Mortal Kombat’s first tournament is about to shake up the fighting esports world

While fighting games aren’t as popular as first-person-shooters or even as popular as MOBAs, they do have a dedicated fanbase with plenty of activity around the globe. Specifically, in Asia, and even more specifically in Japan, fighting games are incredibly popular, but even in the West there are countless people that love this type of game – of course, one of the biggest names when it comes to fighting games is Mortal Kombat. Along with names like Dead or Alive, Street Fighter, Tekken and Soulcalibur, Mortal Kombat is incredibly popular… and that despite the fact that when it comes to esports competitions, the latest title in the series – Mortal Kombat 11 – has been surprisingly quiet.

Set to release in just a few days, the announcement for the first series of tournaments came as a bit of a surprise – after some rumours and little definitive information on the matter, the publishers have finally announced their plans… and big plans they are indeed!

Amidst a bit of worry from fans in regard to loot boxes – after what EA did with the Star Wars franchise, a genuine concern among gamers – and the promise that the only sort of microtransaction would be for cosmetics, the anticipation for what is supposedly an ‘amusingly weird’ game steadily rose.

As for the announced tournament series – just a month after release on the 23^rd of April, namely on the 24^th of May, the first tournament will be held. Nine live tournaments in total will be taking place in the Americas and Europe. The one on the 24^th of May will be held in St. Charles Illinois, followed by an online NA competition on June 8^th and another competition in Daytona Beach Florida in late June.

These competitions continue through the year, until the total prize pool of $155.000 is used up and the 16-player Final Kombat event is filled up with competitors from around the world. This event is going to take place in March 2020 in Chicago. Further details are still to be announced – we do know that only 15 spots will be filled via the various tournaments throughout the year – the very last spot will be determined via a last-chance qualifier the day before the Final Kombat.

© WB Games

Final Kombat itself has a $100.000 prize pool – a significant amount for a single fighting esports competition, and thus brings the overall prize pool to more than a quarter million dollars – probably roughly what one would need to spend on loot boxes in order to get all the content available in certain other EA games!

NetherRealm – the actual developer of the game series – and thus also Mortal Kombat itself saw its beginning in the very place the first tournament is being held – Chicago. This makes for a fun ‘back to the roots’ event here – a by now cult-series like Mortal Kombat can certainly afford some nostalgia!

If you are already gearing up for the big day – that is to say, April 23^rd – that the game is released, you can pre-order the game for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC if you want to. That gives you the maximum amount of time to practice before the tournament series starts!