Mortal Kombat 11 adds ranked play in new Kombat League

The first season on Mortal Kombat 11's Kombat League ranked play begins today bringing a whole host of new challenges to test your mettle against. Titled Season of Blood, the four-week long competition will bring new and exclusive skins and gear as players work their way up the ladder, proving they are the true champion of the Mortal Kombat tournament.

The Kombat League contests are to be best-of-three fights over nine seasonal ranks starting from Apprentice, heading all the way up to Elder God. As with most ranked ladders, each division will offer unique rewards to players skilled enough to break into them as well as giving in-game consumables such as coins or souls. On top of this, depending on where players finish, they will be rewarded with an exclusive icon and background, depicting the highest point they managed to progress to on the ladder. To work alongside this, new daily and seasonal challenges will be available both in and out of the ranked mode.

Ranked play can be daunting for new and casual players, so to assure people of how the Kombat League will work, MK11 designer Derek Kirtzic spoke to us about matchmaking:

"Naturally with our games, we always try to cater to both the casual players, as well as the more hardcore players and we are implementing matchmaking systems to get players matched against players of their own skill rank. We will also have something coming that basically is a visual that tells players that 'okay, that's my ranking and that's the type of players that I'm playing against'. We want to make sure you're in this window of 'this is who you should be playing with'."

To align with the launch of the Kombat League, early access to Shang Tsung for Kombat Pack owners starts today on June 18. You can check out the trailer here, which also details more playable characters coming in Sindel, Nightwolf and Spawn.

Will you be taking on Mortal Kombat 11's ranked ladder?