Correction: Ed Boon himself confirmed that this is not true, and that the in-game unlocks and premium items purchased with real currency are largely separate.
Original: It’s not alarming that Mortal Kombat 11 has additional content that you can purchase. After all, even games that can be played solo are adopting the games-as-a-service model, in which content is continuously pumped out to keep players around. What is most definitely alarming is how much you have to spend to buy all of the skins the game has available. $6440 is the amount needed, based on a Reddit user’s calculations, assuming you don’t want to grind for Time Krystals, the currency that is used to buy skins. (Thanks to Reddit user AccomplishedPoet8 for doing the math!)
For some context, each character in the game has 60 skins to unlock. But completing the main story, tutorial, and basic towers will usually net you four of those skins, so we’ll call it 56. And there are 23 characters in the game currently. Each skin costs $5 or 500 Time Krystals, which on its own doesn’t seem too expensive, but when you calculate the total, it’s kind of insane. 56 x 23 x 5= $6440.
Now, it is worth acknowledging that you *can* earn this currency by playing. But the amount of time needed to unlock all the skins is almost as surprising as the amount of money needed. The Reddit user noted that he earned around 760 Time Krystals after four hours of play. We’ll call that 190 Time Krystals an hour. If the total amount of Time Krystals you need is 644,000 (56 skins x 23 characters x 500 Time Krsytals) it will take you 3390 hours to unlock them all without spending money.
That’s on top of separate purchases needed for the DLC characters.
You don’t *have* to buy everything, sure, but if you wanted to, it shouldn’t cost literally one hundred times what the game costs. For comparison, in Mortal Kombat X, you could buy all skins, fatalities, characters, and more for $40. That is quite the difference.
It’s unclear in NetherRealm Studios will address this or fix it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.
That being said, Mortal Kombat 11 has been getting great reviews and currently holds a Metacritic score of 83 on PS4.
[Source: Reddit]
Note: This article has an Amazon affiliate link in it.
