Is this a new era of Khaos?
After repelling the invaders who endangered Fire God Liu Kang’s New Era of peace, Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns expands the story campaign with an all-new cinematic narrative. When a perilous threat arrives from an alternate timeline, led by the ruthless Titan Havik whose sole mission is to throw the realms into khaos, Liu Kang must rally his champions and put faith in his enemies to defeat this grave danger. If they fail, the New Era will be reduced to anarchy.
I missed out on Mortal Kombat 1 when it launched last year, but luckily the Khaos Reigns Kollection had me covered as it contains both the base game and this year’s Khaos Reigns expansion. I want to quickly dive into the original game before I press on to the expansion, so bear with me…
I don’t know much about the lore of Mortal Kombat, but when I heard that the timeline was essentially reset, I thought I might have a chance of getting into it without having to know a lot of the past. I was half-right in this regard, but then it got a bit confusing with multiple timelines and whatnot, but overall I was impressed with the overall story of the original. The fighting is still as superb as always, with plenty of brutal attacks and devastating fatalities. When I finished the storyline from the base game, I wanted more…so I was pleased to see that Khaos Reigns contains a new story that takes place afterwards.
Khaos Reigns’ story is a bit on the short side when compared to that of the base game, but I was impressed with it overall. You will want to make sure you have enough room on your PS5 to download the cutscenes in 4K though, as they look incredible and deserve to be seen in this resolution. The new roster of characters are welcome and there’s still plenty more to come in terms of fighters down the road, so I feel like you get a good amount of content for your cash.
Some might complain about gender changes to characters or their overall redesigns, but this is the damn multiverse we’re talking about. Anything can happen, so I would ignore those criticisms. Mortal Kombat goes full MCU here and I’m all for it. The fighting mechanics are great and I genuinely suck at fighting games, but even I was able to hold my own against AI or online opponents.
The visuals are absolutely stunning. Character models are highly detailed, well animated and the environments look great too. The framerate is solid throughout, load times are next to nothing and the voice-acting is also decent.
The Verdict
Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns is a superb add-on to MK1. It adds to the story and roster, while giving you more to look forward to down the line. The Khaos Reigns Kollection is also a great way to dive in if you missed out on the base game beforehand.