The Mortal Kombat fanbase has been clamoring about the mysterious pink Floyd ninja that has proven to be one of the fighting game genre’s best kept secrets of the modern era. With the addition of Conan the Barbarian, Mortal Kombat 1’s latest DLC main roster character, NetherRealm Studios also added the ability to encounter and fight a pink palette swap ninja that can only be found after completing a specific set of hidden challenges, and after a week of hunting, a lot of players have managed to battle and defeat Floyd.
One of the main rewards for defeating this powerful ninja, other than simply finding him and experiencing the whole thing, is a new playable stage called “Field” that you unlock for winning. While the stage is definitely a beautiful one and seems to be a big hit with players, more footage of this new backdrop continues to surface, and the more I see it, the more I realize that it likely won’t ever be an actual tournament legal stage for Mortal Kombat 1 competitions.
This new stage is a wide open area that pits the two kombatants against each other on a grassy field. Mountains line the horizon of this awe striking landscape, and with the big sky above we see that the day is winding down as the action takes place at sunset.
Though on the surface there doesn’t appear to be anything amiss with Floyd’s field stage, it’s the grassy floor that can and will present issues for players who dare to fight on it.
The tall grass on this stage grows high enough to cover pretty much everything that sits underneath each fighter’s knees, and while you can still clearly see most of the action that’s going on, it’s the low-to-the-ground moves and projectiles that are definitely a problem.
A quick Mortal Kombat 1 clip shared by Twitter user Jaceri demonstrates this issue outright. We see main roster Cyrax roll one of her bombs at the opponent, and in that brief few seconds before it explodes, the grenade becomes completely hidden to the naked eye.
The image at the top of this article was taken with the bomb on the ground and fully in play, and if you take a look at it again, you’ll notice that you simply cannot see where it even is.
Naturally, being able to hide traps and bombs like this would present a lot of issues not only in something like ranked matches, but even moreso for legitimate tournament bouts.
— Jaceri (@jaceri_) January 27, 2025
Funnily enough, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an awesome stage added to a fighting game that proved to be problematic for competitive play.
Capcom added the Kanzuki Family Beach stage to Street Fighter 5, and though it looked great and seemed to be positively received by fans, its rolling waves would obscure the feet and legs of characters too much for it to result in a fair match. In addition to this, traps like Ibuki’s V-Skill 2 caltrops would also almost fully disappear, and with all of that being considered the stage would go on to be barred from tournament play.
But if you still need a little convincing about Floyd’s field in Mortal Kombat 1, check out the following clip. In it, we see Ghostface engaged in his stance move that sees him crawling across the ground, and thanks to the tall grass the Horror film icon gets obstructed from view so much that only his head and his shoulders can really be seen clearly here.
new ghostface tech pic.twitter.com/bL6hjWA1GI
— Olcadan13 (@olcadan13) January 25, 2025
Outside of how difficult it is to unlock the Field stage in Mortal Kombat 1 (and how much time it would take tournament organizers to do it for every console they plan to use for their set ups), the fact that the grass can completely hide certain important aspects of a match means this stage will almost assuredly be banned from actual tournament play. Though we haven’t seen that ban come down yet, it will likely happen in the near future.
Source: Event Hubs
