Mortal Kombat 1’shighly anticipated Halloween event is here, but celebrations aren’t as jubilant as developer NetherRealm might have been hoping for, mainly down tothe introduction of the game’s first paid fatality. Fans were up in arms when they first found out they’ll need to fork over some cash to actually use the move, but they’re even angrier after finding out the fatality will set you back a pretty whopping $12.
Head on over to Mortal Kombat 1’s premium store, and you’ll find that the Happy Halloween fatality is currently going for 1,200 Dragon Krystals, which roughly works out at $12 since $1 is the equivalent of 100 Krystals. You can buy the 1250 Dragon Krystal bundle for $10 to get a little bit more of a discount, but it’s still a decent chunk of change for something that fans expected would either be given out for free or could be unlocked within the game itself.
To make matters even worse, the Dragon Krystals you get from completing the Story Mode and other single player activities are finite. Some people will have undoubtedly already cashed in their free Dragon Krystals already, and the fact that this fatality is a limited time purchase means that those that do still have free Dragon Krystals to unlock may not have time to do so before it disappears forever - or at least until next Halloween.
I paid $110 for this game. I am not going to spend 12 God damn dollars for a fatality. How did we go from a free friendship update and free stage fatalities in MK 11 to paying $12 for one fatality in MK1?
This has not gone down well with fans, as you probably expected, and many are voicing their anger on social media sites such asRedditandTwitter. Boycotts are already being called for, as fans are urging each other to go watch the fatality on YouTube if they want to see it.
One brave Mortal Kombat 1 fan has taken the financial hit to share iton the series' subredditfor everyone to see so that people “have no reason to buy it”. Some have even tried using the input without unlocking the fatality itself to see if it triggered, similar to how each character’s second hidden fatality could be triggered, but no dice.
Mortal Kombat 1 players have been pretty unhappy with the game’s monetization options ever since launch, with somelabelling the high price of DLC from the Premium Store as “predatory” at its very worse. Skins are being sold at ridiculous prices compared to Mortal Kombat 11, and this whole paid fatality debacle is just going to pour fuel on the fire. There’s only so much money that Warner Bros. and NetherRealm can ask for before things get ridiculous, and this expensive fatality may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
