How to do Brutalities

Brutalities are a longstanding staple of Mortal Kombat. In the modern era of the games, it’s a fun, skillful, and stylish way to end a match with your opponent while gruesomely putting them in their place. They also often pay playful homages to various aspects of Mortal Kombat lore and history. They return in Mortal Kombat 1, but you might have to put in a little work if you want to see what kind of Brutalities your character can do. We’ve got you covered. Here’s how to unlock and do Brutalities in Mortal Kombat 1.

How to unlock Brutalities

You'll want to level up a character's Mastery in Mortal Kombat 1 to unlock some of their Brutalities.
Source: NetherRealm Studios

Brutalities show up in a variety of unlocks in Mortal Kombat 1. You can get them from the Shrine if you spend Koins, or you might find them as unlocks in the single-player modes. The only surefire way to start collecting them is to choose a character and play them till you level their Mastery up in various modes. Every character starts with an Uppercut Fatality (the Klassic). At Level 3 Character Mastery, you’ll unlock another Brutality, and another comes at Level 5.

There are likely more as every character has 35 levels of Mastery to achieve with many of the unlocks hidden beyond a certain level. You’ll just have to stick to a character and level them up if you want to unlock more of their Brutalities.

Once you unlock a character Brutality in Mortal Kombat 1, be sure to go that character's move list, head to Finishers, and check the Brutality in Advanced View to see the conditions to perform it.
Source: NetherRealm Studios

Unlocking Brutalities and doing them are two very different things in Mortal Kombat 1. You’ll have to make sure you pay attention to a few different things if you want to end a match with a Brutality. Once you know you’ve unlocked Brutalities for the character of your choice, go to your character’s move list and cycle over to the Finishers page. Unlocked Brutalities will be listed at the bottom of Finishers page in each character's move list.

Using the inputs isn’t enough to do a Brutality, though. Make sure you hit the Advanced View button and open up the full details of a Brutality in the move list. There will be notes at the bottom that tell you the conditions that must be met for it to activate. For instance, on Reptile’s Damn Tasty! Brutality, you must land his throw to finish the match and then hit down three times when the throw animation starts to activate the Brutality. Others might have conditions like using a move multiple times or finishing the match with a certain amount of health. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the conditions of each Brutality to use them when the situation is right.

To summarize:

Unlock Brutalities by leveling up a character and playing other modes with unlocks.
Check the conditions of Brutalities in the Finishers page of your character move list.
Advanced View in the move list shows you the conditions of each Brutality.
Satisfy the conditions of a Brutality before the end of a match and use the specified move to activate the Brutality and finish the match.

Now that you know how to unlock and do Brutalities, do your best to end your rounds in style. Just as well, be sure to check out our other Mortal Kombat 1 content for more news and guides.