Fans look set to miss out as the new Mortal Kombat is facing a ban in several countries.

Due to its gratuitous gore and violent gameplay, Mortal Kombat has been outright banned in several countries. Japan, Ukraine, and Indonesia have banned the game physically and possibly digitally, but we may see a few other countries join in after the game launches.

One likely candidate is China, which has new gaming policies that forbid games with blood and corpses, and MK11 has this in spades, of course.

The Mortal Kombat series is no stranger to controversy, having been under fire for its over-the-top brutality ever since the first game. The public outrage against the first MK was such that it paved the way for the creation of the ESRB rating system in the US.


MK11 developer Nether Realm isn’t shying away from the gore in the newest MK installment, but also believes that the game isn’t all about that. With the franchise boasting 11 games, rich plot-lines and a diverse roster of characters, there’s more than fatalities at work for its massive fanbase.

“It’s a hard argument to say that people are going to buy more and more of the game every year just to see Fatalities.” said Ed Boon, director of MK11 and co-creator of the franchise, in an interview with Gameinformer.

Mortal Kombat is out now on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.