The 10 Best Female Mortal Kombat Characters, Ranked By Strength

This post contains spoilers for "Mortal Kombat" lore.

When Mortal Kombat was released in 1992, there was a sole female fighter among the game's limited roster: Special Forces agent Sonya Blade, who doggedly pursued her archnemesis Kano and ended up on a quest that dragged her to the ends of the Earth and beyond (the Outworld, to be precise). As the mega-popular fighting game expanded into an ever-popular franchise (including multiple movies), more female combatants, both playable and non-playable, were added to Mortal Kombat lore, which is something of a beast in itself.

The age-old debate about which Mortal Kombat female character is the strongest is tricky, since this is a video game franchise that keeps releasing new titles, the very definition of strength keeps shifting, and playable versions of characters undergo markedly different power scaling than what their lore assigns to them. For instance, someone like Khameleon has reason to be considered strong due to her lore ties with Reptile, but as a playable character, she's middling when compared to other Kameos (although still insanely cracked in hyperspecific scenarios).

For this ranking, I will lean heavily towards in-game lore to determine the strongest female Mortal Kombat characters, although it goes without saying that strength manifests in different ways and translates to incomparable movesets (the set of moves a character can perform) for playable characters whose fighting styles have morphed over time. While some possess brute strength, others have accumulated immense power with the progress of their in-game storylines — something that might or might not have translated into their movesets. I would have loved to include combatants like Frost or Skarlet, but characters in this vein are limited either by the fact that they're minor antagonists (hence, reducing their narrative possibility to win fights) or have negligible screen time, which prevents us from gauging their true potential, despite the game's lore highlighting their strength in passing. And if you're a fan who liked the most recent feature film, be sure to check out this article of other films you should watch if you enjoyed 2021's "Mortal Kombat."

Okay, go with me on this one. Yes, Mileena is an antagonist throughout the Mortal Kombat franchise (except for the Story Mode in Mortal Kombat 1, where she returns as a supporting character), but she's an extremely popular, borderline unforgettable antagonist. My reasons for including Mileena here have more to do with the fact that she is a mutant hybrid clone of Kitana, created consciously to wield utter violence and brutality by mixing Tarkatan blood and Edenian physiology. Ruthless without any limitations, Mileena revels in her sadistic nature, almost relishing the fact that she is such a twisted version of Kitana, and will go to any end to manipulate events in her favor.

If we take a look at her most traditional fatalities or brutalities, Mileena uses her sai to stab opponents, which is often followed up by a fatal kick that sends them flying, like her brutality in Mortal Kombat X. Her bloodlust translates into Man Eater and Ferocious Bite, where variations of her tearing her opponent's face off and regurgitating their bones add a grotesque tint to her playstyle. If we're talking about her playable character's ability to win matchups (which is player-dependent, among other factors), she is considered well-rounded yet mid-tier, as it might prove to be challenging to go up against characters with more versatile kits.

A Shokan, Sheeva's franchise lore is interesting, as she breaks away from her antagonistic roots in the Mortal Kombat X comic books and evolves into a more morally balanced figure in Mortal Kombat 11, where she is a DLC playable. Shokans are known for their immense strength, and Sheeva has demonstrated this genetic trait on various occasions: In Mortal Kombat 9, Sheeva was able to effortlessly block and counter the Liu Kang before being defeated, and she has demonstrated more agility than others of her race, being able to dash and do flips mid-fight and carry other characters like Nightwolf.

If brute strength is being counted as the only metric here, Sheeva is one of the strongest among the female combatant roster, coupled with the fact that she has a high injury/damage tolerance and is a ferocious hand-to-hand combatant. In terms of lore, there's much to glean from Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Konquest mode), where she fights alongside the Forces of Darkness and counters Ermac and Nightwolf, although her efforts are cut short by Taven, whom we are supposed to root for. The reason she's so low on the list is that the number of narrative defeats she's had is one too many (mostly because her status as a former antagonist demands that her opponent emerges victorious) and there are other characters who transcend mere physical strength.

D'vorah is a bit of a controversial character in terms of how she's perceived: Although her overwhelming presence in both the reboot and spin-off charts the trajectory of an intriguing, incorrigible villain, she has a track record of killing off fan favorites without suffering any consequences for her actions. Well, someone has to up the ante and introduce unspeakable evil into a franchise that denounces traditional morality, and no one does it better than D'vorah. Being a Kytinn, she is one of the most high-ranking members of the Outworld Empire and is devoted to Kronika, and her affinity towards insects allows her to wield them for offensive attacks. She can also regenerate and fly for a limited period of time.

An example of her bug-centered abilities is Bug Blast, where she summons a pincered insect and wears it like an amulet, shooting resin at her opponent. Her fatalities can also be pretty brutal: In Mortal Kombat 11, D'Vorah executes Can't Die, where she blasts resin four times to pin the opponent and uses her ovipositors to rip their head and torso off, leaving their innards exposed. If we are to evaluate her abilities in the game's story mode, she is revealed to have killed Mileena and proceeds to almost murder Kotal Kahn, but comes very close to death because of Jade. She is also known to use a swarm of insects to overpower opponents in both story and gameplay modes, such as her Vortex Swarm of wasps in Mortal Kombat X as a part of her Swarm Queen variation.

Jade has always been a beloved character since her secret-ish debut in Mortal Kombat II, fitting the slot of a traditional empathetic, loyal figure who is always ready to kick some butt when the need arises. However, as one of Shao Kahn's assassins and Kitana's personal bodyguard, Jade is more than just a token supporting character, and this nuanced likability also bleeds into her kit, which is mostly versatile and fun in all of the iterations she features in. Jade's signature moves include Razor Rang (which features in some variation across all the games she's playable in, and was renamed Boomerang in Mortal Kombat 9), and functions exactly how a frisbee would, except lethal.

An example of her fatality is Bow Before Me, where she uses her staff to slice the opponent's arms and legs, and then swiftly decapitates the head and stabs it mid-air. There's also some sickening eye-gouging in Pole Dance, where she follows it up with a good old slash to the stomach, causing intestines to spill out (as seen in Mortal Kombat 11). In terms of storyline, a chunk of non-canon titles, like Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, help flesh out her arc, but her subsequent canonical storyline establishes her strength without any shadow of a doubt. Also, her moveset is really dynamic during matchups, allowing competent players to go up against almost anyone without concerns about losing (unless they're up against good teleport-users, such as Skarlet or Raiden). 

A beloved OG character, Sonya's strength is as grounded as it gets, bolstered only by technological weapons strapped to her wrists, which can fire and manipulate projectiles, help her hover mid-air, and create powerful energy blasts (which constitute her Energy Rings, as seen in Mortal Kombat and every title after, right up to the confusingly named and recently released Mortal Kombat 1). There's a lot to love about Sonya, as her strength is multifaceted: She possesses both training-boosted combat prowess and the ability to see any mission to its end, no matter what the circumstance. Her fighting style has evolved over time, but she often incorporates standard military weapons as a part of her kit, such as stun grenades that can be called in via drone (as seen in Mortal Kombat X) or laser cannons and rocket launchers in other situations.

Sonya's power levels differ according to her portrayal in adaptations or companion comics, but she is extremely competent in every version and is considered one of the most capable combatants from Earthrealm. Sonya can be relentless when she needs to be, as evidenced by her X-ray — Special Forces, through which she blinds the opponent with dust and snaps their spine before they can even see, snapping it again to make sure that the skull and neck are permanently broken. Of course, there is also her kiss variety of fatalities, such as Fire Kiss, her trademark, and Crush Kiss, where she blows a purple-hued kiss which crushes the opponent and obliterates their skin and flesh. Brutal.

Being the daughter of Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade has its perks, but Cassie backs up her nepotism privileges with pure talent, wielding a combination of trained military abilities and superhuman powers. Cassie's power scaling is kind of insane, as she was able to single-handedly defeat the fallen Elder God Shinnok, the literal embodiment of realm-spanning death and destruction, in his corrupted form in Mortal Kombat X. It is hard to forget about this feat, as Cassie brags about it constantly during her intros in Mortal Kombat 11, right after slinking down and popping bubblegum in style.

In terms of her fight style, Cassie employs Single Shot as her signature move, where she simply shoots her opponent, often enhanced as Akimbo, where she fires her gun six times. Apart from employing deadly hand-to-hand combat moves like her mother, she also uses Selfie in Mortal Kombat X, where she uses her nightstick to break the opponent's jaw, takes a selfie with them in that condition, and posts it on social media. This is a variation of her father's move, who uses Freeze Frame to cut the opponent's head in half and quickly click a selfie. (Karl Urban is currently in talks to play Johnny Cage in an upcoming "Mortal Kombat" movie.) In Cassie's case, the combination of Sonya's steel-like determination and Johnny's brazen eccentricities makes her a cut above the rest of the playable female roster in terms of raw strength.

Although her species switches between Edenian and Revenant in the in-game timeline, Kitana is the embodiment of strength, given her lineage as the daughter of Sindel and the former Kahnum of Outworld. Kitana's popularity can be at least partially attributed to her combos, which are both casual player-friendly and lucrative for those who can use her mid-air moves to their advantage. Her abilities almost elevated her to the status of an unbeatable character when Mortal Kombat II was in production. This was obviously nerfed, but Kitana is still a mighty combatant and her signature Fan Throw only gets better with every iteration, where she essentially executes a combo-finisher mid-air and can throw her steel fan to impale the opponent in certain entries, such as in Deadly Alliance.

Almost all of Kitana's finishers are brutal, but her last Kiss is perhaps the most deadly, as she kills her opponent in varying shades of brutality after kissing them, which changes depending the game she's featured in. For instance, in Deadly Alliance, she makes the opponent inflate, vomit blood, and explode after the kiss, while in Mortal Kombat 1, the opponent starts violently vomiting before disintegrating into a pile of entrails and other unsavory stuff. If we look into Kitana's lore, she is borderline unbeatable just by virtue of her being 10,000 years old and she is a formidable Outworld Champion in the current timeline, in which Mileena exists as her "twin" whom Kitana has defeated more than once.

Sindel's appearance throughout Mortal Kombat is somewhat brief; her debut was in Mortal Kombat 3, and she returned in Mortal Kombat 11 years later as a DLC playable and a Story Mode antagonist. Sindel has been completely reimagined in 2023's Mortal Kombat 1, where she takes on the role of an ally and performs moves like Screen Queen, where her scream is potent enough to rip off opponents' skin and make them spew blood. However, Sindel's true potential and strength stems from her lore: She is an Edenian, the Queen of her kingdom no less, and her powers often border on otherworldly and take on grotesque forms. For instance, she can use her scream to paralyze opponents without laying a finger on them and turn her hair into prehensile weapons meant to strike in long-ranged battles.

Although there aren't many lore-adjacent examples, Sindel can take on most Earthrealm combatants without any issue and can be quite persuasive when it comes to egging her enemies on. Some of her finishers are genuinely terror-inducing, such as her Animality #2 — Terror-antula in Mortal Kombat 1, where she turns into a huge arachnid and uses her mandible to pull the opponent up, biting their head while injecting the body with spiderlings that make sure to burst out of the victim's stomach. This kind of power veers into pure monster territory, making Sindel unpredictable and dangerous.

Cetrion might be a comparatively recent addition, as she debuted in Mortal Kombat 11, but there is no confusion about her power scaling, as she is the Elder Goddess of Life, Virtue, and Light. Even if we ignore her playable movesets completely, Cetrion is among the strongest simply by existing, as her core responsibility is to maintain a balance between the realms while she experiences immunity to temporal manipulation. As Cetrion has control over the elements, almost every fight will sway in her favor, even if her opponent is formidable in both physical and magical prowess.

If we scrutinize the events of Mortal Kombat 1, Kronika absorbs Cetrion's essence and is later defeated by Liu Kang, which leads us to believe that Cetrion perishes with her, or is unable to live on in a discernible form. However, this is Mortal Kombat, and characters thought to be "dead" can return at any point, and it is not far-fetched to expect the return of an Elder Goddess. In terms of her abilities, Cetrion employs signature moves such as Hell's Wrath, where she shoots a fire beam; Tendril Pull, where she shoots out tendrils to slam opponents to the ground; and Fatal Blow — Weeping Willow, where she harnesses boulders and trees to crack into skulls and limbs to incapacitate them. Also, she can tower over planets and cause devastating natural disasters to the point of no return, so it remains to be seen what her potential return might mean for the franchise.

The antagonists that are with us for a short time often make the deadliest impressions, and Kronika is undoubtedly one of the most powerful beings in the franchise, as she is the mother of Elder Gods Shinnok and Cetrion. Also known as the Keeper of Time and the Architect of Destiny, Kronika's abilities supersede traditional and even exaggerated definitions of strength, as she can manipulate temporal flow without triggering paradoxes and use these so-called anomalies to execute attacks. Kronika is not omnipotent, as she requires an energy source to regulate her existence, but she is still a Titan, whose absence led to repercussions across realms. Although considered dead, Kronika might still exist in some form within the multiverse.

Although Kronika is not playable, her boss fatality in Mortal Kombat 11 is her lifting the opponent into the air and bisecting them, followed by her rewinding time only to cut the opponent vertically. Kronika rewinds time again to rip their skin off, and this continues in a neverending loop, even after the match ends. This is only a glimpse into her ability to inflict unimaginable horrors upon those who do not share her Titan status, along with her obsession to control time to achieve a twisted notion of balance, which is what propels her toward her tragic fate in the end.