Rage-Quitting Is Appropriately Bloody In Mortal Kombat 11

Mortal Kombat wouldn’t be Mortal Kombat without extreme violence, and the look of the game has only gotten more and more gruesome as home consoles have become more powerful. The most recent game in the series, Mortal Kombat 11, kicks things up to, well, 11 in the way it displays bloodshed. Naturally, this brutality also extends to the way the game handles rage-quitters.

Fighting games are frustrating, and matches can sometimes feel futile once you’ve fallen too far behind your opponent. As such, it’s not uncommon for casual players to drop out and find a new opponent instead of sticking around and trying to learn something. But instead of simply explaining that an online opponent has quit the game via text box, Mortal Kombat goes about things in a much more Mortal Kombat way.

Starting with Mortal Kombat X in 2015, players on the other end of a rage-quit got treated to a special animation of their opposing character’s head exploding.

This was referred to in-game as a “Quitality,” referencing the franchise’s naming convention for other finishing moves (i.e. Fatality, Babality, Animality, etc.) Mortal Kombat 11, which came out today, goes one step further by making the entire character explode into a fountain of blood, bone, and assorted viscera, as demonstrated by fighting game competitor Leah “gllty” Hayes.

LOL #PS4sharehttps://t.co/T3qrsswnRf pic.twitter.com/4CjsjTJkyd

— GRPT|gllty (ギル姐) (@gllty) April 23, 2019

This isn’t the first time the Mortal Kombat series has allowed players to end a match on their own terms. Mortal Kombat: Deception introduced Hara-kiri moves in 2004, which gave each character a unique way to self-destruct, meaning players could essentially quit without giving their opponent the satisfaction of a legitimate victory.

These moves haven’t returned to the franchise since then, but Kotal Kahn and the Predator were able to use similar techniques in Mortal Kombat X.

Here’s the thing, though: you really shouldn’t be quitting out of an online match of Mortal Kombat 11 before the fight has concluded. Players who do this are robbing themselves of practice time that might make all the difference when they find themselves on the verge of losing against a future opponent. Winning is great, but there’s always something to learn, even in the most dire circumstances.

Plus, even with a sliver of health, you might still be able to turn that match in your favour. Why subject Jax Briggs and Sonya Blade to such a disgusting fate when there’s always the possibility of mounting an exciting comeback?