To this day,Mortal KombatX is still my favourite game in the fighting series, as I wasn’t as big of a fan ofMortal Kombat 11as everyone else seemed to be. I still think it’s a great fighting game, but its weaker roster, timeline-focused story, and grindy Towers of Time put it at the bottom of the modern era of MK games for me.

Then came Mortal Kombat 11’s Aftermath DLC. Not only did it introduce some highly requested fighters like Fujin and Nightwolf alongside gameplay mechanics like Friendships, but its new epilogue campaign shined a bright spotlight on Shang Tsung, finally letting him live up to how powerful he was in the 3D era and proving once and for all that he’s a much more interesting villain than Shao Kahn could ever dream of being.

Shang Tsung walking forward surrounded by flames in Mortal Kombat 1

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I thought that Shang Tsung’s show-stealing appearance in Aftermath couldn’t possibly be topped, and that NetherRealm would give him some time to breathe because of it, but my hands-on time withMortal Kombat 1’s story mode atGamescomsuggested otherwise. Not only is he shaping up to be just as important in this new timeline as he was in Aftermath, but he’s also already become the most exciting part of the story mode after only five minutes of screen time.

Shang Tsung might have been a powerful sorcerer in the original timeline, but Liu Kang has changed things around in Mortal Kombat 1 to the point where he’s not only lost his magic, but he’s also turned into a scummy medicine peddler who wears a fake beard and pretends to be an old man to get others to trust him. Spoiler alert: they don’t, as his ass-beating from a bunch of angry civilians soon proves.

Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat 1.

So far, most of Liu Kang’s changes to the timeline have either seemed minor (what’s even changed about Johnny Cage beyond an obsession with social media?) or plain stupid, like making the Tarkatan race a deadly disease and practically guaranteeing that characters like Baraka turn evil because of how they’re treated by people. Why not just not create a deadly plague that makes everyone hate whoever’s inflicted with it, Liu?

Here though, the changes that Liu Kang has made to the timeline in regard to Shang Tsung are not only hilariously brutal, but they also make sense. Stripping him of his powers and trying to make sure he can never rise to power is a smart move on Liu Kang’s part and a really interesting character arc for Shang Tsung, who will seemingly have to find new ways to ruin the world.

Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat with a green energy skull in his hand

Thanks to how great Aftermath was, I was already excited to see Shang Tsung play a big role in Mortal Kombat 1’s story, but after getting a taste of where his character is going I’m somehow even more jazzed. I’m a little less gassed to see Kronika return and seemingly be the reason why Shang Tsung turns evil again, but I’ll take it if it means getting to see more of him and not have Shao Kahn as the main villain again.

The rest of my time in the game’s story mode didn’t give me much to talk about, as it mostly just focused on Raiden and Kung Lao’s new relationship and gave me a brief look at characters like Smoke, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion, but the glimpse at Shang Tsung I got was enough to make me even more excited for Mortal Kombat 1’s campaign mode.

My only concern with Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat 1 is that he’s a pre-order bonus and not part of the main roster. Locking popular characters like Darkseid, Goro, and Shao Kahn behind pre-orders has been a problem for NetherRealm for some time now, but those characters at least didn’t have much impact on the story.

NetherRealm felt like it was pushing its luck a little with Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat 11 thanks to his appearances in the campaign, but Shang Tsung is one of the first characters we see in Mortal Kombat 1 and appears to have a big role to play. Making him a pre-order bonus is even more egregious here if he ends up being as important to the plot as what I saw of the story mode implies.

Until that’s confirmed, though, I’ll stick with being optimistic about Tsung’s return here. When I first saw him stepping out of a time portal in the Mortal Kombat 1 reveal trailer, I couldn’t help but sigh and worry that NetherRealm was going to keep relying on the same villains in the new timeline. Thankfully, Mortal Kombat 1 seems to be doing enough different with the character in this timeline that I’m more than happy to see him make a comeback and excited to see how he messes with Liu Kang’s timeline.

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