content yet, he then impales the head onto the spear through the back, impaling an eye out in the process. Worse, depending on the character, the head is still screaming after Sub-Zero has already torn it off, implying that the victim was still alive at some degree after their spine and head where torn off.
• Baraka:
  • "Food For Thought" is absolutely nasty. He rips off the opponent's face, then the front of their skull. Then he tears out their brain and takes a big chomp out of it. You can also hear the death rattles of the unfortunate sap that ends up being the recipient of this Fatality. It's quite chilling.
    • What makes the Fatality even more disturbing is how, if one looks closely, Baraka's eyes dilate as he sinks his teeth in; it makes him look less like a sentient, smart fighter and more like an unhinged beast.
• Kabal:
  • "Road Rash" is outright painful to watch. First, he hooks his opponent with one of his swords, then takes off running with his Super-Speed, dragging his opponent with him and causing their face to get grinded off by the sheer speed, starting with their eyes being torn from their sockets! After their face has been reduced to a bloody skull, Kabal then stops, sending his opponent flying. He then proceeds to use his speed to teleport into his opponent's path, holding out a single sword that then proceeds to cut the opponent in half. Lengthwise.
  • "Hooked" is no slouch, either - first, he slices the opponent in the gut, spilling their intestines and turning them around. He then slices clean through their ankles, and as they fall forward, hooks his swords into their mouth. He then pulls - you can audibly hear the sound of the victim's teeth cracking - until his swords come clean through the head, bisecting it horizontally. This gets even more nightmarish when you look at the faces that of the victims while this is happening. There is genuine fear. It's horrifying.
• Kano:
  • Both of Kano's fatalities apply a common approach of being rather simplistic and focused, foregoing some of the more over-the-top mutilations in favor of subdued, yet sadistic ways to kill his enemies, which gives them a bit more of a disturbingly realistic feel.
    • "Last Dance" is no slouch in terms of sadism. Kano cracks open a beer with his teeth and downs it, before taking the empty bottle, smashing it over the opponent's head, and stabbing them in the throat with the broken glass. As they stumble back and gurgle blood, Kano catches them by the wrist and dances a waltz with them as they bleed out, all with a vicious, satisfied grin on his face. It's simple, but the pleasure Kano takes in doing it makes it very creepy — especially against Cassie and Sonya.
    • "Face Like A Dropped Pie" is, in detail, one of the more painful and sadistic ones. Kano tackles the opponent onto the ground, headbutts the opponent multiple times until their head explodes... keeping in mind that Kano has a metal plate on the side of his face, which can only mean that Kano is crushing in the opponent's skull over and over until it looks something like this◊. And the opponent is still living at this point. And just before the final blow, we get a POV shot from the unfortunate victim... with Kano grinning like a maniac as he rears back to finish them off. Even if there isn't a whole lot to it, the sheer savagery in his expression is enough to give anyone chills.
• Jacqui:
  • "Nothing but Neck": Jacqui punches her opponent's head into their body, then blasts what will become a viewing window in the gut. She then tosses a force field grenade into the head stump, which slices the body in half, lengthwise. The worst part? You can see (And hear!) the still-beating heart as it pounds against the forcefield!
• Geras:
  • "Peeling Back" will make you wince. He smashes his victim into a rock, which they get stuck in. He then proceeds to rip their arm in half lengthwise, before ripping the entire front half of their body off, spilling all their internal organs everywhere!
• Skarlet:
  • "Bloody Mess": Skarlet makes her return with a brutal and bloody Fatality that's just enough to make you wince with fear. It features her lifting the opponent's own blood in the air through their mouth and eyes, creating six stakes of it. The stakes pierce the enemy's chest, shoulders, heart and eye socket. Skarlet then approaches her opponent, while sadistically chuckling, then she presses the stake in their eye socket, causing the impaled eyeball to pop out through the head! GROSS!
• Kotal Kahn:
  • "Totem Sacrifice" has him summon a sacrificial altar, throw his opponent against it, then kick their head with enough force to separate it from the body, with the spine still attached. As if the Brutality of it wasn't enough, he then summons a giant stone skull to crush his victim's disembodied head. Bonus points for one of the unlucky sap's eyes flying at the screen when the Overcrank kicks in.
  • "Kat Food" is quite the terrifying throwback to the Animalities of the third game. Kotal Kahn uses his sickles to slice open the opponent's chest, and then he morphs into a jaguar, pouncing on the victim and ripping their throat out before grabbing the opponent's heart in his jaws and crushing it savagely.
• Noob Saibot:
  • "Double Trouble" was considered to be one of the most brutal, gruesome, and disturbing fatalities in the whole series when it was first revealed in Noob's announcement trailer. It first has him slice open his opponent's guts with his sickle, which causes their intestines to fall out. He then shoves his fist into the open hole and sends his clone into the opponent's body... which is followed by the clone ripping itself out, starting by ripping the jaws open from the inside and tearing the opponent in half lengthwise from the inside.
• Jade:
  • "Pole Dance" is a truly brutal one. It has her prop her extending staff just under her victim's head as they are bent over backwards, then extends it, piercing them through the skull and taking out an eye. Then she cuts them in half across the torso, their guts hanging out before she spins them around on her staff, slinging blood onto the camera.
• Kollector:
  • "For the Kollection" echoes Mileena's "Tasty Treat" in X, which is itself considered one of the most brutal and nightmarish finishing moves in the series. He knocks the opponent on their back, looms over them, and proceeds to claw their ribcage and rip them to shreds as they're screaming in agony. He pockets their heart, rips off their head for his macabre collection once the spine is the only thing even holding it on, then crushes the lungs in one final overhead swing.
• Erron Black:
  • "Melted" is a harrowing combination of violence and pure sadism, and it has him toss a flask of acid on the ground in front of his victim, creating a glowing green puddle of corrosive death. He then kneecaps them and, while they're doubled over, pushes their head down with his boot into the acid puddle, melting half of their head before stomping on the other half and crushing it.
  • "Deathtrap" skimps on the sadism, but doubles down on the violence by ripping out his opponent's guts with a bear trap. Then he shoves his rifle into the newly-created gaping orifice, angles the barrel up, and blows his victim's brains (and eyes, natch) out.
• Kitana:
  • "Royal Execution" where she tosses her fans at the opponent, spinning like saws where they cut and float at the opponent's neck and waist, severing the opponent's lower half from their body while keeping the head and upper body afloat. As Kitana keeps the fans spinning, she calls back the fan from the opponent's now severed waist, causing the opponent's upper body to fall while the second fan keeps their head still afloat. As the fan returns, Kitana kicks the closed fan back to the opponent's head, where it pierces their forehead. The thing that's nightmarish is that her opponent is still alive for about half of the Fatality before they are trisected.
  • "Gore-nado" is easily one of the most nauseating and brutally disturbing Fatalities in the game, and it has her split open the victim's abdomen, allowing their intestines to spurt out. She then begins creating a massive cyclone that begins vaccuming their innards out before finishing with a flourish of blood and viscera.
• D'Vorah:
  • "New Species". Remember how D'Vorah killed Mileena in Mortal Kombat X's story mode? Well, her first Fatality is similar to that, except even worse, looking like something from The Thing (1982) that would make John Carpenter proud. She first stabs her victim in the shoulders to bring them to their knees, then vomits bugs into their mouth. As the victim's body writhes and convulses, giant spider-like legs emerge from their torso and finally their head splits in half as a bug's head emerges and takes its place, basically turning their body into a disgusting Big Creepy Crawly.
  • "Can't Die" is just... EEEAUUUGHH!!! D'Vorah pins her opponent to the ground with a sticky fluid, then uses her ovipositors to peel the opponent's skin off like a sticker from their head to their torso, leaving their organs exposed.
• Frost:
  • "Ice Sculpture" is utterly gruesome. Here, she creates two ice drills: one to turn her victim's brains into a frosted slushy, and the other to disembowel them. She then places an ice bomb in her victim's gut. When it goes off, the exploded torso is flash-frozen into a macabre ice sculpture.
  • "The Cyber Initiative" is yet another twist on the iconic Spine Rip, this time with her firing a frosty Chest Blaster that freezes her opponent, shattering her victim's flesh, then ripping out the spine with the brain still attached. If that wasn't bad enough, a drone then takes the brain and spine and implants it in a Cyber Lin-Kuei body! Even Dr. Eggman, who is notorious for turning people into robots, would find this a bit too much! Granted, some of the kombatants like Shao Kahn are unpleasant to begin with but to see them being turned into robot ninjas against their will is, as Dark Raiden would say, a Fate Worse than Death.
• Cetrion:
  • "Good and Evil" displays just what kind of power an Elder God possesses. First she entombs the opponent in rocks leaving only their head poking out, and then she proceeds to grow many times their height and lifts her stilettoed leg to stomp them into the ground like an evil dominatrix would. But if you thought that that was terrifying, behold Cetrion's true terror as she enlarges so much that she is taller than the planet's diameter is wide, and she finally finishes off her Fatality by shrieking out a massive ray of light to barrel down and destroy her enemy; bear in mind, she is opening her mouth as wide open as possible to fire a beam that looks big enough to destroy at least a country or two, but when it reaches the opponent no longer than two seconds later it is hardly bigger than they are wide, thus showing horrific levels of focus and precision on her part. What makes it scarier is if Cetrion is decked out in her "Dark Cetrion" get-up (the same look she had in her own ending and in the last chapter of the story mode), making her look completely unlike a benevolent goddess of nature and virtue —and more of an evil goddess of death like her brother Shinnok.
  • "Maintaining Balance", meanwhile, is terrifying in just how unnecessary and brutal the first two parts of it are. First, Cetrion launches a stream of water powerful enough to reduce the opponent's face to a skull. Then she spouts flames from the ground that completely burn off the opponent's legs below the knees. And the coup dee grace has her launching three rock spikes to the opponent, who is desperately trying to crawl away still alive without a face or feet, before being sliced into four pieces.
• Shang Tsung:
  • "Shokan Reborn" Is a "healthy" dose of body horror that inverts his normal modus operandi; instead of stealing the opponent's soul, he decides to give them one, fastballing it into their chest. A pair of Shokan arms form beneath theirs to tear their arms off and make room for the Shokan's other pair, and then all four converge on the hole in their ribcage to tear them to pieces in one fell swoop, revealing that Shang Tsung had arranged for them to be Telefragged by Kintaro.
  • "Kondemned To The Damned" is absolutely painful to behold. He holds his opponent in the air with chains, then opens a portal to the Netherrealm that looks like a pool of lava. From that portal pops two Revenants that proceed to rip his victim's guts out and their face off before yanking their skeleton out of their skin, the Overcrank kicking in just before the removed skeleton is pulled into the portal.
• Sindel:
  • In her "Scream Queen" Fatality, Sindel holds her victim up in front of her with her hair, then screams and screams and screams until their hips and legs fly off while their torso and face get flayed. Then, just for good measure, she screams once more, blasting said flayed upper body to pieces.
  • "Hair Today Gone Tomorrow". Sindel sends her long hair down her victim's throat, which then proceeds to snake in and out of their body, wrapping them up inside and out before pulling and tearing them to shreds. And yes, she plucks out their eyes in the process.
• The Terminator:
  • "Target Terminated". Remember in the Terminator films the Robot War scenes? Dark skies, piles of bones, metal skeletons killing everyone in sight? Now the Kombatants get to experience that future in one of the T-800's fatalities, with an added dose of Portal Cutting their legs off, and having one of the other Skynet robots blow a hole through his victim's chest.
• The Joker:
  • "Pop goes the Mortal" has Joker blast a hole through his opponent's torso with his boxing glove gun — complete with their intestines dangling out of their back — before sauntering up to them, placing one of his special Jack-in-the-boxes inside the wound and turning the crank, which makes their head... pop up. The head is torn right off their body from the force of the spring and extends high into the air, splattering gore everywhere. If that wasn't bad enough, he sings this very creepy song^note To the tune of Pop goes the Weasel. as he does it:
  The Joker: Bats would say that I'm a bad boy, to kill without a reason!~ But bodies stacked high, never gets old... blood's always in season!~
  (rare alternate song): The fight is done and now's the time, to bring it to a crescendo!~ Crank the knob, and what'll I get?... Your head as a memento!~
• Spawn:
  • "Unchained" - Fitting for such a violent character, Spawn's Fatality is quite possibly one of the most gruesome ones in not just this game, but in ALL of Mortal Kombat. He uses his chains to rip his opponent's skin off, leaving only their muscles, and uses his cape to cover up him reducing them to their skeleton, followed by their organs and blood flying everywhere when he's done! YOWZA.
• Kronika:
  • What’s worse than your standard Fatality? One that never ends. Kronika’s Fatality has her bisect the opponent horizontally, then rewind time until they’re whole, before bisecting them vertically, then rewinding again, finishing off by ripping all their skin off... before starting the cycle all over again, trapping the opponent in a looping montage of their own deaths. For as long as Kronika wants. This is the only Fatality without an overcrank, as she'll keep doing it over and over during the results screen.
• Sheeva:
  • "Spinal Tap" - Sheeva grabs her opponent by the legs, drops them on their head a few time, then pull their body apart while holding down her enemies' head with her foot. To put it another way, you know how Sub-Zero's classic fatality was to rip his opponent's head off their body? Sheeva rips her opponent's body off their head! Heck, when many Youtubers did reacts for the gameplay preview for "Aftermath", many of them visibly winced when that was shown. Seriously, it's that brutal.
  • "Stomp the Yard" is no better, either. Here, Sheeva tears the skin off her opponent's arms and kicks them to the ground, where she then goes absolutely berserk and starts to leap and violently stomp onto her enemy, tearing a massive hole on their torso before stomping on them two more times, tearing off one of their legs and then one of their flayed arms and, for the coup de grâce, Sheeva delivers a stomp powerful enough to completely obliterate the opponent into pieces. Really, that's absolutely savage, and proves how ferocious Sheeva can really be.
• Fujin:
  • Fujin's first Fatality, "Wind Blade", is incredibly nasty due to how merciless it is. Using gusts of Razor Wind, Fujin removes An Arm and a Leg from the opponent, following up by trisecting the body. From on high, Fujin then throws his sword at the opponent, who barely has time to beg for mercy before being impaled hand first like a shish kebab. Yikes!
  • "Twisted Twister" is no slouch either - Fujin slashes his sword across his opponent's belly, causing part of their intestine to spill out. Fujin then follows this up by stomping on the intestine, and using his wind powers to tie up the opponent with their guts. For the coup de grâce, the opponent is violently slammed into the ground with extreme force, causing them to EXPLODE INTO PIECES.
• Rain:
  • Rain's first Fatality, "Eye-solation" is a pretty brutal one. He creates a gigantic Deadly Disc of water, then throws it at his opponent, cutting through their body at the waist. He then converts the disc into a waterspout, blowing off his opponent's torso skin and blowing out their eyes. He next removes the disc and slices the already-bisected opponent in half vertically, and rounds it off by catching the fallen kombatant's eyes in a water ball. Ouch.
• Rambo:
  • Once again, like Kano, both of Rambo's Fatalities are exceptionally gruesome because, despite their general simplicity in comparison to the other Fatalities in the game, instead of focusing on over-the-top body mutilations, they focus on being downright sadistic and true-to-life, leading to them having a much more disturbingly realistic feel in comparison to the other Fatalities.
    • Rambo's first Fatality, "Straight To Valhalla", is probably one of the most gruesome we've seen yet and also proves how savagely violent Rambo is. It starts with him throwing his knife right into the opponent's chest. As they stumble backwards from the hit, they cross a tripwire that activates a wooden spike trap which springs up and impales them from the back. And then right after that, Rambo suddenly appears behind them and proceeds to rip out their throat with his bare hands, á la Rambo IV.
    • Also, there's Rambo's second Fatality, "Parilla Thrilla", and it's every bit as extremely brutal and graphically bloody as one could expect from Rambo killing someone. Here, Rambo pulls out an ammunition belt from his machine gun, wraps it around his opponent's waist, and then kicks them backwards onto an bed frame connected to a generator. We're then subjected to the pleasant sight of the opponent getting subjected to brutal Electric Torture (just like Rambo himself was in Rambo: First Blood Part II), which causes the bullets to start flying in and out of their body, violently gunning down the opponent and in the process, we see tons and tons of blood spray out of their body and onto the ground as we see their body getting littered with thousands and thousands of bullet holes. Eventually, one bullet explodes and tears the kombatant apart in half, allowing their intestines and organs to fall out. Rambo then walks up to the opponent, pulls out his knife, and sticks it through their chin before pulling it out again through their face, cutting it in half. The moral of the story? Don't fuck with John Rambo.
• Mileena:
  • "Spinning Out of Control": Mileena is finally back in this game, and she's much more Ax-Crazy than ever before with her first Fatality being ample proof. Here, she knocks her opponent to the ground before rolling up in the air and spinning around like a buzzsaw with both of her sais deployed (á la Sonic the Hedgehog), before launching herself at her opponent, vertically ripping into them like some of Kung Lao's classic finishers, only its not a quick (or clean) cut. Eventually, she rolls out completely, completely cutting the opponent in half as Mileena slides across the ground on her knee, completely covered in her opponent's blood as a massive shower of Ludicrous Gibs flies all over the place. If you look closely, you will see that Mileena's mask came off partway through if she wore one and you can see the opponent's blood dripping from her mouth afterward implying that it wasn't just her sai tearing into the opponent. All in all, it perfectly sums up Mileena's quick and sadistically brutal fighting style.
  • Mileena again demonstrates her feral sadism with her second Fatality, "Violent Delights", which while her first fatality may have been comical to an extent, this one... isn't. Here, she grabs her opponent’s arm and turns them around before grabbing their mouth and licking their neck and head with her Overly-Long Tongue before stabbing the opponent in the gut with her claws and slashing their stomach open, allowing their intestines to spill out before turning them back around. This is then followed by Mileena violently shoving her whole arm into the wound to grab the opponent's face from the inside of their head and tearing it out, leaving a large hole in the victim's head and pulling out the face along with all their internal organs in a rather gruesome reversal of Baraka's "Food for Thought" Fatality.
• Dead Pool:
  • The "Aftermath" expansion marks the return of stage fatalities, and amongst them, the return of the iconic Dead Pool fatality. Rather than just knocking the loser into a pit of acid, this time, the loser is knocked up onto a meat hook and lowered into the deadly green goo, making for a much slower, much more painful demise. Naturally, when the hook is lifted back up, the victim is reduced to nothing but a rotted skeleton.
• Shaolin Trap Dungeon
  • The victim is knocked into the air, whereupon they are slammed into the ceiling by a swinging spiked pendulum. They then fall back down to the ground — and onto a bed of spikes. And unlike regular fatalities, there is no Overcrank. Enjoy watching the loser twitch helplessly on the ground!

Fatal Blows

The Fatal Blows are no slouchers in terms of Nightmare Fuel either.

• The Kollector's Fatal Blow, "A SLIGHT DONATION", features him bashing his opponent in the head with his magic lamp, then brutally stabbing them in the back a couple of dozen times in a few seconds. The worst part, however, comes when he jams a knife through his opponent's head before slitting their throat with another, an insane smile on his face the whole time.
• Shao Kahn's Fatal Blow, "YOU SUCK", is exceptionally brutal, featuring him stabbing and slashing at the opponent with his spear before swinging upward at their chest, shoulder barging them in mid-air and throwing them hard against the ground, coming down and impaling them with the same spear before smashing their head in with his hammer - all in rapid, unrelenting succession.
• Frost's Fatal Blow, "TERMINAL BURROWING", starts out with freezing her opponent, surrounding the battlefield with ice spikes. She then charges forward, stabbing them with two icicles in the lungs while another impales them in the back. She grabs them, forcing them forward, breaking several more icicles with their face before going eye-first into one that goes all the way through their head. Finally, she tosses them up, where a final icicle stabs them through their head.
• Jax's Fatal Blow, "HONORABLE DISCHARGE" isn't that very gory but makes up for that with sheer Brutality: Jax first punches his foe in the chest before punching their face 5 times before delivering a super punch at the end, then punches their stomach repeatedly with the last hit-making his opponent vomit blood, clapping his superheated arms around the falling opponent's head, before shooting them in the face at point-blank range with his M67 grenade launcher sending the enemy across the screen.
• Scorpion pulls no punches in his Fatal Blow, "GET OVER HERE", while giving a massive preference for screwing up his foe's eyes: he first slashes them with his katana before stabbing both of the opponent's eyes out with both of his kunai. Not satisfied, he then kicks them away before yanking the chain and kicking both of the kunai further into their skull, before grabbing his opponent and bashing their head, with the kunai still attached, into the ground.
• Befitting for a crook as cruel as Kano, his Fatal Blow, "NOT HERE TO F#CK SPIDERS", is brutal and cheap, with him first headbutting his opponent before grabbing them and stabbing them in the gut a couple of times before leaving the knife in. He then jumps, uses the knife on the opponent's gut as a stairstep and puts his boot to the opponent's face while falling down, stepping on it. He then steps aside, kicks the opponent in the ribs, and violently steps on the knife stuck on the opponent's stomach before unlocking a spike attached on his boot and stabbing the opponent in the throat before dragging them forward with it.
• Skarlet makes creative use of blood in her Fatal Blow, "BLOODY FUN". She first stabs her opponent in the shoulder to stun them before going for a series of stabs in their abdomen followed by slitting it upward with an absolute expression of delight on her face, before pulling her opponent's blood out of the wounds, forming a huge blood scythe and impaling the opponent in an upward motion, launching them into the air. She then conjures a blood spear and chucks it at her opponent, impaling them through the mouth.
• Joker's Fatal Blow, "SMILE", is perhaps one of the most brutal in the game due to the sheer ferocity shown with his movements. He first grabs a knife, stabbing the opponent's shoulder numerous times, turning them over on their knees before tearing their cheeks open to create a grin like his own, and then start smashing away at their back with his cane, over and over and over until the screen is coated with blood, which feels very reminiscent of how he beat Jason Todd to death in the comics — the only thing being left visible after is Joker's Slasher Smile. Every one of Joker's movements during this makes him seem less like a Faux Affably Evil clown and more like an outright rabid animal.
• RoboCop's Fatal Blow, "ED-209", is terrifying due to it taking the idea of "There Is No Kill Like Overkill" and running with it all the way to the Netherrealm: ramming with a riot shield, several gunshots along the torso, Pistol Whip to the skull, hole punched through the gut with the Data Spike, punch in the face, More Dakka from ED-209, and finish with a missile. OUCH!
• Mileena's Fatal Blow, "BEAUTY AND BEAST", is absolutely vicious and is often considered one of the most relentlessly violent ones in the game to the point where it could be a Fatality on its own. Starting with three claw attacks and a repeated sai mauling to the gut, Mileena flips over her opponent after words and bites out a massive chunk of throat, muscle exposed completely, before tossing her sais through the opponent's eyes from the back of the head, leaving them lodged in as she moves around to the front and taking a page out of Rambo's book by barehandedly ripping out the rest of the throat. While all the Fatal blows can be counted as There Is No Kill Like Overkill, Mileena manages to take to a level beyond the brutality and viciousness of other savage Fatal Blows like Joker's and Robocop's, where you have to wonder if the opponent would even survive long enough after that to continue fighting if it's not the final blow. In short, it's everything a Mileena fan could ever dream of (or have nightmares of).

Story Mode

• The story prologue shows Raiden slowly and brutally electrifying his Arch-Enemy Shinnok for no reason other than to torment the fallen Elder God. Despite being completely immortal, it's agonizing and he's not even interrogating him, he's just making him suffer. Shinnok is no saint, but Raiden just shocking him over and over knowing that he'll never die from it is just cruel... and then he decapitates his ever-living head to present to the Netherrealm rulers as his warning, shown in The Stinger to X. Dark Raiden even briefly sports a maniacal Slasher Smile as he's about to behead Shinnok.
• One of the stages in the game is a laboratory where soldiers of the Cyber Lin Kuei comprised are built. This includes a process where the brain and spinal cord are implanted into a robotic body. The Elder Gods only know how they got those, from whom, or even if they were willing...
  • The appearance of the factory in Story Mode confirms everyone's worst suspicions: the subjects are, indeed, unwilling. The process of getting their brains for the cyberization process are, similarly, barbaric. To make things worse, it is Frost who is behind the cyberization process, leads the Tekunin alongside Sektor, and has voluntarily turned herself into a Cyborg. When Sub-Zero and Scorpion face her, they are visibly disgusted by the monster she became.
• Chapter 5 in the Tarkatan camp that takes place after Jade defeats the Kollector. At first everything seems hopeful, Kotal and his forces have come to rescue her and they'll be able to escape together, but then Kotal has his forces round up all the nearby Tarkatans. He then has all of them, including the ones who had nothing to do with the fight and even the children lined up to be executed! Making the scene worse is Jade's reaction, the slow shift from confusion to horrified realisation at what Kotal is doing.
  • Earlier, Jade has to escape from a group of Tarkatans by running on to their "meat wagon" — a caravan filled with flayed corpses hanging on meat hooks, ready to be cooked.
• In Chapter 7, when Liu Kang and Kung Lao try to infiltrate the Tarkatan camp while dressed as common soldiers, they come across Skarlet while she's painfully extracting blood from Jade's head. Needless to say, Jade's screams while she's going through the ordeal are nothing short of bloodcurdling. What makes it even worse it's that it's presented in a homoerotic way that makes it seem like rape.
  • While his fate is deserved, it's still cringe-inducing when Kitana uses her razor fans to slash Shao Kahn's eyes out.
• Chapter 8 has Kano's death. Deserved as it is, the way he checks out is quite gnarly. Short version: Sonya kills past!Kano, causing present!Kano to become Ret-Gone. Long version: Sonya blows past!Kano's brains out through his non-cyber eye, causing a massive hole to appear in present!Kano's head at the same spot. Present!Kano stumbles around, gasping in pain, for several moments before collapsing and vanishing like sand in the wind.
• In Chapter 11, Scorpion offers aid to Earthrealm’s forces in order to cross the Sea of Blood and attack Kronika’s Keep in the Netherrealm. However, under the influence of Shinnok’s amulet, Raiden believes Scorpion is leading them into a trap and begins torturing the undead ninja like he did to Shinnok, slipping back into his Dark Raiden persona. This causes history to once again repeat itself as a horrified Liu Kang attacks Raiden.
  • While fighting, Raiden suddenly remembers that this is not the first time he and Liu Kang have come to blows. In a series of flashbacks featuring Raiden and Liu Kang fighting each other across multiple timelines, Raiden realizes to his horror that Kronika has destroyed countless timelines over the eons, and in each one has manipulated Raiden and Liu Kang into kombating each other to prevent them from interfering with her plans.
    • Perhaps the creepiest part of the flashback is that, if you pay attention, all the different versions of Raiden and Liu Kang are performing the same moves on an endless loop. Raiden's flying kick, Liu Kang countering it, throwing Raiden against a pillar and torching him, Raiden breaking free to grab Kang and throw him across the room, to be followed up with the flying kick...
    • Worse still, Kronika confirms that this isn't the first time Raiden has seen through her deception. But in those timelines, even knowing the truth changed nothing.
• Whatever Geras does to that one poor Special Forces soldier - the camera pans away when he stands over the guy's body and grabs his face, and we just hear the guy screaming as his body starts jerking in agony before subsiding into random twitches as a large pool of blood slowly collects under him.
  • Really, the entire scene plays out as a Mook Horror Show where all the special forces soldiers are brutally killed by Geras. He first tosses a poor soldier off a balcony before jumping down to face Sonya, Johnny, Cassie and the other Special Forces present. They all start firing his rifles at him and Geras isn't even fazed. The first guy gets his head punched off, the second gets knocked to the ground and gets his head stomped into a bloody mess, and the third gets impaled by a blunt iron bar Geras picked up and is tossed aside. Then the fourth guy bashes him with the stock of his rifle, but the hit does nothing and he gets Geras' Offhand Backhand as a prize before the golem crushes the unfortunate sap's head using nothing but his massive hands. Fifth guy gets decked in the face so hard he gets his neck snapped instantly as their body uncontrollably spins in the air, before the last guy ditches his gun, tries to slash Geras with his combat knife to no avail, and the above scene plays out.
    • It's notable that we had already seen Geras splat a guy's head like a watermelon seconds earlier with his bare hands, so what Geras actually did to the guy in the ground was probably worse.
• All of the characters in this game are scary for their own reasons, but the Kollector stands out in particular: a greedy Multi-Armed and Dangerous servant of Shao Kahn who is obsessed with accumulating wealth at all costs. This is demonstrated in one of his intro animations, where he is seen taking a priceless ring from a dismembered hand.
  • Several of Kollector's intro quotes show just how far he'll go for money - not only does one with Johnny have him planning to set a market price for human flesh, but if he fights Cassie he'll mention needing breeding stock for his slavers. He might actually be more despicable than Kano of all people.
• Revenant Liu Kang absorbing the soul of his human self in complete detail. The Lord of Death psychotically laughs in an incredibly unsettling manner as he literally sucks the life out of his past and former self. The past Liu Kang doesn’t look great either; he gradually withers into a pale, malnourished state. His screams of agony just make it worse. The most painful part is that in order to preserve his own existence, Revenant Liu Kang has to let his past self live, meaning that while past Liu Kang is still alive, he doesn't have enough life in him to even move. After the terrifying ordeal, Revenant Liu Kang orders his undead wife and best friend to command the armies and when asked what he's going to do, he responds with an incredibly creepy Slasher Smile.
• Geras' fate. Raiden chains him to an anchor and tosses him into the never-ending Sea of Blood, and since he's immortal he can never die.
  Raiden: That is unfortunate for you. The Sea of Blood is bottomless. You will fall forever.
  • One of the intro dialogues between him and Scorpion implies this fate doesn't stick, which isn't comforting either.
• If you lose the first round against her in Story Mode, Kronika wins; Liu Kang needing to catch a breather allows her to finish resetting time. While it's more than possible to beat her, by that point she's already Ret Goned everyone who was ever important to him, minus Raiden. Odds are, he's not feeling too victorious.
  • If you lose against her in the second round? Non-Standard Game Over time! In which Kronika decapitates Liu Kang and enjoys her solitude, completely cementing her victory and dooming time to her hands.

Aftermath

• In Nightwolf's chapter, there's a very good glimpse of Shang Tsung rapidly decaying and rotting away without sufficient supply of souls. He desperately absorbs Revenant Nightwolf's soul to rejuvinate himself. If he would be stopped by past Nightwolf and Fujin from doing that, he would surely die in agonizing fashion.
  • Speaking of Shang Tsung... when he finally gets Kronika's crown, he becomes unstoppable and takes the souls of his allies and enemies alike - including Shao Kahn, Sindel, and even Kronika herself. If the player chooses to end the story as Shang Tsung, he will absorb Liu Kang's soul and sculpt his own twisted version of the MK universe... where Earthrealm, Outworld and Netherrealm are all but conquered, Raiden and Fujin become servants of Shang Tsung's will, and Orderrealm with Chaosrealm are the only obstacles left in his path to rule supreme over all Realms. Not to mention his final quote that wraps it up nicely:
  Shang Tsung: It has begun!
  • Liu Kang erasing Shang Tsung from existence in the good ending is rather nightmarish as well. While Shang Tsung undoubtedly deserved it, seeing him frantically trying to crawl away from Liu Kang, terrified as his body disintegrates into sand is a rather frightening way for someone to go.
• During the confrontation between Sheeva and Baraka in the Dead Pool, negotiations go south when Shang Tsung "accidentally" knocks one of Baraka's men into the acid pits. Everything stops, as all parties watch the poor Tarkatan scream and thrash in agony as the acid bloodily consumes him. Even Baraka and Sheeva both look horrified to watch it happen. Then we get a cold look at Shang Tsung, who's clearly enjoying the show. He then has the audacity to apologize while barely hiding a grin.
• After her resurrection, Sindel seems to be her old self without any supposed Mind Control... and then she suddenly betrays her closest allies (as well as her own daughter) without having any second thoughts. Seeing mighty Sheeva - her long-time bodyguard - becoming visibly horrified at this speaks for itself.
  • It gets worse. Sindel betrays her allies without any second thought because she already planned it thousands of years ago. She's not a poor queen who committed suicide to avoid Shao Kahn from using her as a Sex Slave. She was murdered by Quan Chi because he wanted to replace her as Shao Kahn's confidant, because she loves him. Sindel betrayed Edenia by murdering their king — and her husband, whom she considered a pacifist weakling — so Shao Kahn could merge the realms as one. She does not care about Edenians, Sheeva, or even her own daughter. Her only allegiance is to Shao Kahn.
  • And then, after she escapes Kitana's suspicion, Sindel immediately sets out to free and heal Shao Kahn. The two unfortunate Shokan guarding him get her signature Banshee Scream so powerful that it strips them to bare flesh.
• Expecting Shokan reinforcements to fighting Kronika's forces, Sonya and the Special Forces are instead ambushed by an army of angry Shokan, convinced of Sindel's lie that Kitana murdered their Shokan brethren, coming out of a portal and who quickly overwhelm the Special Forces. One of the Shokan kills one of the Special Forces members attempting to repel the Shokan ambush by stomping on her head.
  • This is even worse from Cassie's perspective as she already lost her mother at the start game and, after spending most of story mode reconnecting with Sonya's past self, she fears losing her again.
• When he sees his beloved (future) wife and daughter knocked down, past Johnny Cage sharply drops his casual laid-back attitude. Given that he gets angry at mighty Battle Couple of Shao Kahn and Sindel, saying that it will not end well for him might be an Understatement...
  Johnny: Okay, bozos! No jokes, no gimmicks - just Kombat! You wanna get nuts? O-ho... let's get nuts!
  • Let's not forget that after failing to defeat Shao Kahn and Sindel, Johnny, his wife and his daughter are taken away for the purpose of, in Sindel's words, "breeding many fine slaves." If Aftermath is the conclusion of this timeline, then it ends with the Cage family being raped in captivity. What adds even more horror to it is that if you remember Shao Kahn's victory pose in Mortal Kombat 9, a sex slave that looks just like Sonya wraps herself around his leg.
• Remember the fight between Raiden and Revenant Liu Kang in the original Story? In Aftermath, it gets a literal twist... as in, Revenant Liu Kang suddenly gets his leg shattered so much that the bone is protruding out of his ankle. At first, it seems to be coming out of nowhere... but as it turns out, Shao Kahn is beating past Liu Kang into a pulp with his war hammer. Just like with Johnny Cage(s) and Kano(s) from main Story Mode, any damage inflicted onto your past self gets immediately transferred onto your future self - no matter if you're alive or undead.
• In the climax of the Aftermath story, Shang Tsung finally gets his hands on the crown. The sheer power from all the souls poured into it not only restores him to his physical prime, but gives him the power to completely and utterly dominate everyone who crosses paths with him. Sindel? Dead. Shao Kahn? Dead. Kronika? Dead! Raiden and Fujin? Spared, but only so Shang Tsung can use them to draw upon their immortal souls, a Fate Worse than Death. Fire God Liu Kang? If the player chooses to play out the Final Battle as Shang Tsung, oh so very dead! And that's before going into the ending, with Shang Tsung enslaving Raiden and Fujin, using them to carry out a konquest of all the realms, and succeeding! Have a nice day.
  • Immediately before Shang absorbs Liu Kang's soul, he puts him in a single-hand chokehold and taunts him with quite possibly the vilest, most ruthless line of dialogue that any incarnation of the character has ever said in the entire franchise - it is only this quote that truly exemplifies the horrible, diabolical, fiendish, and disgusting depths of the absolute evil that is Shang Tsung.
  Shang: Breathe, deeply, in your final moments, Chosen One. For now your existence ends in shame. All the power that was once yours, is mine… FOREVER!
  • Shang's soul absorption is no slouch in the nightmare department, as the opponents are shown decaying into withered, skeletal husks with empty eye sockets. Special mention goes to the deaths of Sindel and Shao Kahn, who are given a Gross-Up Close-Up of their dead corpses.
• When Shang Tsung and Nightwolf explore the training monastery. Shang halts Nightwolf for a moment and uses a pole to activate one of the traps. When it does, we see there's a fresh and familiar corpse still lodged on the spears, the explorer from the Krypt portion. Poor guy, guess he wasn't so lucky in this timeline.
• If you happen to defeat Geras as Shao Kahn, you get the rather grisly display of him summoning his hammer and beating the absolute fuck out of him with it, smashing his skull in five times à la Negan while Sindel watches with glee. As Geras futilely reaches his arm out to the emperor as a plead of mercy, it immediately gets stomped out when Kahn hammers him again, apparently killing him there, before finally smashing his head in with a final hammer slam. Even if Geras could (and probably would) regenerate his head from the small gory bits remaining, he is probably Ret-Gone in the universal reset anyway, no matter which ending you choose. Regardless, this scene still perfectly exemplifies how much of a violent monster Shao Kahn is, his aggression equaled by absolutely no one.
• While it is also an awesome moment there is something a little disturbing that Fire God Liu Kang, in order to guarantee the crown's safety, willingly let Shang Tsung have a Near-Villain Victory that resulted in the brutal deaths or worse of most of his friends. Even Shang Tsung is visibly impressed by it, calling it "Deliciously coldblooded".

Arcade Mode

• Kronika's death upon finishing Arcade Mode is quite gruesome compared to Shao Kahn in 9 and Corrupted Shinnok in X, which were more or less Defeat Equals Explosion. The player punches her into the massive Hourglass in her keep's background, causing the glass on it to crack and her crown to fall off her head. The Hourglass then shatters, the shards strong enough to slice her legs and left arm off. As the Hourglass starts sucking everything in, Kronika's desperately trying to crawl toward her headwear. Right when she's nearing it, one last glass shard bisects her head and kills her, allowing the Hourglass to suck her in, restore itself to normal and leave her crown behind.
• Some of the Arcade endings certainly count:
  • D'Vorah's Arcade ending: Reasoning that humanoid races are inferior to insectoids, and disgusted that insectoids are regarded as nothing but vermin, D'Vorah uses the Hourglass to somehow alter the course of evolution so that all humanoid races are tiny, and that the Kytinn such as herself are colossal, all-powerful giants. The result is a scene right out of Attack on Titan, showing humans and Outworlders fleeing in terror as D'Vorah and other Kytinn scoop them up and devour them, or simply crush them underfoot.
    D'Vorah: Time for This One to write a more just history. One in which pesky humanoids finally take the rightful places they deserve... scrambling beneath our feet!
  • Baraka's Arcade ending: Taking in Kronika's power to share with the Tarkatan tribe, Baraka rewrites history so that Tarkatans were all-powerful. He and his forces immediately seized Edenia, Outworld and the goddamn Netherrealm, before finally challenging Earthrealm in one last Mortal Kombat before Baraka takes that over too, and take it over he does. Enslaving all residents of all realms they touched, the realms now belong to the Tarkatan horde.
    Baraka: Within a thousand years, all realms fell to Tarkatan blades... AND WE HAVE NOT RUN OUT OF MEAT SINCE!!! DAH HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!!!!
  • Sonya's Arcade ending is mostly hopeful with her forming a god squad with her family and the Briggs. There is, however, one detail that's terrifying to think of. Evidently, cosmic horrors exist in the Mortal Kombat franchise, which Sonya's describes one she finds as an "omni-deity" and needing her squad to win against. Sure, it's a little Lovecraft Lite due to actually winning, but keep in mind that not only was she and her family gods, but she only barely made it against one.
  • Noob Saibot's Arcade ending. Infusing Kronika's Sands of Time with his own shadowy essence, Noob comes to the realization that he can now shape destiny as he sees fit, and gains a twisted new ambition. He uses the hourglass to sculpt a universe in which there is no light. There is only a cold, bleak cosmos of eternal night where only darkness and evil reign. With his new power, the being once known as Bi-Han has become something much, MUCH worse than a wraith: he has become Death itself.
    Noob Saibot: I have had many names. NOW I AM BECOME DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS.
  • Shao Kahn's Arcade ending: Merging all timelines into one, Shao Kahn rewrites history so that the singular timeline is a world entirely under his rule: the weak serve the strong, who compete in Mortal Kombat tournaments for power, wealth, his own favor, and perhaps even for sport. For centuries, the tournament has had a champion that's gone undefeated. That champion is none other than Shao Kahn himself.
    Shao Kahn: For centuries, the tournament's Champion has gone undefeated. That Champion... IS ME!!!! HAIL THE KONQUEROR!!! HAIL SHAO KAHN!!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
  • Skarlet's Arcade ending. By binding the Blood Code to the Sands of Time, Skarlet becomes a Blood Goddess and creates a universe in which she reigns supreme over all of Outworld. Even Shao Kahn, her former master, bows to her. She even describes in detail the glory of being a god with disturbing glee, reveling in having temples and disciples devoted to her and sacrifices to appease her, in addition to the slaughter of those who would dare oppose or refuse to worship her.
  • Shang Tsung's ending. With his sheer mastery of sorcery, he is easily able to take Kronika's soul and power. Combining his newfound status as Master of Time with his deadly intelligence, Shang Tsung decides not to flaunt his position as Kronika once did, leaving traces of her existence as rumors and legends. Instead, he remains in the shadows while others do his dirty work for him. And who does he decide to use as his pawns? The other Titans. Yes, you heard correctly. Shang Tsung manipulates beings more powerful than even the Elder Gods like it was mere child's play. Now with an infinite supply of souls, he creates a universe where the concept of morality has no meaning and the cunning prosper while the good suffer. Have a nice day.
  • Sindel's ending, where she talks about how Shao Kahn murdered her husband Jerrod and forced her to be his bride... only to reveal it's a lie and that she killed Jerrod herself, seeing him as weak and Shao Kahn as the conqueror who could unite all realms under Sindel's rule. Then when she learns from Kronika that she dies and that Kitana will become the new Empress, she viciously beats her own daughter into submission then goes on to defeat Kronika, with the last scene showing Sindel being waited on hand and foot by Shao Kahn and Skarlet, with a despondent Kitana chained to her throne.
    Sindel: I have no more family. No more rivals. No more gods. I sit above them all, on a throne that unites all realms and all realities. Whoever you are, wherever you are, when you are before me, kneel. For I am Sindel, Empress of Time... and you exist only to serve ME.
  • Joker. Just... the Joker. By the time of his Arcade ending, he's killed everyone in Earthrealm and the Netherrealm… and now he's got the Hourglass. And how does he use it? To find a timeline where Havik of Chaosrealm is still alive. Cue the two psychopaths striking a Villainous Friendship, forming a legion that includes such resurrected lunatics and murderers as Mileena and Hsu Hao, and viciously attacking Orderrealm. And, if Joker's ending monologue is any indication, that's just Phase One...
  Joker: Meet the League of Misunderstood Maniacs! We're giving Orderrealm an enema! And when we're done, who knows where we'll crash next? Maybe we'll come to your house and slip live grenades under your pillow. Maybe we'll gut your favorite pet. Or maybe we'll just... BREAK YOUR TV RIGHT NOW!
  (BLAM! Through the shattered screen and sound of static, Joker's distorted, maniacal laughter can be heard)

Brutalities

• Baraka's "Stuck" Brutality is essentially his klassic "Blade Lift" Fatality, but now while he has them lifted in air, Baraka taunts them before swiping his blades to the side, cutting them in half.
  • Even his victory animations pack on the creep factor. One of Baraka's Brutality victory animations has him pull out a severed brain and start eating it on the spot.
  Baraka: Save me the eyes!
  • His other Brutality victory animation is his signature x-blades pose, but even it seems... different. From when he whips out the blades to after he poses, Baraka's movements are visibly deranged looking, his bestial nature barely keeping still after having violently slaughtered his opponent. It can even be interpretated that the reason behind his animalistic movements even after killing his opponent, is because he wants to do it again.
• While pretty much all the Brutalities are terrifying in their own right, Geras' stone cold one-liners add to the horror of his Brutalities, regardless if he's erasing you from existence or snapping your neck with one of your eyeballs popping out of its socket. His voice doesn't make it any better.
  Geras: Your death serves Kronika...
• Nightwolf's "Pure Guts" Brutality, in which he shoves his tomahawk into his opponent, embedding it in their thigh. The opponent then pleads for mercy before Nightwolf pulls the tomahawk up through their body, up to the neck, after which blood sprays out and the intestines spill out through the crotch. It could be a Fatality in its own right.
• Joker's newest Brutality, "Deep Cuts", is perhaps one of the most disturbing Brutalities due to how simple but realistic the execution is. Kicking the opponent into a wheelchair, Joker lets out a cackle as he turns the opponent around, readying a knife and slitting their throat with it, blood spraying onto the ground as the opponent lets out final anguished gargles followed by a final twitch. While not the most eventful Brutality, much like Leatherface's "Tenderizer" from the previous game, it can certainly be one of the worst; as having your neck slashed open would be far likelier than having your head uppercutted off.
  • On the subject of the Joker, one of his post-Brutality taunts is to pull out a Jack-in-the-Box and wind it, revealing a standard clown head. However, if Joker performs his "Head Case" Brutality, which has him launching said clown head out of the box and magicking it onto his opponent's neck (somehow), when he goes to wind the box again, out pops his opponent's head in its place. It’s a total Joker move, in that it’s equal parts funny and horrifying.
• RoboCop gives us "Kase Klosed" which, similar to "Deep Cuts" mentioned above, deserves mention for how subdued, yet realistic it is. He blasts the opponent's legs to get them on the ground, then proceeds to unload a clip from his gun into the victim. As he falls back, he stomps the victim's arm to pin them down, blasts their hand off, then makes one last shot to the head to finish the job, as the opponent lets out a Little "No". It's a display of police Brutality made all the more disturbing when you recognize how eerily similar it is to how Murphy was killed by Boddicker's gang.
• Noob Saibot's "Wow Out" is both gruesome and disturbing. Noob performs an amplified Tele-Slam with Shadow Portals equipped but leaves the portals open to allow his victim to helplessly fall in an infinite loop, screaming in terror as they do so. Made all the more disturbing with Noob's one-liner after the Brutality, while his victim still keeps falling without end:
  Noob: Death comes for all.

The Krypt

• The Krypt continues piling on the disturbing imagery, as well as continuing the gag of sudden jumpscares. If you put on Kenshi's blindfold, very rarely you'll be attacked by a roaring, skinless, angry spirit from the Spirit Realm. If you don't remove the blindfold or attack it fast enough, it grabs you by the neck and pops your head like a blister.
  • Goro's Lair in the Krypt has a few "lesser" jumpscares when you walk past certain parts of the scenery, such as seemingly dead prisoners suddenly trying to escape from dungeon cells, and heavily mutilated corpses emerging out of the blood pits with a loud roar before dissipating into a red mist. There are also death traps which gruesomely mutilate your body if you fail to figure out the timing to run past them. Venture down far enough into the depths of Goro's Lair while in the Krypt, and you'll find D'Vorah's hive, which is a nightmare for anyone with trypophobia and arachnophobia. The malevolent spiders are also back this time around, only this time, they can shoot flames out of their mouth to instantly incinerate you.
  • The Courtyard itself in the Krypt, while relatively calm compared to other areas, has its own set of nightmarish aspects. Occasionally, a meteor will fall from the sky and land in a random spot in the Courtyard. In the wrong place at the wrong time? The meteor will smash you without warning, and you're greeted with a nice closeup of the player character's disembodied head with your eyes still frozen in shock. Even if you're not hit by the meteor, you'll still hear the unexpected boom in the areas surrounding the Courtyard. The meteor makes a distinct sound before it crashes, but sometimes it fails to play properly, which means that the loud impact may occur with no warning whatsoever. Made worse by the fact that there's no music and it's almost dead silent outside some creepy ambient noises. There are also bodies hanging at the scaffolding in the center of the Courtyard. Some of which are still wiggling and making noises. Yeesh.

Other

• Baraka's face alone could qualify for this, but the lighting effects in several of his outros add a new level to it. Many of them end with him staring at the camera, with shadows obscuring his eyes to the point of invoking Red Eyes, Take Warning.
• Shang Tsung in general is terrifying. With his satanic aura, wicked cunning and penchant for black magic, the man is practically an ancient, vampiric serial killer. The hellish Krypt mentioned above was all by his design and his shapeshifting capabilities are extremely predatory in nature, especially as a way to mock and manipulate victims. Plus, to be bested by him is a fate worse than death, as your soul will never rest.
  • His second intro, Crush Defiance features a mook making a run when he's suddenly caught, followed by him screaming in agony as he glows green and then explodes into a spurt of blood as well as his soul being captured by Shang Tsung from behind. What makes this terrifying is just how agonized the mook sounds as his soul is being yanked from him and being killed gruesomely, followed by Shang smiling at the aftermath of killing and taking his soul from him, an apt showcase of Shang Tsung's core personality.
• The Joker has returned to the MK universe. And unlike last time, it's just him and his next impression on the realms is a lot Darker and Edgier.
  • One of the Joker's intros has him putting on some of his clown make-up. Specifically, his signature red lip-paint, using his own blood.
  • Joker's basic moveset involves sending hostages and goons to their demise as a brief distraction or a way to send an explosive in the direction of his target. Even when he's not doing a proper Fatality, he's killing multiple people every match.
  • Jax admits in his Intro vs. Joker that makes Kano look more of a saint in comparison, and that he will never forgive him. Given the bad blood he has with Black Dragons in general, this must mean Joker is much more diabolical in, what can be assumed, as short time span.
  • If you get certain of Joker's intros, you get snippets of a gruesome mini-story that happens mostly offscreen: he tortures and kills Takeda in order to get to Jacqui in their intro, and then claims to have then taken Jacqui in order to get to Cass or Jax in their intros (in Jax's forcing him to choose between her and Sonya). Likewise, he claims to have done the same to Kung Lao when fighting Liu Kang and to Frost when fighting Sub-Zero: generally coming off as hunting down Earthrealm's defenders, going on a swath of pain that each hero (or villain) attempts to stop in turn, systematically kidnapping the ones who fail in order to use them in his sick games against the next. Finally, with Rain, the Joker managed to take over Outworld and even took the time to hunt down the former's mother, unnerving Rain in both intros.
  • The simple fact that many in the Mortal Kombat Universe sees Joker as nothing more than a joke, unaware of just how deadly he truly is. Best example is when Joker asked Bi-Han to compare their body counts. Bi-Han is adamant that Joker doesn't come close to his, unfortunately, not only is it the opposite, Bi-Han's is probably not even a fraction of Joker's, even Joker smugly tells him to look him up.
  • It got so bad that Sheeva says as much in her intro against Joker. Joker has apparently done so much damage and chaos that he's done the impossible and basically united all the realms together to put an end to his evil. In a realm filled with mad dictators, gods and titans, a sole man who wants nothing more but to cause mayhem in a world like Mortal Kombat says something.
• Noob Saibot returns in this game, with a yet more decrepit wraith-like appearance. To make matters worse; since Quan Chi's death, Noob had begun to act on his own free will. Which means that all of his intros stating how he is "Death personified" are not because he's Brainwashed and Crazy; it's just Noob Saibot, with no traces of Bi-Han remaining.
• With the appropriate move equipped, the Terminator will enter a last-ditch Turns Red mode upon reaching a certain low amount of health. He kneels to the ground as his skin burns away, unveiling the unstoppable coltan endoskeleton beneath. While he loses several of his abilities (including fatalities), he also gains Super Armor which would mean that no matter how much you hit him, he will continue to approach. It can seem like an awesome but also jarring revelation for new players.
• One of Spawn's outros, shown in his debut trailer, has him Dragged Off to Hell and forced to kneel before Malebogia, whose massive, monstrous face appears through the hellfire.
  • A second outro has Spawn drive his fingers into his face (coming very close to the eyes) then essentially tear his own face off (with several strands of blackened flesh clinging to his fingers), revealing the perpetually screaming skull of his face by doing so. Yeesh.
• You would think the Friendships would be Sweet Dreams Fuel instead of this, and for the most part, you would be right. However, for Frost's Friendship, she spins around in a circle on ice skates while never moving her head at all, staring right at the camera.
• The Kombat Pack 2 trailer finally comes out, and it has a pretty nightmarish appearance. It starts off in a Hungry Jungle at night, with a frightened Tarkatan running from something. It comes to an abrupt halt, checking its surroundings, only for Rain to appear behind it, arming a three-pronged blade strapped to his wrist. As the Edenian demigod advances on his opponent, the frightened Tarkatan is hauled away into the bushes, after which Mileena herself emerges, throwing the Tarkatan's severed head at Rain's feet and flashing a Slasher Smile as only a half-Tarkatan can. After a few moments of fighting- in which Mileena bites Rain's throat and draws blood and Rain switches with a water klone and stabs Mileena from behind- Mileena skids backwards, hitting a tripwire. She then narrowly backflips away from a net that rises from the forest floor, that would have caught her had she been a few seconds slower. After both kombatants gaze at the net uncertainly, their attention is then drawn to the emerging guest fighter. And that guest fighter? None other than JOHN J. FUCKING RAMBO HIMSELF, cast in shadow and armed and deadly.
  • Even the Ax-Crazy Mileena can only nervously hiss "Who are you?" upon seeing Rambo. In response, Rambo calmly growls "I'm Your Worst Nightmare," then loads his machine-gun and starts shooting everywhere, roaring like a total monster. Rambo might be a much more heroic individual than Mileena or Rain, but he's The Dreaded One-Man Army for a reason.
• Speaking of Rambo, his "Mission Accomplished" outro is a good example of how scary this man can be. He choke-slams his enemy to the ground, knife in hand, growls the word "Mission…" as the screen then cuts to his POV of looking down at his terrified enemy’s face, before he finishes his sentence with "Accomplished" and stabs the ground right next to their head. The scariest part? EVERYONE is frightened by this, even the most despicable villains in the series, even Joker and Spawn, even the Terminator, who literally cannot feel fear, still cringes in anticipation. Not helping is Rambo’s enraged look in his eyes.
• Special mentions goes to two intros with Spawn he has. In the first, Spawn remarks that Rambo is the only one with more blood on his hands then himself. Spawn, who in his previous life committed some of the worst war crimes under Jason Wynn's command and, in the animated series, gleefully admitted he enjoyed gunning down a captured enemy, is somehow the one with less blood on his hands then Rambo. The second, is Spawn informing John Rambo that Malebolgia has his eye on Rambo and has a future as A Hellspawn himself.

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Geras: Be forgotten...