Fighting Games Friday: Sure, Let’s Talk About Kitana in Mortal Kombat 11

NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. announced Mortal Kombat 11 in December last year, but only started detailing it in mid-January. This didn’t give them much time to provide big showcases for many characters, though they weren’t too necessary outside the new faces. The gameplay systems are similar to the last two installments, with slight adjustments, so the returning characters play similarly. This is why NetherRealm could afford to reveal several characters at a time in trailers, and it’s why you didn’t see me posting about every character as they were revealed for Fighting Game Friday posts. I caught up on most of them in a post two weeks ago, written with the intent of it being the last post I made before its release.

But I’m making a special exception for the newest character revealed: Kitana. Her return is no surprise considering she’s been one of the most popular characters in the franchise since her debut in Mortal Kombat II. She was also seen in a previous trailer in her revenant form, thanks to being one of the many characters killed by Sindel in the Mortal Kombat 2011 semi-reboot.  However, there have been intense discussions about her move set and — of course — appearance. It’s enough for an entire post, which is why you’re reading this right now, and why I hope you’ll continue.

Like other characters, Kitana features several normal and special attacks from previous games, many of which involve the use of her trademark sharp fans. Those are in addition to the new and violent Crushing Blows (surprisingly not spelled “Krushing”) and excessively violent Fatalities. But she also has a couple of unexpected techniques, which involve tossing a pair of sais and a teleporting drop kick, which are taken from Mileena. Several fans are taking this to mean that Kitana’s demonic clone, who’s nearly as popular as she is, won’t be in the game. There’s precedent for this, too. Fans assumed that Jade wouldn’t be in Mortal Kombat X after they discovered how Kitana used several of her moves in one of the game’s three styles, which turned out to be right.

There’s no hope for Mileena being part of the initial roster here, and they appear to have filled the quota for female ninjas with Jade (who is back in this game) and Skarlet in addition to Kitana. But there’s still a chance she could be released as DLC. They already have animations for some of her moves, and all the female ninjas use the same base character models; but you’ll want to emphasize “chance” there.

In terms of her face, Kitana is the best she’s ever looked. NetherRealm became better at creating faces with Injustice 2, the last game they released before this one. This will be the first MK game released with that expertise and technology, and the overall results are splendid.

Another aspect about Kitana’s appearance generating the most discussion is her outfit, because of course it is. Kitana’s had a long history of being a scantily-clad ninja, wearing a leotard, boots, and a ninja mask in several games. The leotard was even upgraded to insert a boob window in installments after MKII, and reached its zenith with MK2011’s, which left very little to the imagination. But NetherRealm started toning her outfits down with MKX’s, though she was still wearing essentially a cloth, with visible thighs and a smaller boob window. They’ve now gone the extra mile with her MK11 outfit, where she’s fully clothed with her breast size reduced.

To no surprise, some vocal champions of boner culture are not happy, but all isn’t lost for them just yet. This game includes a gear system that lets players customize their outfits, some of which have been shown for various characters in streams, while others were revealed just this morning. There’s no guarantee that she’ll have scantily-clad outfit options on par with those offered in previous games, but we should find out after players get through the reportedly slow grind in the non-story single-player modes.

Not all the MK11-related news was about Kitana this week, in the final lead-up to the initial release. Downloadable character Shao Kahn received his own trailer, who will be given to anyone who preorders the game before it releases. Also, those who purchased the game early discovered a hidden character: Frost. There aren’t many details about her just yet, but some gameplay videos have made their way onto YouTube. She should be officially revealed next week. The Switch port of the game was finally shown in action outside the display at PAX East three weeks ago, which looks good for a port to a system weaker than other platforms. Some animations lack detail and the environmental geometry is reduced, but it will be a perfectly playable port.

Mortal Kombat 11 will release next Tuesday, April 23rd, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. The launch trailer was already released, which includes a techno remix of the Mortal Kombat movie theme, fitting considering Shang Tsung is once again being played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. We’ll see how soon they’ll officially confirm Frost, and show a trailer for Shang.