Each attack mode season, ranked

Key takeaways

• Mortal Kombat 1 introduced the innovative Assault mode, where players progress through a board game-style RPG to upgrade fighters and earn rewards.
• Some seasons felt repetitive, lacked content improvements, and failed to inspire due to lack of impact.
• Others really shined and added a welcome new feature to the game.

While Mortal Kombat is primarily known as a fighting game franchise, many of its games have offered game modes other than multiplayer or story mode. Examples of these are Mortal Kombat: Deception's Conquest Mode, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon's Motor Kombat (which was a Mario Kart-like racing game), and Mortal Kombat 11's The Crypt.

2023's Mortal Kombat 1 introduced a new, very different game mode: Attack Mode. It's a board game-style RPG where players progress through Mesas to upgrade their fighters while earning currency, skins, concept art, brutality, and deaths, among other rewards. With the release of the eighth (and possibly final) season of Assault, here's a ranking of each season of Assault mode.

8 Season 7 – Soul Eater

Travel through the timeline with Shang Tsung

Soul Eater's theme was an alternate version of Shang Tsung traveling through timelines to satisfy his insatiable hunger for souls. A good premise in itself, but MK1 already had an alternate Shang Tsung invading the current timeline in story mode, which made Season 7 feel a bit repetitive. That, Invasion Mode's lack of improvement in its content, and challenges made Season 7 an all-time low.

Soul Eater's skins had a proper Revenant aesthetic, but they paled in comparison to Mortal Kombat X's Revenant skin designs. As a result, Season of the Soul Eater felt very uninspired with its subject matter.

7 Season 5 – The Storm

A dark Raiden is a dark threat

The theme of season 5 was that a Dark Raiden was threatening the timelines in his misguided attempt to save them, and Storm was notorious for presenting the most frustrating and annoying challenges of the invasion. These included time trials, which ranged from fun and easy to complex and incredibly difficult, survival challenges, which seemed to get more and more difficult with each season.

Not to mention the absolutely disgusting addition of Major Malfunction challenges, where players have a short amount of time to deal a certain amount of damage to a cyborg before it explodes. Of course, no one could enjoy them?

The Storms skins were slightly better than previous season skins with a stylish lightning aesthetic, but still very disappointing. Yellow and purple just didn't seem like the right colors. Season of the Storm didn't earn any new players the Assault mode, nor did it give the old ones enough reason to come back.

6 Season 6 – Reptile

A Zaterran attack

The reptilian theme was an invasion by the Zaterrans, who had the ability to shapeshift into reptiles and humans, and were infiltrating MK1's timeline as part of a secret invasion led by their emperor, Syzoth.

Season 6 didn't really do much to improve on the previous season, as many of the challenges and evils were just as difficult, if not more so, – along with the Peacemaker's Character Trials not being fun to play.

However, the skins were really good and some of the best in attack mode. With their appropriately swampy shades of green and brown and reptilian beauty, they were content for a reptile-based climate. Despite a great skin set, the reptile season was hampered by its difficult challenges and repetitive encounters.

5 Season 8 – Dark Dragon

Liu Kang seeks perfection

Dark Dragon's theme was Liu Kang, a power-mad titan who wants to make all timelines “correct”. It's a fitting theme for Invasion Mode's (probably) final season, as MK1's Fire God Liu Kang has become the players' guide and guardian of the timeline.

The season itself wasn't much fun to play, but it was surprisingly short and even easy at times. This could be due to a large player drop over time, or because Netherreal finally listened to the fans about the challenges being too difficult. After all, Season 8 didn't take much time and effort from those who were still playing. Dark dragon skin is also very nice, with a beautiful mix of gold and white.

Season of the Dark Dragon is expectedly disappointing, but sometimes MK1's raid mode ends the whole year in the air.

4 Season 4 – Hunter

Attack of the Clones

The subject of the Huntress was an invading army of Milena clones. Season 4 had some of the most frustrating survival challenges up to that point, as well as possibly the worst weather skin sets in Assault Mode.

While the skins of other seasons were inspired by the fighters they focused on, The Huntress skins, for the most part, were not based on Milena's aesthetic. The skin's ugly mix of colors lead fans to theorize that they were originally meant for Hawick, but were remade for Milena's season. Their prominence in MK1's Khaos Reigns expansion seems to support this.

Disappointing skins aside, Season of the Huntress wasn't much fun to play, as the repetitive challenges and encounters of Raid continued to make the game mode feel like a chore rather than a fun distraction.

3 Season 2 – Blood Moon

Prepare for a vampire attack

Blood Moon's theme was an attack by vetarians (vampires) led by Nitara, where they are the dominant species. Season 2 upped Raid's difficulty, and not in a good way, as it became more intense and repetitive, while making it harder and slower for fighters to level up. However, Blood Moon's skins stayed true to their vampire aesthetic with some spooky uses of black, red, and gray that would appeal to gothic-loving players.

Seasons of Blood Moon showed how repetitive and frustrating raid mode would be, it was still a lot easier to play and enjoy than future seasons, and it added some cool looking skins.

2 Season 3 – Cryomancer

Cryomancer's Amass An Army

Cryomancer's theme was a slightly evil version of Sub-Zero attacking MK1's timeline with an army of Cryomancers. Season 3 was an improvement on Blood Moon, but only in some aspects of its gameplay, with its biggest redeeming quality being its Finally Added fighter introduction dialogues to attack mode.

Of course, this is only for boss fights, rather than all combat encounters, but players will take what they can get. Cryomancer's Skins had a “cool” look to them with their ice-themed aesthetic and blue and white colors. The season also arrived with Christmas-inspired red, green and white cosmetics to put players in the holiday mood.

Cryomancer's season wasn't Christmas present, but it was a bit of a refresher compared to previous seasons.

1 Season 1 – Spectre

Scorpion searches for Harumi

The first season of Assault Mode was also its easiest, with no trials or challenges that would plague later seasons. The theme of season 1 was that a scorpion (Hanzo Hasashi this time) was searching through the multiverse to find a timeline where his wife, Harumi, did not die.

He ends up in MK1's timeline, where Harumi is marrying her Scorpio, Kuai Liang, causing him to become enraged. Specter was a really good base to sell the Assault mode and its seasonal multiversal threats. Season 1's scorpion-style skins looked cool too. Nothing complicated, but they had a nice mix of reds, yellows and oranges.

Assault mode peaked in its first season, which is unfortunate because it could have been a much more fun game mode to play if it had more variety in its content. Perhaps a sequel could bring back Crypt or Conquest mode, or even better, Motor Kombat.