The League of Legends trading card game, Riftbound, is back with another set this year in the form of Unleashed. The latest set is already available in China, with a global release on May 8th. With this set comes new mechanics such as Ambush, XP, and Stun, just to name a few. There’s even a new card rarity and some extra love to the huge roster of Legends like Vex and Vi, who are prominently featured in the new champion or pre-constructed decks. This is the TCG’s third set, which signals one step closer to a simultaneous global release – something fans can appreciate after the recent bans. From what I’ve played so far, these new additions seem to showcase a bit more power creep than what I experienced in the last set.

First and foremost, the champion decks continue to be the best jumping-in point for new fans of the game. As mentioned earlier, the two new decks releasing alongside the booster set are led by the Legends Vex and Vi. I was able to play games with both, and each showcased the set’s new mechanics fairly well. The Vex deck, for instance, uses both XP and Stun fairly extensively. Sometimes pre-constructed decks shoehorn in certain cards because they’re new, but I was able to utilize both mechanics often if my draws were lucky enough. To keep track of XP, there’s a card where you can keep tokens or dice on as you gain and use XP throughout a match. With XP comes new related keywords, Hunt and Level, that assist with the benefits of XP. For instance, the Mosstomper unit has Hunt 2, which means the player gains 2 XP when it conquers or holds a battlefield. This unit also has Level 3, which gives a buff of +1 Might and the Deflect status for protection. To attain Level 3, the player must have 3 XP or more on their tracker. As long as the XP requirement is satisfied, Mosstomper will always have this Level 3 buff when on the field. The same goes for spells and other cards with the Level keyword, like the card Combat Experience. Normally, this card gives +1 Might this turn, but it becomes +3 instead if Level 6 is achieved at the time of playing the spell. It’s an interesting mechanic that serves as another form of resource. It can be a lot to manage in the thick of all the action, so it’s probably not the best deck for beginners.

With that said, Stun is also a key mechanic in this Vex deck. Stunning a unit means they don’t deal combat damage that turn. So if a showdown triggers, stunned units don’t contribute to the total Might on defense or offense. It’s great to essentially take a unit out of the fight instead of completely destroying a unit through removal spells, which usually has a higher resource cost. Another cool use of Stun is slowing down aggro decks. For example, let’s say there’s a scenario where a unit with 1 Might is defending a battlefield, and a 3 Might unit with Accelerate is able to move into the attack right after being played. If the attacking unit is stunned during the showdown, the 1 Might unit survives and the 3 Might unit has to retreat back to base as defenders keep control on ties. If both had equal Might, they would typically destroy each other, but only one would perish if the other was stunned in this case. One key Stun card in the Vex deck is the champion unit, Vex Apathetic. In addition to having Deflect, she has a passive ability that stuns any opposing units that are played onto the field as long as she is on a battlefield. Those stunned units also can’t move that turn, which is a total counter to aggro decks. To be able to control how your opponents move or deal damage is such a strong ability in the right hands. Units aside, the Vex Legend card, which serves as your leader and passive ability from the start of the game, allows the player to draw one card when you hold a battlefield. Just some great value, if you’re keeping your opponent’s units at bay through stuns and XP abilities. Although rare, other new keywords like Backline and Predict make an appearance in this deck. Backline is the opposite of Tank, where that unit receives damage last. Predict is like Vision, where players get to look at the top card(s) of the deck, but now this keyword allows players to choose cards to go either on top or the bottom of the deck instead. Overall, the Vex deck felt solid to play, and it’s worth piloting if you can manage the XP resource and nuances of Stun.

The Vi deck, on the other hand, has a much simpler playstyle featuring the Ambush mechanic. Ambush is just like Quick Draw, where cards can be played at Reaction speed, but it’s for units this time instead of equipment or spells. It’s yet another way to reinforce on both offense and defense, with the benefit of having another unit to stick around on the field. This Vi deck utilizes Ambush in an aggro strategy containing units littered with the Assault keyword, which raises a unit’s Might when they are attacking. Unlike the Vex Legend that has a nice plus for holding a battlefield, the Vi Legend is all about doing too much damage with these Assault units. The Legend Vi ability allows a unit to be readied if the player conquers a battlefield and assigns an excess of 3 or more damage to opposing units. For example, Vi Hotheaded has a Might of 3 but has an ability to double her Might this turn. If she attacks a battlefield with another unit with 3 Might and uses her double ability, she’s doing 3 excess damage now that her total Might is 6. This triggers the Vi Legend to ready any unit the player chooses. In Rengar Unseen’s case, the card has the ability called Ganking that allows a unit to move from one battlefield to another. Typically, units have to go back to base to go to another battlefield. If Rengar does 3 or more excess damage, he can be readied and sent to attack the other battlefield in the same turn. Between units like this and spells like Square Up that give units Assault 4, there are plenty of instances to overkill opposing units.

Unlike the Vex deck, there’s not much else to the Vi deck, other than maybe one instance of Stun and some Deathknell units to play token units. That’s not a knock on the deck, though, because the fairly linear playstyle means the Vi Legend is more likely to trigger. I’ve had a handful of instances where I conquered a battlefield for a point, readied an Assault unit, and brought them back to base to attack whatever my opponent plays on the next turn. If anything, this deck can be very overwhelming to play against if the player gets the right cards in hand. Even the stuns of the Vex deck may not be enough. For example, Vi Hot Headed could be swinging in with 6 total Might just on her own, while a cute Loyal Poro gains Assault 4 twice by Square Up bringing in another 11Might. Even if you stun one, the other one is still coming in with some major damage. The Vi player can even feint a bigger attack by not doubling Vi Hot Headed or playing the spell card yet. So prepare for some extra mind games while you’re being barraged by battle hungry units. Of the two, I preferred this deck the most due to the overwhelming nature of the aggro. It lands better on average than the stunning and XP of Vex. With that said, both decks came with some really powerful cards that had a bigger impact on me than the champion decks from the Spiritforged set.

Another offering alongside the decks this set is the Vault. Similar to Disney Lorcana’s Trove boxes, the Riftbound Vault serves as a tool for players to stash their decks while also getting some packs and exclusive goodies like three full art tokens. In addition, this set is also introducing the first ever Ultimate rarity tier in the form of Baron Nashor. It’s so rare that the chance of pulling one in a pack is 0.1%! Aside from having the new Ultimate tier, Baron Nashor is also a wildly strong card that literally creates its own battlefield. Not to mention, it cannot be targeted by spells or abilities and gives a +2 buff to friendly units. You might as well forfeit if you don’t have an army of units to smash into this thing or have a spell that doesn’t target like Unchecked Power. It’s a costly card to play, but it’s practically a game lock if it’s safe to do so.

Looking to the future global meta, we’re seeing some of it already with the China release back in early April. The decks topping so far include Master Yi Wuju Bladesman and Leblanc Deceiver. Master Yi is a green (calm) and orange (body) deck featuring new Unleashed cards like Master Yi Tempered and Vilemaw. The Master Yi Tempered unit has Hunt 2 for XP and gains Deflect and Ganking when the player is Level 6. With the Master Yi Legend buff to solo defending units, this sticky unit can hold a battlefield for a good while in the early to midgame. As for the tanky Vilemaw, the unit has Ambush and an overpowering ability that nullifies weaker opposing units that are in a showdown with it. Alongside the buffs and counter spells that green and orange provide, it’s tough to get around these units without making some sacrifices.

Speaking of sacrifices, the Leblanc Deceiver blue (mind) and yellow (order) deck is all about that in regards to her Legend’s ability to create reflections or temporary copies of allied units already on the field. Specifically, when the player conquers or holds a battlefield, the player can discard a card and create a readied temporary unit. That’s right! The temporary unit can also do things after being created, and they last throughout your opponent’s turn until your next turn begins. In addition to these reflections, many units in the Leblanc Deceiver deck have the Deathknell keyword, which gives effects when the units die. So if the opponent doesn’t choose to get rid of the reflections themselves, they’ll die anyway to reap the rewards. So much value! Some choice cards that capitalize on these combos include Leblanc Fragmented and Karthus Eternal. Leblanc Fragmented gives draw when she dies, which is always handy in a game where players only draw one card at the beginning of their turn. Karthus Eternal on the other hand allows units with Deathknell to trigger a second time. So instead of drawing one card when Leblanc Frangmented dies, she can draw two or even four in the right situation. This deck really ensures you see all the cards you need to make or break a game.

In regards to the unaligned release schedule and the meta, global players saw high performing decks ahead of their release, which means we usually see a flood of the same decks in many tournaments. The devs behind Riftbound understood this and that’s why we saw the first bans ever for the card game. Their concerns included unhealthy impacts to every level of competitive play, cards causing more problems as the game grows, and just plain not having fun. Having played a card game competitively for at least five years now, I’ve seen this happen with certain cards or deck archetypes and I totally understand the feeling. Eventually, the game will just not be fun anymore if certain cards or decks persist with overwhelming results. So it’s good to see these changes sooner rather than later.

Overall, this set is very promising, with a handful of new cards that feel very powerful out of the gate. The new Vex and Vi decks are both competitive and balanced, and the set’s mechanics make for intriguing mind games and interactions in these highly contested battlefields. Riftbound is still very young, and the team behind it is making sure this game prospers long after its honeymoon stage. For more on Riftbound, check out our hands-on impressions of the last set, Spirtiforged.

Mike Mamon is a Syndication & Digital Specialist at IGN, devil fruit user, and world-renown JoJo poser. Let's chat anime or TCGs on Bluesky @xpmnms.bsky.social

Mortal Kombat II is in theaters today, and IGN is partnering with Atomic Monster and Blumhouse to give the opportunity to take home a special keepsake.

IGN, Atomic Monster, and Blumhouse are inviting you to sign up for Blumhouse’s The Van now for an opportunity to take home one of 25 Mortal Kombat II lobby cards signed by Producer James Wan. This opportunity is on a first come first served basis until they’re all gone. Blumhouse will reach out to participants who manage to snag a signed lobby card, so keep an eye on your inbox!

Mortal Kombat II is in theaters now, and sees familiar faces join the action like Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) and Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) along with returning characters Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), and more.

For more on Mortal Kombat II, check out our interview with Liu Kang actor Ludi Lin, see the exclusive trailer revealed at IGN Fan Fest, and read about who’s making a cameo in the new movie.

It's beginning to feel like the late '90s all over again. The latest entry in the uber-popular fighting game series, Mortal Kombat II, is now in theaters, Street Fighter is getting a new movie (that we can't wait for based on the trailer), and Resident Evil is being rebooted on the big screen too.

More From Earthrealm

In light of all these big developments, and with MK back on the big screen, we thought we'd look back at the franchise's long, colorful and occasionally baffling history in film and TV. Check out our slideshow below or scroll down for a closer look at all the Mortal Kombat adaptations and how closely (or not) they followed the source material.

The original Mortal Kombat movie is widely regarded as one of the best video game adaptations to date. Which, granted, is a very dubious honor. Even so, the movie still stands as a solid example of how to bring the series to life in live-action. It presents a reasonably faithful retelling of the original game's extremely barebones storyline, while drawing in elements of Mortal Kombat II and some of the backstory from the tie-in comics. Like many adaptations, it positions Liu Kang (Robin Chou) as the central hero destined to defeat the soul-stealing Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). For purists, the movie's biggest sin is simply that it doesn't replicate the violence of the games, opting instead for a more pedestrian PG-13 approach.

What the movie does capture, however, is that essential undercurrent of camp and zaniness that goes hand-in-hand with the gratuitous violence. Mortal Kombat the movie definitely isn't guilty of taking itself too seriously. It's also the movie that introduced the world to The Immortals' "Techno Syndrome," the most iconic video game music this side of the Super Mario Bros. theme.

There's some pretty stiff competition when it comes to deciding the worst Mortal Kombat adaptation ever made, but this direct-to-video release may just take the top honor. Released ahead of the live-action film and ostensibly a prequel to said film, The Journey Begins sets about fleshing out the origin stories of various MK icons. But the connective tissue is dubious at best. And as dated as the CGI in the live-action movie may be, it's state-of-the-art compared to the archaic, sub-Playstation quality 3D fight scenes in The Journey Begins. Hardcore fans may want to watch this one out of sheer, morbid curiosity (especially since it's included as a bonus feature on the Mortal Kombat Blu-ray), but don't expect it to actually enhance your enjoyment of the games or the movies.

The '80s and '90s TV landscape was littered with attempts to translate adults-only pop culture properties into kid-friendly cartoons. Case in point - RoboCop: The Animated Series, Rambo: The Force of Freedom and Toxic Crusaders. We honestly have to respect Kenner's moxie for deciding to cut out the middleman and directly market Terminator 2 and Aliens toys to kids without even waiting for cartoons.

With Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, USA Network threw its razor-edged hat into the ring. This short-lived series aired on the network's Action Extreme Team block in 1996. Somewhat bafflingly, it attempts to serve as a continuation of both the 1995 movie and the Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 video game, though the all-ages approach basically renders that moot. Defenders of the Realm simplifies the complex series of alliances and rivalries that define the MK mythos, instead featuring a team of heroes led by Raiden and Nighthawk tasked with defending Earthrealm from Shao Kahn's interdimensional invaders.

Defenders of the Realm does make one notable addition to the franchise, however. The series was actually the first to introduce Quan Chi before his roles in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat 4.

If the first Mortal Kombat movie is among the best attempts at adapting a video game to film, its sequel is easily among the worst. It's not necessarily that Annihilation plays fast and loose with the source material. It introduces a number of popular characters like Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson), Jax (Lynn Williams) and Sindel (Musetta Vandel), along with familiar MK elements like Animalities, the death of Johnny Cage and Kuai Liang taking up his brother's mantle as Sub-Zero. The problem is that the movie fails to string any of that together into a coherent and interesting story. There's not much internal logic to what happens or which characters appear.

But even if the plot lived up to the first movie, Annihilation is plagued with lousy effects, underwhelming fight scenes, and actors who would seemingly rather be anywhere else. It's telling that, apart from Chou's Liu Kang, nearly all the returning characters were recast for the sequel. But if nothing else, at least the soundtrack is pretty good.

While Annihilation basically destroyed Mortal Kombat's big-screen prospects for the next two decades, that didn't stop TNT from airing a live-action TV series in 1998. Mortal Kombat: Conquest serves as a prequel to the movies, taking place 500 years before the era of Liu Kang. Instead, Conquest revolves around Liu's ancestor Kung Lao (Paolo Montalbán), a warrior monk tasked with training a new generation of fighters to defend Earthrealm. While many of the series' supporting characters are new creations, many MK fan-favorites show up over the course of Conquest's one and only season.

The best that can be said for Conquest is that it was ahead of its time. The prequel premise is strong, and it's certainly a better offshoot of the 1995 film than Annihilation. But even at the time, it was difficult to ignore the lousy wire-fu fight scenes and generally bad special effects. It's hard not to wonder what might have been if Conquest had come along a decade or two later.

Outside of the games themselves, the MK franchise largely went dormant in the '00s. It wasn't until filmmaker Kevin Tancharoen took the initiative and put together a short, unauthorized Mortal Kombat movie that the ball started rolling again.

Though produced on a very low budget and not sanctioned by Warner Bros. or Mortal Kombat's creators, Tancharoen's short film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth is a surprisingly professional adaptation. Rebirth is unique in that it downplays the franchise's supernatural trappings, instead casting Scorpion (Ian Anthony Dale) as an assassin working with Captain Jackson Briggs (Michael Jai White) and Sonya Blade (Jeri Ryan) to bring down Shang Tsung's criminal empire and get revenge on his nemesis, Sub-Zero.

Tancharoen intended for Rebirth to serve as a proof-of-concept for a possible movie reboot. He sort of got his wish as he was given the reins of the live-action web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy.

Tancharoen returned to the MK franchise the following year, this time with the actual approval of Warner Bros. and a greenlight for a full season of live-action webisodes exclusive to Machinima. Legacy doesn't follow the new continuity established in Rebirth, though Dale, White and Ryan all returned to reprise their roles for Season 1. Instead, Legacy acts as a prequel to the original game, with each Season 1 episode fleshing out the backstory for a different Kombatant.

Season 2 proved to be a fairly steep departure, with Legacy shifting to a more narrative-driven approach while bringing in a number of new characters and recasting many existing roles. One bonus of that revamp is that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was able to reprise the role of Shang Tsung (paving the way for him to make the jump over to the games in the form of Mortal Kombat 11 DLC).

As inconsistent as it is in terms of tone and plot, Legacy shows the potential in a more earnest take on the MK mythology. It also looks surprisingly robust for a free-to-watch web series.

Mortal Kombat returned to the animated realm in 2020, in what proved to be a vastly better adaptation than either The Journey Begins or Defenders of the Realm. It helps that Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge is aimed squarely at adults. In fact, this direct-to-video release is actually the first R-rated Mortal Kombat movie.

Scorpion's Revenge is an adaptation of the original game's storyline, but with a twist. Rather than framing the movie around the heroic Liu Kang, we'll see the fateful tournament from Scorpion's point of view. The movie explores the character's tragic origin story and the beginnings of his feud with Sub-Zero. You can learn more in IGN's Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge review.

The first film has proven popular enough to spawn three more direct-to-video sequels, 2021's Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms, 2022's Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind, and 2023's Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match.

After years of rumors about another live-action Mortal Kombat movie, the franchise finally returned to the big screen in 2021. The new movie isn't connected to previous projects, but instead serves as a complete reboot. Star Mehcad Brooks (who plays Jax) described it as having "grounded realism" despite retaining the Fatalities and other violent trappings of the games. Here's a full breakdown of the Mortal Kombat reboot's cast.

The reboot hit theaters and HBO Max simultaneously in April 2021. You can check out IGN's Mortal Kombat review for more. Though the pandemic obviously affected the film's box office haul, it proved critically and commercially successful enough that Warners greenlit a sequel.

The rebooted Mortal Kombat series returned with 2026's Mortal Kombat II. In addition to returning favorites like Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, and Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, the film also introduced Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage, Martyn Ford’s Shao Kahn, Damoin Herriman's Quan Chi, and Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana.

Said IGN's Max Scoville in his review: "Mortal Kombat II gets an 8 from me. It might not be Oscar-caliber cinema, and hardcore fans of the game with encyclopedic knowledge of the game may have a bone to pick, but it’s big and loud and gruesome and not afraid to have fun. The bar for video game movie sequels isn’t very high, but this one not only clears the bar, it twirls it around like a bo staff."

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Note: This article was originally published on 04/09/2020 and updated on 05/8/2026 with the latest news about the Mortal Kombat franchise.