I hope they have similar requirements for Mercy this time and having some "exclusive" finishers tied to them. Don't know about animality's. Although the concept was nice, the execution wasn't most of the time.
Hope the announcer fits the bill with announcing "... shows mercy".

I wonder if mercy has changed in this game? Like how Brutalities have (for the better I think)

naybe mercy is the new name for Friendships?

I wouldn't mind animalities returning, BUT only on few characters, they could replace a couple of finishers, like I did with my made-up leak, I made up that 3 characters (Xtabay, Liu Kang and Shang Tsung) could transform into animals during one of their fatalities and that for fun the FATALITY was replaced with the word ANIMALITY, just for nostaligica sake.