The Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns update has some big changes for the fighting game. Aside from every character gaining an Animality finisher, various buffs and nerfs, and a new (widely hated) story expansion, something that has many fans pleased is the return of the Towers of Time.
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First introduced in Mortal Kombat 11, this single-player mode—where you’re tasked with completing different objectives and challenges, battling AI characters to unlock perks, Kosmetics and Koins—operates differently in Mortal Kombat 1, and the game doesn’t do a great job explaining the nuances. I’ve simplified how this new mode works below and why you’ll want to check it out.
What are Towers of Time?
The new Towers of Time mode in Mortal Kombat 1 is a mix of its previous MK11 iteration, and the Gateway Portal Mesa in MK1’s Invasions. They range in difficulty, and commonly feature various modifiers, with half of them rotating every hour. You’ll be using the same fighters you build up through Invasions Mode, so make sure to brush up on your Elemental advantages and equip your best relics.
Your primary reason for playing this will be to grind out rewards and the new Towers of Time Challenges. They can also be a great way to jump ahead in levels for both this and the Invasions mode, if you can beat the higher-leveled enemies.
The towers are split across three rows:
- Up front are the three longest-lasting towers. On the left is the new Legacy tower, which offers character palettes from previous seasons as rewards. In the middle is an Arcade Tower to unlock fighter endings. Last is the returning Seasonal Tower, which has exclusive character palette rewards based on the current season. An important change for the Seasonal Tower is that it now consists of seven fights instead of ten, and you can retry from the current fight instead of having to start all over.
- The middle row consists of six timed towers. These rotate every hour, albeit each one ten minutes apart. They also increase in difficulty from left to right.
- In the back are towers meant to promote live service content such as events or holidays. For the launch of the Khaos Reigns update, there’s a tower for each new fighter: Cyrax, Sektor, and Noob Saibot. If they do this again for the remaining DLC fighters, this will be a great way for players to try them before buying.
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How to See Towers of Time rewards
In Mortal Kombat 11, you can see each tower’s rewards as you scroll by them. This was beneficial if you wanted gear for a particular character and knew which ones to prioritize. Mortal Kombat 1 doesn’t quite work the same way.
Clicking L1 or LB (depending on your controller) while hovering over the Seasonal and Live Service Towers will show what rewards you’ll be able to win. There’s no telling if future Live Service Towers will function the same as the current character preview ones do, but we can assume they will for now. The hourly towers in the middle do not show off any rewards, although from my experience it’s just different Konsumables and not any palettes.
What are Towers of Time Challenges
For those wanting more reason to grind, Towers of Time has mode-specific challenges. Enter the pause menu to see the challenges on the left side, separated into Easy, Hard, and Weekly. On the right side is a rank system involving points, which I’ll go over soon.
- Easy Challenges rotate every hour, but a new one can be immediately generated after beating it. Clearing them will reward you with three points and either a Konsumable, Crafting Komponent, or a Relic.
- Hard Challenges rotate every day, but you can also generate another one after you beat it. These will reward you with seven points and a similar item type as Easy Challenges.
- Weekly Challenges rotate every week. The key differences here are that they can only be cleared once a week and their reward is 50 points and Dragon Krystals.
While you might want to just aim for the premium currency Dragon Krystals, it can be worth grinding these out for the points too. Similar to Kombat League, you’ll be ranked by how many points you earn. Your rank will naturally fall as more players rack up points. That means if you want the highest rewards that require a Top 10 percent or Top 5 percent ranking, you need to keep on grinding before the two-week timer runs out.
A future update will also add points to the different Towers themselves, instead of just with challenges. This should make ranking up a little less monotonous, but for now, it’s best to focus on the challenges.
If you’re not a fan of the grind in these games, this mode might not be up your alley. That being said, I do feel that Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reign’s Towers of Time is less grindy than the previous iteration. Having to check in on the rank rewards once every two weeks is more convenient than finding out through social media you only have a few hours to unlock a rare skin.
Remember that playing through Invasions mode will help a lot in buffing your characters’ stats for the tougher fights. Keep on tackling these towers and you’ll earn plenty of awesome cosmetics that will look great while brutalizing your opponents.
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