Pay the fee, defile the grave and you get your in-game swag. Items are hidden within grave markers that advertise a price. To cash-in Koin for goodies, NetherRealm Studios added a first-person dungeon-crawling minigame called “Krypt mode.” As you can guess from the name, I wind up teleported into a graveyard with various tombstones and crypts to explore. In order to unlock the various bits of flair in Mortal Kombat X, you need in-game currency known as “Koin.” You can earn it by defeating towers, beating down opponents, and doing certain things in match (such as big combos). These options allow someone repelled by the worst of online culture to enjoy a sense of competition without dealing with anyone directly. Plus, let’s face it … online is full of awkward jerks. Some players may not appreciate the goofy nature of these extra elements, but the rewards make plowing through all three towers, at least once a day, worth it. Towers are sets of timed challenges where you climb a ladder of opponents as quickly as possible, often in environments containing whack-a-doo obstacles like randomly fired missiles or having the screen (and control inputs) flip upside down. One of the optimal ways of doing this is through the Towers, which are also obsessive-compulsive traps for those that care about leaderboard rankings. This makes the act of playing slightly obsessive, to the point where even on days when I am not planning on playing Mortal Kombat X, I am trying to sneak in a quick session just so I can help my Faction out a little bit more.

By the end of the week, the Faction with the most points wins the war and earns special items (what those are, I have no clue … my faction hasn’t won yet). Everything I do earns special “Faction points,” which go to my clique. When I booted up Mortal Kombat X for the first time, I had to choose one of five Factions that occupy its universe.

Mortal combat x