The first demo for Mortal Kombat 11 was available at both the Los Angeles and London Reveal events, and Mortal Kombat Online staff were excited to get hands-on at both locales!

As announced in January, finally Mortal Kombat has returned to Las Vegas for the Evo World Championships! After a years hiatus from the official July line-up, the most brutal US fighter has made its comeback - challenging the world's greatest kombatants in the multi-variation system of Mortal Kombat X! More than 1.000 players are registered to contest this year's World Championship - with unofficial 2014 winner Sonic Fox charging the tournament as the overwhelming favourite! Looming over him will be the official defending Mortal Kombat World Champion DJT - whose victory at the 2013 World Championship ended the streak of Evo powerhouse Perfect Legend!

Take in all the sights and sounds of the tournament on the main Evo stream [embedded below], including the Mortal Kombat X Championship Sunday, 11:00AM! Saturday Semi Finals feature at 8:00PM, with more Mortal Kombat X streaming on the 7th Evo Stream.

Mortal Kombat X is less than two weeks away - but if that's still too long to wait, IGN have a 25 minute preview of the story mode. Note: The preview is a walkthrough of Chapter 1 and will contain extensive spoilers! Continue at your own risk:

During last week's Game Developers Conference, various press members were granted a hands-on preview with Mortal Kombat X and the first chapter of its exciting new Story Mode! Early word revealed Kenshi & Johnny Cage's playable involvement but with embargoes lifted, new details are flooding in from all sides!

Character speculation will be one of the last topics to die, especially with downloadable content beyond the horizon! Polygon has one of the best previews, revealing the ambitious scope of the game that awaits: "There are battles with hundreds of non-player characters and Mortal Kombat cameos, Urbano said, on a scale that NetherRealm just couldn't pull off before."

Among the "hundreds" of cameos are some expected returns. Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Kenshi, Raiden & Fujin reportedly lead the fight for the home team, while undead revenants of Jax, Sindel, Stryker, Kabal & Smoke battle under the control of Quan Chi. This continues the plot initiated during the last game, where the defeated warriors' souls were seized in the Netherrealm. IGN notes an appearance by Nightwolf, who was also among the dead fighters, as well.

It's the Netherrealm's invasion that is the subject of story mode's opening chapter. This refers to the expected continuation of the new timeline, revisiting the original plot of MK4. We saw glimpses of invading villain Shinnok and his struggle with the heroes in the Story Mode Trailer and again in the Cage Family Trailer. According to IGN, Shinnok is the final battle of Chapter 1.

No one has been able to distinguish the playable roster from the story mode cameos. Shinnok and Jax both appeared in one-on-one fights - each with 3 variations, according to Hardcore Gamers. IGN notes, "We have no idea yet, but there are a bunch more slots on the character select screen that need to be filled..." Polygon adds, "... we did see a couple of unannounced playable fighters, including Erron Black, in the game's attract mode."

Migrating from challenge modes in Mortal Kombat (2011) and Injustice: Gods Among Us into the story are "quick time events". Simple inputs determine the outcome of conflict that doesn't fit into traditional side-to-side kombat. GameInformer have a particularly evocative description of their experience, which explains the continuing sequence involving Johnny Cage and a notably heroic Kenshi:

"They’re en route to Raiden’s Sky Temple, where the lightning god is making a last stand against Shinnok’s forces. Whirring over the on-the-ground action sounds like a pretty great plan until the windshield is pierced by another familiar sight: Scorpion’s chain-blade. The soldiers in the back of the helicopter look around frantically, when Scorpion surprises the crew by appearing in the rear of the aircraft. There’s a battle, of course, and I’m paying such close attention to it all that I miss an unexpected quick-time event. It doesn’t kick me out to a game-over screen, but the action immediately shifts to show Johnny Cage blowing a series of blocks and taking damage. I do a better job of keeping up over the next few sequences, and Johnny reverses the course of the fight. He more than holds his own until Sub-Zero joins the party, freezing a couple of attackers’ heads and shattering them against each other."

Injustice: Gods Among Us is the DC Comics fighting game from the makers of Mortal Kombat! The game officially hits PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 & Nintendo Wii U two Tuesdays from now: April 16th!

If you've been avoiding story details, then make sure you stop reading and click through to the forums right now!

The following video clip is reportedly the set-up to the Injustice story mode. If you're familiar with the first six chapters of the Injustice comic book -- you've got nothing to worry about.