Raiden Is Revealed as the Next Mortal Kombat X Character

Steve Barton   |  

Jul 13, 2014

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During the grand finals of the Injustice competition at the Evo tournament, NetherRealm revealed the next fighter on the Mortal Kombat X roster: the thunder god Raiden.

The announcement comes complete with a gameplay trailer, an electric gleam into the fighting style of the Mortal Kombat mainstay. With an announcement everyone knew was coming, NetherRealm needed a big hit here, and by the time this one landed in the stands, passing the outfield wall seemed like a long forgotten, childhood memory.

Game designer and occasional voice of Scorpion, Ed Boon, sat down with IGN to give fans a short explanation of Raiden’s three combat styles. Displacer style utilizes his teleportation ability as he appears and vanishes like the Viet Cong, dealing damage, only to evanesce and reappear behind the opponent. Storm Lord allows Raiden to set electric traps and draw a jolting barrier between them, creating a high watt Maginot Line that doesn’t fold at the first sight of Germans. The third style, tentatively called Storm Lord, does not have the fantastic powers of the first two but grants Raiden a brick house damage bonus and promises powerful options for finishing combos.

The trailer plays out like a well-oiled massage in Chinatown basement. While the rubdown is nothing short of delicious, the trailer’s resulting fatality results in a joyous happy ending that could only be delivered by the greased-up hands of a 40-year-old woman, smuggled illegally into North America on the promise of a passport and a new life. I’ve paid for a lot of hand jobs, but none was quite as fun as Raiden’s eye-popping new fatality.

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