Complimenting Mortal Kombat XL’s genre defining story mode is even more spectacular one on one fighting. Each character now has three different variations to use in combat, with each of the variations having their own perks and/or special moves. For example, Sub Zero’s three variations are Unbreakable, Cryomancer and Grandmaster: the latter of which is designed for a defensive playstyle, whereas Cryomancer has a focus on being offensive. Even though it’s in the minority, some of the variations come across as far less useful than they might have been designed for. Nonetheless, this new system has been successful in its effort to provide players with more diversity and combat depth.

            Although Injustice: Gods Among Us was, essentially, a brief vacation from the Mortal Kombat saga for Nether Realm Studios, it is still the developmental predecessor to Mortal Kombat XL. With that said, similar gameplay mechanics from Injustice directly carry over to MKXL. One of these key features is the use of interactables throughout each levels environment, whether it be to escape an area or to inflict damage onto your opponent. Unlike the seriously devastating interactables throughout Injustice, players are now able to block offensive interactables, and these environmental tools are far less of a factor (and threat) than they were throughout Injustice. With level selection functioning as a type of meta-game with Injustice, I view the reduction of environmental hazards in MKXL as both good and bad. Indeed, the hand to hand combat is now more focused with MKXL, but the added threat of an environmental hazard was always an interesting dimension to the standard combat of Injustice. With the reduction in power for MKXL interactables, level selection is now more meaningless than it was in its predecessor. Overall, however, the offline combat and gameplay of Mortal Kombat XL is some of the best in franchise history, as well as in the fighting game genre itself.