Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is a crossover fighting video game between Mortal Kombat and the DC Comics fictional universe, developed by Midway Games and Warner Bros. Games. The game was released on November 16, 2008 and contains characters from both franchises. Its story was written by comic writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. Despite being a crossover, the game is considered to be the eighth installment in the main Mortal Kombat series, as confirmed by the naming of the tenth entry by this count: Mortal Kombat X.
The game takes place after Raiden, Earthrealm’s god of Thunder, and Superman, protector of Earth, repel invasions from both their worlds. An attack by both Raiden and Superman simultaneously in their separate universes causes the merging of the Mortal Kombat and DC villains, Shao Kahn and Darkseid, resulting in the creation of Dark Kahn, whose mere existence causes the two universes to begin merging; if allowed to continue, it would result in the destruction of both. Characters from both universes begin to fluctuate in power, becoming stronger or weaker.
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 and is available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. It is the first Mortal Kombat title developed solely for seventh generation video game consoles. Most reviewers agreed that Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was entertaining and made good use of its DC Universe license, but the game’s lack of unlockable features as opposed to past installments of Mortal Kombat and toned-down finishing moves garnered some criticism
Game Analysis | MK vs. DC features a story mode, playable from two different perspectives. The perspectives consist of one segment from the DC Universe side, and one from the Mortal Kombat side, each split up into various chapters. Depending on which side players choose, the characters see characters from the opposite universe as the invaders of their own. Ed Boon, creative director of MK vs. DC and co-creator of the Mortal Kombat franchise, did confirm that the player would have the ability to play as all the characters in the story mode at one point during development, but the story mode instead had a few characters not having their own story arcs. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe also contains a mode called "Kombo Challenge". This aspect of MK vs. DC is individual to the Versus and Story modes, where players must perform ten precreated combos of increasing difficulty | |
Optimization Score | 10 |