Mortal Kombat 1 - Invasions "The Spectre" Sun Do Festival Mesa Guide

Mortal Kombat 1 Invasion mode looks to provide players with season content in an interesting new format for the franchise. Unlike the franchise's previous entry called Krypt, Mortal Kombat 1’s single-player focused content presents a table-top-like game for players to explore, find secrets, and eventually unlock more cosmetics through its Seasonal Koins system and chests.

Throughout these guides, we will be exploring the details of Invasions, how to complete them, tips and tricks, and what rewards you can expect on the season of the Spectre.

The Story

The first season of Invasions provides a very simple story. Hanzo Hasashi, the Scorpion in most other timelines, has been hopping from timeline after timeline, looking for one in which he can be with the love of his life, Harumi.

Eventually, in finding Liu Kang’s timeline and seeing Harumi has found love in Kuai Liang, he become enraged, vowing to end this timeline.

Invasions Mesas Guides

If you want to revisit some of the other mesas, here are all our detailed guides on each:

• Fengjian Village
• Sun Do Festival
• Tarkatan Colony
• Shang Tsung's Laboratory
• Living Forest
• Fire Temple

Sun Do Festival

You will unlock the Sun Do Festival mesa by completing the Fengjian Village. If you want to know more about that mesa, its secrets, klues, and enemies, make sure to read our guide linked here.

Entering the festival plaza, you will notice it's the same portal gate that Liu Kang and his Earthrealm champions use to get to the Outworld. Indeed, the entire mesa is inspired by the Sun Do city of Outworld, whose constable is Li Mei. Later on, you might recognize the area for other events in the story, which we won't spoil for you.

Like all other mesas, you will only fight a sub-section of the roster in each mesa, so feel free to prepare your character, their elemental choices, as well as the talisman and relics you want to use based on that list.

Sun Do Festival Gateway

A couple of nodes in you will have the choice of two paths. Continuing forward north is the quickest way to advance, but it also will have slightly higher-level opponents than taking the more scenic route. 

Regardless of choice, you will want to visit the area on the right side since it leads to the node “Pure Chaos” and the Klue “Toasty!!!”. To unlock this klue, you must perform Kameo Scorpion’s fatality in the match. Once done, you will have access to the chest.

All Klue nodes will give you access to a chest, inside it there will be a character palette in the theme of the season, a talisman, relic, or consumable, as well as a handful of seasonal koins, which you can use to purchase more palettes in the main menu store.

It's worth noting that the palettes you can buy from the store are not the same as those found in the chest and by beating bosses in Invasions, so if you want as complete a collection as possible, you will need to play through the mode.

Back to the mesa. If you are wondering which path leads you to the end of the mesa, then simply look for the path with a green or red arrow on top of it. Otherwise, every path you see that is green will lead you to content that you have not yet explored. At the same time, light blue paths mean that there is nothing new in that particular direction.

As you continue forward and across the canal you will find the first entry point for this mesa’s Netherstone Gate. Remember that these areas are locked off and you will need to beat the final boss of Invasions to gain access to them.

Inside are a handful of extra mini-boss battles and a chest containing even more goodies for the season like palettes, gear, consumables, and both seasonal and normal Koins.

Sun Do Plaza & Market

Going into the plaza proper after the mesa’s first tower, you will have your friendly Forge Bob on the left. Going around to the right will lead you to the first Shop and, further forward, there is a left and up fork at the Meat & Bones node.

You will want to head up first, as the tower will give you the Festival Key, which gives you access to the final boss of the mesa, saving you some backtracking later. Remember that you can also use the pause menu to teleport, so coming back here via the shop teleport is also an option. However, keep in mind you need to open the Shop/Forge first before gaining access to its fast travel point.

Past the night market, you will land at another Netherstone node; this is the second point of entry or exit, and the closest to the chest found within the area.

Son Do Festival Pier

Past the night market, you will land at another Netherstone Gate node, this is the second point of entry or exit, and the closest to the chest found within the area. Soon after you will be approaching the pier, going right, it will lead you to the mesa’s miniboss at the base of the statue. A fight versus Smoke, who is sporting his previous name, Enera.

Right after, it's the boss gate. I hope you picked up that key at the plaza earlier, or it's past tracking time. Past the gate, you will find a survive gate in your path, go down from it to find the second and final klue node of the area, “Broken”. The klue for this one reads “AMNISLTA4”, which is an anagram for “Talisman 4”. For this klue you will need a Talisman with 4 or more charges and use at least 4 chargers of it during the battle. 

At this point, between secret fights and ambushes, you should have come across one. If not, feel free to go to the hourly towers in the Gateway Portal mesa and farm those till you find one. Or just ignore the klue node for now, as you can always come back later.

The final fight of the mesa is just a node away from here. Your final boss is Sub-Zero and Stryker, under the name “Polar Sub-Zero”. 

As always, the first phase of the fight is just a normal round of fighting. For the second phase, Sub-Zero will gain a Freezing aura and the ability to throw axes in a high arc, low spikes, and mid-spears that cannot be blocked. For the final phase, Sub-Zero will protect himself with ice armor and extend the ice aura to the whole stage.

Speaking of Sub-Zero, we recently partnered with Tom Brady, a legendary Sub-zero player for the Mortal Kombat franchise, to create an in-depth guide. Why not check that out after beating him in the invasion?

After the Sun Do Festival

Your next mesa is the Tarkatan Colony. At this point, you will be strong enough not to really need to rely on counter elements or powerful talismans, but it's still a good idea to look for consumables, especially if you can get your hands on boosters, which will help your main character survive the fights longer.

Remember that if you set stats as manually assigned, you have to occasionally go to the character selection screen to put those points into the stats you want. You can also head to the Wu Shi Academy and buy a respec consumable to allow you to respect your character however you want.