Mortal Kombat has been around for 11 fighting games and has added new faces each time. Do the math, and that means there are a ton of characters that have fought, died, been resurrected, died again, returned as a demon and/or cyborg, turned evil, turned good, then died all over again.
That raises the question: Which fighters are the best of the best? Through the powers of subjective science and opinionomics, we’ve ranked every character ever in our own personal list, from worst to best. We determined this order using an arbitrary combination of the following factors: fun factor, personality, legacy/impact, and overall coolness. Not being Hsu Hao also matters.
We’re not pretending that all (or even most) of you will agree with our ranking because opinions and stuff. Our advice: take a deep breath and don’t take this too seriously, because we only kind of are. We know you’ll be hot and bothered by this list anyway, which is why we’d love to hear how you’d rank these fighters in the comments!
Conditions: We're keeping this in the family, so we omitted non-MK guest characters. We also decided to exclude Cyber Sub-Zero as his own entry; we considered him as a part of our overall judgement for Sub-Zero. Finally, you also won't see Kronika because she isn't a playable fighter. On with the list!
76
Hsu Hao
No. Just no. Even MK’s creators are on record for disliking Hsu Hao, and can you blame them? He looks dumb, has nothing to his personality, and is part of the way lamer Red Dragon clan. Hsu Hao also fails the "Not being Hsu Hao" test in spectacular fashion. We're starting at the the bottom of the barrel, folks, and it only gets better from here, albeit gradually.
75
Dairou
Boy, have we got little to say about Dairou and these entries aren’t even that long to begin with. He’s a guard, has a forehead tattoo, and rocks a skullet. Yikes.
74
Daegon
Daegon is the evil, less-interesting brother of the also boring Taven. Let that sink in for a moment. Although Blaze serves as the big boss, Daegon is true main antagonist of MK: Armageddon. Unfortunately, he and his brother's story just didn't resonate with us, and we're just grateful the series that gave us Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung didn't end with this loser as its final villain.
73
Taven
Ostensibly Armageddon's main protagonist, you wouldn’t guess it given how bland and insufferable he is. Getting through that game’s Konquest mode wasn’t easy given you had to occupy the role of this goober, who feels like an uninspired DeviantArt character more than anything.
72
Darrius
Honestly, what can’t you say about Darrius? He’s bald, has a goatee, and wears sunglasses. Okay, Darrius isn't exactly a wellspring of interesting descriptors. He does have an admittedly sick/hilarious fatality where his opponent's body parts like a work of art. Even still, Darrius felt like padding for the MK: Deception roster at the time and even his cool spin kicks aren't enough to want to see him return.