Mortal Kombat 1 will feature a minigame that will require the player to destroy a decapitated head to progress according to a rating update.
Mortal Kombat 1 is an M18-rated game due to its intense and explicit depictions of violence. Players engage in fierce battles with an array of combat moves, leading to their opponents’ health depletion. Violence is graphically portrayed, with certain attacks resulting in characters being impaled, dismembered, or decapitated, often triggering an x-ray view of fracturing bones and bursting internal organs. Particularly gruesome are the ‘Fatalities’ – finishing moves that the victor can execute on a defeated opponent, resulting in a cinematic scene showing the character being impaled, disemboweled, decapitated, dismembered, or bisected. This violence, although set in a fantasy context, also extends to story scenes and certain game modes where the player must destroy a decapitated head.
The game also contains coarse language, although its usage is infrequent. The dialogue includes strong language such as ‘f**k’ and its variations. This element, along with the detailed and frequent portrayals of violence, aligns with the M18 rating, which permits realistic depictions of violence, serious injury to humanoid characters, and the frequent use of strong coarse language.
Details on the game were shared by the Singapore rating board. You can read more about it below.
The player can choose from a main roster of fighters to battle in various game modes against the AI or other players. Each character has their own set of fighting moves and supernatural powers, and will have a companion fighter to call upon for assistance during matches. Using a variety of punches, kicks, grapples and weapon strikes, the player needs to deplete the opponent’s health in order to win matches and progress through a tournament or the storyline.
There are frequent and strong depictions of violence and gore. Certain attacks may depict characters being impaled, dismembered or decapitated, or trigger an x-ray view of the opponent’s bones and skulls fracturing, or internal organs bursting from the impact of attacks. At the end of matches, the victor is given the opportunity to execute a gory finishing move called a ‘Fatality’ on the defeated opponent. These moves require the input of relevant button combinations within a short window of time, and will result in a cinematic scene showing characters being impaled, disembowelled, decapitated, dismembered or bisected. The player may encounter a mini-game in certain game modes, where a decapitated head may be presented to the player character to destroy, in order to progress. Story scenes also depict strong violence, such as characters being impaled in the eyes. These depictions are in a fantasy context, and the ‘Fatalities’ occur infrequently given the overall length of matches. The M18 guidelines allow for “depictions of realistic violence, such as killing, maiming or causing other serious injury to humanoid characters”.
Mortal Kombat 1 is currently set to launch on September 14, 2023. It will be released on PS5, Xbox Series, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
