Mortal Kombat has always been about pitting ludicrous characters against one another in gruesome, dismembering combat (or kombat), but its never really been one to touch on more serious, real life issues. This seems to be changing just a bit with Mortal Kombat X, which fans have begun noticing contains the series’ first ever gay character.
The character in question is Kung Jin, one of the new fighters introduced to X. Kung Jin is one of the new younger generation of fighters who are offspring of veteran Mortal Kombat fighters. In his case, he’s the younger cousin of Kung Lao.
During the game’s story mode, Kung Jin is caught stealing a family heirloom by Raiden. After a therapeutic fight which Kung Jin says “made me feel like shit,”, the god of thunder explains to him that “self loathing has always been an unfortunate part of your make-up.”
Raiden then tries to persuade Kung Jin to give up his thieving ways and join the Shaolin to which the latter replies, “I can’t. They wont…accept…” Raiden then cuts him off, saying “They care only about what is in your heart, not whom your heart desires.”
It’s a subtle but noticeable implication of Kung Jin’s sexuality that was picked up on by those playing the game, and the meaning behind it was confirmed by X’s cinematic director Dominic Cianciolo, who tweeted: “I see people are picking up on the subtle exposition contained in Kung Jin’s flashback. Glad we have observant fans!”
In other news modders have gone to work on Mortal Kombat X‘s PC version, and one such modder, XVermillion, has discovered a way to play as some of the game’s unplayable characters, Rain, Baraka and Sindel. These characters can be fought against in the story mode, but are unavailable in the character select. It’s presumed that they will be released at a later date as DLC, but XVermillion has discovered that by renaming the game files for the non-playable characters to those of Shinnok, he could trick Mortal Kombat X into thinking the player was playing as Shinnok, when instead he or she was using Rain, Baraka or Sindel and their movesets.
This clever trick only works in the game’s practice mode at the present, but it’ll probably ruffle feathers over at NetherRealm and their greedy overlords at Warner Bros. should it be made workable for the full game.
Additionally, the PC version of the game has just gotten a gargantuan 15 GB patch, which aspires to further optimize its graphics. How in the world a 15 GB patch is needed just to optimize the game is beyond me, but there you have it. Finally, as a sort of apology for its disastrous launch on the PC, NetherRealm have awarded all PC players of X will 10,000 Koins that can be spent in the Krypt.