During one of Cassie Cage's intros, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3's arcade theme can be heard just as she takes her earbuds out.

In the intro to a Sub-Zero mirror match. Both Sub-Zeros will say, "You. You are not worthy of the name Sub-Zero. Who are you to judge?" A reference to a dialogue Noob Saibot and Sub-Zero said to each other in Spoiler:Cyber Sub-Zero's chapter in Mortal Kombat (2011).

Originally Kano's "Cutthroat" variation was colored green, but this was changed to blue during development. The Green coloring was later used if Kano was selected without his variations.

When an X-Ray attack is successfully performed by Erron Black, he will shoot a bullet with his opponent's name on it.

Should his opponent be another Erron, the bullet will read "Me", and when performed against Predator, the bullet will read "Ugly Mofo", referencing a line from the original Predator movie.

Selecting the Carl Weathers and Commando skins for Jax and Johnny Cage respectively will trigger a special animation on the preloading screen referencing a scene with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers from the original Predator film.

In Cassie Cage's Selfie Fatality, after she posts the picture she takes on a social network, the website contains a few references:

• The trending section has the headline "KILLING SPREE: Masked killer stalks campgrounds". This is a reference to Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, who is a downloadable character.
• An ad below the trending section has Johnny Cage starring in Ninja Mime. The movie was previously advertised in Mortal Kombat (2011), where ads of it are found in the Subway, Rooftop, and Street levels.
• The community list at the left lists all the organizations available in the Factions mode.

One of Johnny Cage's Fatalities has him ripping open the chest of an opponent from behind them. The camera then moves to the character's front as Johnny looks through it stating, "Here's Johnny!" This is a reference to a famous scene from the 1980 film, "The Shining", in which Jack sticks his head through a hole he made in the bathroom door and exclaims the same phrase.

Johnny Cage and Goro's intro sequences against each other reference the "Mortal Kombat" movie, wherein they fought each other in Shang Tsung's tournament.

When Goro starts his dialogue first, Johnny will jokingly ask Goro about the "sunglasses" that Goro owes him, referencing the scene in the movie just before their fight in which Goro crushes Johnny's $500 sunglasses as an intimidation tactic.

Johnny's intro has him reference Goro "heading for a fall", referencing Goro's demise in the film.

The mobile companion app for the game has several unlockable costumes that can be carried over to the main game itself upon being unlocked.

Among the many unlockable costumes in the mobile app is Scorpion's outfit from Injustice: Gods Among Us, as well as Jax's farmer outfit from Story mode and a classic costume for Kitana.

In one of Takeda's intros when facing off against Ermac, he will refer to him as "Error Macro." This is a reference to the rumour in Mortal Kombat 1 that Ermac was a secret character that could be unlocked due to a listing in the arcade machine's debug menu which read "Ermacs", referring to Error Macros.

While Mortal Kombat X is indeed the tenth main release in the franchise, the name is supposed to be pronounced as "X", not "10".