Recently a story began circulating that it would cost players as much as $6,440 to purchase all the skins in Mortal Kombat 11 without grinding.
According to the Reddit post by u/AccomplishedPoet8 that made the claim initially, the average amount price of a skin in MK11 is 500 Time Crystals (MK11’s earnable and purchasable in-game currency). Taking that into consideration the Reddit user did the simple math of:
23 characters X 56 skins each (each character has 60 skins, but 4 can be earned by playing through the story) X $5 (the amount to buy 500 Time Crystals) = $6,440
The amount is a staggering number to see from a full price game, but Co-Creator of Mortal Kombat Ed Boon took to Twitter to make a statement about the claims.
L😂L OMG! The $6440 story is complete bullshit! 😂
— Ed Boon (@noobde) April 25, 2019
Where do these people get their information? 😜 The VAST VAST majority of MK11 skins are NOT for sale. That's not how @NetherRealm make games. You have to EARN them IN GAME!
🙏#FactCheckB4reporting🙏
According to Ed Boon, the majority of skins contained in Mortal Kombat 11 aren’t even up for sale, and since that IS the case the over $6,000 price tag on Mortal Kombat 11’s skins isn’t a real representation of the game’s micro-transactions.
And while the large cash value we’ve seen isn’t a good representation of the MK11, that doesn’t excuse the game’s mobile game styled grind players will have to face throughout the game.
Many players have been extremely vocal about Mortal Kombat 11’s horrible grind since its launch. The game is said to force players to heavily rely on single-use items in its Towers and earn-rates for rewards are reported to be extremely slow.
The game’s Krypt also saw a change that players are extremely unhappy with. Normally in the Krypt players can explore a creepy area filled with loot chests and jump scares. In past Mortal Kombat games, all chests had set locations. In MK11, all chest locations in the Krypt are completely randomized.
These are just a few of the grievances that players have for the new game. NetherRealm and Ed Boon have both addressed many of the complaints by consumers, and patches are promised soon.
While the upcoming tweaks to earn-rates and patches to the Towers could definitely help to improve the Mortal Kombat 11 experience, players are fair in the distrust.
Games like Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) made these same claims after players complained about in-game purchases and progression systems. In the past, when a game releases with loot-boxes, micro-transactions, poor progression, etc. the future usually isn’t a bright one.
Hopefully Ed Boon and NetherRealm make great improvements to MK11 and players can enjoy the game instead of dealing with grindy progression and some of the other common frustrations.
The patch that is said to fix many of the game’s issues is said to be coming early next week at the latest.