With a long-running series like Mortal Kombat which has various spinoffs and a number of different writers having a hand in the games’ creation, there were bound to be some inconsistencies and plot holes. Mortal Kombat 11 implemented a clever way to resolve these varying conflicts by explaining that a villain has been manipulating and rebooting the various timelines over and over again to create the perfect timeline.
Unfortunately, this explanation and the story of Mortal Kombat 11 introduces a number of new inconsistencies and plot holes that weren’t explained when the final credits rolled across the screen.
10 Kronika Can Freeze Time At Any Point
As a being that can manipulate and control time, Kronika has the powerful ability to freeze time as she sees fit. She demonstrates this power when she stops time to tell Raiden what the only genuine threat to her plans is.
Granted Raiden is immune to this ability, but Liu Kang isn’t. It’s unclear why Kronika wouldn’t have stopped time at any given point during the story to off Liu Kang when it was clear things weren’t going her way or stop other events that weren’t favorable to her ideal timeline.
9 Sonya Never Comes Back
In the early part of the story, Sonya is buried by a pile of rubble from the cathedral and uses an explosive to destroy the rest of the building and herself along with it. Later in the story, Kronika brings the cathedral back by reversing time to before it was destroyed.
But Sonya is nowhere to be seen and remains missing for the rest of the story. Considering it was Sonya’s explosion that destroyed it, wouldn’t she have come back with the building?
8 Kabal Rejoined Black Dragon
Kabal has a terrible backstory that puts him on a dark path to a life of crime serving the Black Dragon in Mortal Kombat 3. In the reboot Mortal Kombat (2011) Kabal has abandoned his life of crime and acts as a force of good. However, by the end of the story, he is a revenant that has been freed from Quan Chi’s control.
Yet the events of Mortal Kombat 11 claim that Kabal has been serving the Black Dragon since that time. It’s hard to imagine that Kabal would become evil yet again in order to serve the Black Dragon. In the end, it feels like a retcon by the writers that brings up a lot of questions.
7 Raiden Doesn’t Know Kotal Kahn
There’s an interesting moment in Mortal Kombat 11 when Raiden reveals that not only has he never met Kotal Kahn, he’s never even heard of him. Given both of their backgrounds, this makes no sense. Raiden is the Protector God of Earthrealm, having served in that position for thousands of years.
Kotal Kahn, on the other hand, was a being worshiped by the Mayans some 500 years ago as a god. He’s also served as a general in Shao Kahn’s army. For such a powerful being and one that’s posed a threat to Earthrealm, you’d think Earthrealm’s protector would have at least heard of him.
6 Old Liu Kang Survives Death Of Young Liu Kang
In the story, we learn that, if anything happens to the younger versions of the heroes, it has an effect on the older as well, such as, when Sonya kills the young Kano, it results in the death of the older Kano. So, it would stand to reason that if the younger version of anyone dies the older would as well.
But that rule is absent when the older revenant Liu Kang consumes the soul of his younger self. The act should have killed him, but nothing happens, and there’s no real explanation why he’s the exception to the rule.
5 Why Didn’t Kronika Kill The Young Versions?
Considering that whatever happens to the younger version will affect the older, why hasn’t Kronika used this to her advantage? She could have easily offed Raiden or Liu Kang by destroying their younger versions.
Sure, she wants them alive as they’re needed to create the balance for her perfect timeline, but when it becomes apparent that things aren’t going her way why not off them and be done with it? She could easily have kept the child versions of key heroes in her fortress and have assassins instructed to off them if they pose a threat, ending any problems that arise without a fight.
4 Why Did Kronika Kidnap Young Liu Kang?
To Kronika’s credit, she did kidnap and imprison the younger version of Liu Kang, but instead of using him as a safeguard to prevent Liu Kang and Raiden from overthrowing her, she allows the older Liu Kang to consume his soul and grow more powerful.
Sure she hoped Liu Kang would win the fight and kill Raiden, but the act also gave more power to a potential threat which proved to be her undoing later on. Given that Raiden and Liu Kang are her only real threats, it seems odd she would tell one about that fact and give the other one a power boost.
3 Jax Fighting Jax Had No Consequences
Again the rule that something happening to your younger self has an effect on the older seems to get thrown out the window when it comes to fan service. Older Jax faces off against younger Jax after the two are pitted against each other by Kronika.
Some fans have suggested that Jax may have been pulling his punches to avoid permanently damaging his younger self and thereby damaging himself, but it’s hard to imagine that he’d have been able to take down his younger self without resorting to some aggression and serious pain infliction.
2 Jax Should Be In A Coma
Even more bizarre, then, is the fact that the Jax versus Jax fight had zero consequences for the older is the fact that the fight took place at all. The point of time when Kronika pulls him from Jax was in a coma caused by an attack by Goro.
Admittedly, this is from a comic book series and not video game lore, but that same story explains where Jax gets his metal arms, which is considered canon by the video games. So, it’s canon that he would have been in a coma around the time Kronika grabbed everyone.
1 Kronika Could Have Reset Time At Any Point
One of the biggest plot holes in not just this game but the entire series is that Kronika could have reset time at any point. When Raiden and Liu Kang fuse to become Fire God Liu Kang she resets the universe back to the beginning, the primordial state of creation in an attempt to demoralize her opponent who now has nothing to fight for.
But it raises the question of why she hasn’t done this sooner. She’s managed to reset time before, so why was this time such a struggle? Sure, she needs power to do a time reset, but when she saw things were going sour, why didn’t she act sooner to gather that power before Raiden became so powerful?