Mortal Kombat 1 Secret Characters and How to Unlock Them (2024)

The main thing I hate about this is not the implication that there's no 24th. But moreso that DLC characters would have a lame pop up menu.

I want to visually watch the roster grow with DLC :/

Man, Deception only had 12 characters ready to play from the start? That's brutal. I remember Ed Boon teased "Super Unlockables," and it took the internet a couple days to find Liu Kang hidden in Konquest mode.

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MK Deception also had one of the worst strategy guides ever printed, it didn't even have Liu Kang's hidden chest requirements in Konquest mode.

Real talk, this was some bullsh*t.

When these came out, if you couldn't afford internet like my family, you were f*cked. You had to either buy a strategy guide with your allowance and cross your fingers that the information was even there, or hope one of your friends had the internet and was allowed to use it. Yeah, unlockable characters are satisfying, but also just tedious to get, and I'm glad that it isn't a thing anymore. It was just dead time that forced you to either meet arbitrary criteria or play game modes you didn't like before you could try all the characters. Can you imagine if you unlocked Frost by spending 1,000,000 koins in The Krypt or something? Yeah, that's not hard, but if you really like Frost, you want to play Frost, not Subzero until you're allowed to drop him.

When you were 13, it gave the games a sense of wonder and mystery. Now, it would just be a grindwall to unlock your main, who had a gameplay reveal trailer six months prior, and you could look up the ending for them whenever you wanted. The culture has changed.

I remember having to force myself through Smash Ultimate's campaign for all of the characters. It was so boring that it burned me out before I even touched other game modes. It's the same issue.

Imagine having to sit and unlock everything on hundreds of different machines, are you really saying that's not hard? It's one of the biggest complaints Smash Ultimate TOs have.

Either way, if they did make things unlockable, there should just be a code to do it all in one go, for TOs and for me, because I just wanna play my f*ckin character already.

I'll never forget meditating for an entire month in Deception just to get Liu Kang in the woods lmao

It was amazing

MK's has always done Easter eggs and secrets exceptionally well

Boss Rush Mode and Smoke Missions in Shaolin Monks come to mind as well

Same

And its not like it can't be done. Look at FromSoftware games. Modern day games with tons of secrets to find regardless of datamining/leaks.

The secrets are a big part of MK. Ffs they invented the hidden character in fighting games. Reptile was literally the first.

Kollector and Cet isn't there either. I'm certain those last few are the DLC's fading out as a "to be continued".

The characters gets added there very slowly, and i guess they'll probably put the main roster up first before DLC (not counting Shao Kahn) and that's maybe why Shang isn't there yet.

I like unlocking characters. It's fun, unless there's some absurd grind involved - though I get why some people don't enjoy it.

Too much trouble for tournaments? Add a cheat code you can input to unlock every character. Older games did it. Or, well, add an option to pay to unlock everything like they did with Frost... but that's super lame and a pointless cash grab.

I like it, brings back the old school of having something to work towards. Not the Krypt where you had to look up which gravestone but like Smash where you defeat them in battle. It rewards playing the game, the tower/arcade modes and the like.

(Coming from someone who plays single player offline)

Either NRS should be commended for keeping the final characters secret despite their history of leaks

Or the final character and kameo are reused assets like "Titan Shang Tsung" or "Hanzo Scorpion" or "Cyber Smoke" and thats the reason they didnt leak

Leakers assumed they were skins not worth mentioning... but theyre basically clone characters to even out the rosters.

IMO both Havik and 24 could be unlocked via story

Havik could be a mid-story unlock like Frost/CSZ while 24 could be a post-story unlock like Quan Chi/Shinnok

'Secret' characters pre-release are very much a thing of the past. Because even if the developers wanted that it would get leaked at lightning speed.

Far better for sales to have a drip feed reveal of characters pre-release culminating in the whole cast.

Nah, they have to reveal all characters before release.

Mainly cause characters are a selling point, and they can't advertise the game by saying "There are mystery characters that we won't reveal until the game releases", it sounds weird.

Also yeah, leaks are a huge problem.

I want them to reveal the whole roster before release with nice gameplay trailers.

Secret characters were fun decades ago when we didn't have access to every piece of information on the internet, but the entire roster will be leaked before we play the game.

And I would like to see the characters for the first time with a good official reveal, not a leaked picture with terrible quality or some random video in youtube from someone who got the game earlier.

The announcer gets it right when he says "sick!".

You're damn right I'm sick of these secret fights and these damn talismans!