The "Totally Not Complicated" Mortal Kombat Timeline Explained

The Totally Not Complicated “Mortal Kombat” Timeline

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, we’re bringing you up to speed on what’s gone down in the “Mortal Kombat” timeline. Don’t expect us to get too deep in the mud with character lore and societies and what have you. We’ll just be going over the general storyline. And just so you know, the word of the day is “retcon”!

“Mortal Kombat”, released in 1992! Evil sorcerer Shang Tsung has had his green iron grip around the Mortal Kombat tournament for some time now thanks to his champion, the four-armed behemoth Prince Goro. Earthrealm has lost nine tournaments in a row, and should they lose this one, their world will be conquered by Shao Kahn, Outworld’s Emperor. Raiden realizes he’s been sleeping on the job and rounds up a new band of warriors to save Earthrealm - a Special Forces agent named Sonya Blade, Hollywood action movie star Johnny Cage, and goody two-shoes monk Liu Kang. Fast forward through some broken necks, severed spines, and a ninja roasting another ninja from a rival clan, and the winner turns out to be the dashing, daring hero Liu Kang. Earthrealm is saved!

Shang Tsung is kind of pissed now that his win streak is broken. So, for “Mortal Kombat II”, he goes running home crying to Shao Kahn. Time to get Big Daddy involved because those stupid humans cheated with home field advantage! Let’s bring the tournament to Outworld this time! That’ll throw them off! To buff the dream team, Raiden ropes in some more folks from Earthrealm, those fighters being Kung Lao, a friend of Liu Kang, and Jax Briggs, a Special Forces agent on a mission to find out where Sonya has disappeared to. To almost no one’s surprise, justice prevails again as Liu Kang wipes the floor with Shao Kahn. Earthrealm is now two for two!

Being the big bully he is, Shao Kahn throws a tantrum in “Mortal Kombat 3” and searches for a loophole to take over Earthrealm. If he can resurrect his ear-piercing wife Sindel in Earthrealm, the planet is his for the taking! And so, he does just that. Seems like Earth is doomed all because of some supernatural resussitation. Now all of the human race is involved! All of Outworld’s greatest soldiers are on the hunt for Liu Kang, ninjas are becoming cyborgs, and Johnny Cage gets killed by a centaur. Ultimately, Earthrealm prevails, defeating Shao Kahn once and for all. And they all lived happily ever after!

Until “Mortal Kombat 4”. There just can’t ever be a peaceful moment in this franchise. Fallen Elder God Shinnok escapes Netherrealm and wants to know where those jerkwad Elder Gods who banished him are at. He quickly garners allies and manages to take over Edenia. Raiden, being the super observant and attentive guardian he is, rounds up another team to take down Shinnok before going through another three games dealing with the same greedy buttmunch for way too long. Liu Kang, Jax, Liu Kang, Liu Kang’s friend Kai, and a somehow revived Johnny Cage succeed in their endeavors. Perhaps now Earthrealm can be left the hell alone since they’ve established themselves as a threat.

Meanwhile, Scorpion corners Quan Chi, a necromancer who resides in Netherrealm, and learns that the ninja he roasted in the first game was not the one who killed his family. It was the necromancer himself in disguise. Scorpion, however, was too slow to exact his revenge. Quan Chi escapes and has a rendez-vous with Shang Tsung, ready to form a “Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance”. The two agree that in order for both of them to come out on top, they will need to kill Liu Kang so that their plan can proceed without a problem and Shao Kahn because the dude’s level of commitment and competency was about as high as a runaway groom. The plan? Reawaken the Dragon King by collecting enough souls using Shinnok’s amulet! Raiden, once again being ultra reliant and on high alert, is a little too late to save Liu Kang and stop the Deadly Alliance. In comes some of the worst characters to ever be featured in a “Mortal Kombat” game, and none of them succeed in stopping the Dragon King from being unleashed.

Raiden attempts one final attack as a last resort to stop Onaga the Dragon King from emerging, but it is not enough. “Mortal Kombat: Deception” launches, and Onaga is unleashed while Raiden is reborn in Earthrealm (something about his essence; magic in this franchise makes no damn sense). Raiden, now with corrupted essence, gets super salty over this loss and Earthrealm’s protector blames Earthrealm for not protecting themselves. He only gets more angry once he learns that a man named Shujinko willingly helped Onaga invade Earthrealm while his champion Liu Kang has been running around murdering people as a zombie. Luckily, Raiden manages to find a way to properly revive Liu Kang, and Shujinko manages to revert his actions and defeat Onaga.

Sometime after all of these events, some random sorcerer in Edenia named Delia is all “I see a bunch of dudes fighting and just about every realm is gonna die.” Rather than potentially try to stop all life from going extinct, she tells her husband, an Elder God named Argus, and he’s like, “That sounds sick. I’m making a pyramid.” (He didn’t actually say that, obviously, but this pyramid was supposedly meant to stop or mitigate these events, which it obviously does not…because it’s a freakin’ pyramid.) So begins the events of “Mortal Kombat: Armageddon”.

Now, there was something about fighting superheroes somewhere in here, but we’re going to pretend that didn’t exist because it isn’t canon. So, forget “Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe” was ever a thing.

In fact, forget everything I just told you up til now because “Mortal Kombat” goes through a total reboot in its ninth game. The events of “Armageddon” have led to just about everyone dying. Shao Kahn is laughing and smacking Raiden around until the Thunder God suddenly remembers he has time powers and sends a message to his past self. “He must win.” We are now in a second timeline where the events of the first three games basically repeat with a few small exceptions, one being Kung Lao getting a swelled head thinking he could beat Shao Kahn before getting some neck adjustments. But for the most part, it’s the same story: Liu Kang wins the first and second tournament, Shao Kahn throws a hissy fit and tries to merge the realms, but this is where “He must win” begins to make sense. After nearly everyone has died trying to stop Shao Kahn, Raiden realizes his alternate self meant that Shao Kahn needs to try to merge the realms so the Elder Gods are forced to intervene and put him in a corner. Shao Kahn is ultimately killed off, thus altering what we know from the first timeline.

Problem is that this change of events does not really affect Shinnok. In “Mortal Kombat X”, our fallen Elder God is like, “I can make a better invasion than Shao Kahn. Watch this!” He invades Earthrealm with an army from Netherrealm. Only thing he never expected was for Johnny and Sonya to get busy and have a kid named Cassie Cage. Cassie whoops Shinnok’s butt, and his Jinsei Chamber, a fountain of energy Shinnok was using as a source of his power, is purified by Raiden. Quan Chi is also killed by Scorpion because hell no, we’re not going through another “Deadly Alliance” situation! Liu Kang and Kitana, who died in the previous game, take Netherrealm for themselves and become the new rulers. Raiden responds by warning them to leave Earthrealm alone.

They didn’t, though. “Mortal Kombat 11” opens with a war on Liu Kang and Kitana’s fortress that ends with Sonya Blade (voiced by Ronda Rousey) dying ten minutes into the story (because celebrities are expensive). However, in another dimension, Kronika, the guardian of time, is kinda pissed. She’ll be damned if she’s going to let some idiot Earthrealm guardian alter events at his own discretion, especially if her kid has his head delivered to two zombified rulers in Netherrealm. Next thing you know, you got future selves meeting past selves, and Raiden is scrambling to figure out how to outsmart and outplay some lady who can change the flow of time whenever she’s bored. It isn’t until Raiden fights with Liu Kang that he realizes how many timelines see the two of them at odds so often. Everyone has been Kronika’s plaything across every timeline. All of the realms unite to launch an assault on her lair. To ensure his boy comes out of this alive, Raiden relinquishes his powers to Liu Kang, making him FIRE GOD LIU KANG! With Kronika defeated and the Hourglass without a protector, Liu Kang lets his Main Character Syndrome take over and claim the mantle as the Keeper of Time with Princess Kitana as his sidekick.

Shang Tsung shows up briefly to try and screw things up for his own devious benefits, but he fails.

And with that, we are all set now for the THIRD timeline in “Mortal Kombat”, a timeline where Liu Kang is Earthrealm’s protector, Kung Lao is the chosen one, Raiden is now a mortal, and Megan Fox is a vampire lady. Enjoy “Mortal Kombat 1”!