Letter From the Editor Vol. I — October

Hi there. My name is Elizbar “Lightfellow” Ramazashvili, I’m an Editor-in-Chief at DashFight. I’m mainly a Tekken player, my main there is Lidia. Currently, though, I’m trying to terrorize my equally unskilled friends with Modern Lily in Street Fighter 6.

What you’re reading now is the first volume of the Letter from the Editor, a monthly publication where I will tell you about our work for the previous month, some thoughts of my own, and maybe something else, too. Hope you’re feeling well and having great fun in MK1.

Speaking of Mortal Kombat, congratulations to NRS for this much-anticipated launch. The entire community was eagerly awaiting the new MK game, and it looks like it has been a major success. We at DashFIght are trying to keep up with it. Right when the pre-release early access launched, we also rolled out the discipline on our website, with all the relevant character information, news, and articles. This is now populated with various articles, guides, events, and more. Some of the topics you enjoyed the most are

• All Mortal Kombat 1 Game Modes Explained - Kampaign, Versus, & Learn

• Mortal Kombat 1 Settings & Accessibility Options Explained

• Everything You Need to Know about MK1

We also covered the first three big Mortal Kombat 1 tournaments: REV Major, won by Word-salads, CEOtaku 2023, where Stryker defeated none other than Punk, and viennality 2k23, where the victor was our good friend MK_Azerbaijan.

You also seem to be enjoying our video guides, courtesy of the pro players, quite a lot. Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Baraka, and General Shao are the early favorites, but many more are yet to come.

It’s curious for me to see how Scorpion’s fame is universal despite the heavy gameplay changes from his previous iteration – he was the most popular character from our Mortal Kombat 11 games as well. And it makes sense; his and Sub-Zero’s cool factors are off the charts, even if they have more down-to-earth designs this time around.

I’ve been enjoying MK1 quite a bit myself, too. The character that resonated with me the most is Li Mei, and I’m eagerly awaiting our guide for her – she looks to be very capable when played to her optimal strengths.

There’s one major topic I’d like to share my thoughts on. After the release of MK1, the topic of discussion about blood and gore has once again come to the forefront. And it’s understandable. The nature of MK as a violent and bloody game is a big draw for many people, but at the same time, it’s something that hinders the growth of its community somewhat. All top Mortal Kombat content creators will attest to just how difficult it is to monetize MK videos. YouTube doesn’t like blood and age-restricted videos, and sponsors don’t like them either. So it’s already a challenge right from the start to make a living out of this compared to literally any other fighting game. The obvious solution would be to either allow to disable all the blood, or to paint it a different color to maybe allow the videos to pass. When we were making our guides for MK11 here at DashFight, one of our guidelines was to use Robocop as the training enemy as he does not bleed. MK1 has no characters like him, so it’s much more challenging. And I honestly think that with today’s announcement of Pro Kompetition, this is something NRS will have to consider, too. Ad integrations during the live streams will see no problems, but each and every VOD of the events that they host will more than likely be hit with a demonetization. This isn’t optimal for the partner organizers.

One of the biggest arguments against doing anything about this issue is that MK has always been like this, and it’s a tradition at this point. An inseparable part of the series’ legacy. And why I do get it: having the option to do something won’t lessen anyone’s enjoyment of this game. And honestly, if there was such an option, there’s a distinct possibility that it won’t be banned in the countries like Japan moving forward.

When I see publishers like Riot Games change some visuals for the characters in League of Legends (Graves and his cigar, Evelynn and her…outfit) and even change the ability names from Assault and Battery to Cease and Desist for Vi, it shows a huge willingness to conform to any set of rules and restrictions. I really truly believe that if WB and NRS do something about this (and it shouldn’t be something as drastic as the forced changes above – all we need is an option), it would hugely benefit the scene as a whole for the years to come.

Now for something much more exciting – Pro Kompetition was announced today, as I already mentioned.

It’s really cool to see NRS Esports commit to a big pro tour like the rest of the FGC big boys do. It will allow the kompetitors to plan ahead and have some sense of direction within the scene. And the prize pool, while not as astronomical as Capcom’s, is decent enough for the first year of the game’s lifespan. What I wonder is if this will be enough to draw back the players who moved on to different games, or even left the pro-player aspirations to get some out-of-the-industry jobs.

Aside from Mortal Kombat, I’m really happy that Street Fighter 6 is still doing very well, the natural organic player numbers are still very high, and I hope that Capcom will sustain that with constant updates, balance changes, character releases, and events.

What’s next for me, you ask? The next thing that’s firmly within my aim is the upcoming Tekken 8 Closed Beta Test. Got to practice my Jun again, last time I had a rough time against some volatile matchups.

That’s it for the pilot volume of the Letter from the Editor. Feel free to send feedback over any available communication channels, and I’ll see you around!