We now have a new rumor about the next NRS game that will definitely put its fans in a loop.
billbil-kun has shared these details on Twitter:
“Next Mortal Kombat game from NetherRealm Studios / WB Games will be called:
Mortal Kombat 1
PC, PS5, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch
As you may notice, game will be available for Next-Gen consoles only (while including Nintendo Switch)
Comes in 3 editions:
– Standard $ 69.99 (PS5, XB) / 59.99$ (SW)
– Premium $ 109.99
– Kollector’s Edition $ 249.99 (Physical only, not available for Nintendo Switch)
Announcement should be close”
billbil-kun has a proven track record for sharing game information early. Most of the time, they reveal their information days or even hours before the official announcement.
The name certainly doesn’t hide the possibility that this next game will be another reboot of the Mortal Kombat timeline. In fact, the most recent official hints and trailers also suggest that a reboot is coming.
If you were wondering, the original Mortal Kombat timeline started with the first game in 1993 and ended in 2006 with Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Even back then, the original studio at Midway Games was meticulous and careful about building a complex, compelling lore for the video game franchise. While that story showed heavily influences of martial arts fiction, it also had a near fetishistic delight in violence, that veered closer to American pulp and fantasy fiction.
In 2011, Midway Games filed for bankruptcy, and most of its assets were acquired by Warner Bros games. The team making fighting games, led by Ed Boon, was reincorporated as NetherRealm Studios.
While a reboot was already in the works, this sequence of events conveniently gave Ed Boon’s team an opportunity to a fresh start for the franchise. This Mortal Kombat timeline is created as Raiden sends visions of himself back to his past to prevent the coming of Armageddon.
The revised timeline allowed NRS to retell the stories of Mortal Kombat’s characters, in such a way that they were better realized as characters, and made choices and actions that made sense to a bigger story.
This was also a reintroduction of NRS to the competitive fighting game community, as their Mortal Kombat and Injustice games moving forward were designed to suit competitive play. The unique combination of mechanics NRS arrived at allowed them to a carve their own niche in the esports circle, creating opportunities for new players like Dominique “SonicFox” McLean to become new stars.
As you can imagine, a possible new timeline is going to be big beyond the Mortal Kombat games themselves. Spoilers follow below.
Mortal Kombat 11 ends with a battle for control over the power of time itself. Shinnok’s mother, Kronika, manipulates multiple time streams to make characters face different versions of themselves.
The canon ending in Mortal Kombat 11’s expansion, Aftermath, ends with Liu Kang, already made a Fire God , also becoming the master of time after defeating Shang Tsung and erasing him from existence. Liu goes back 500 years before the events of the first Mortal Kombat game to train the Great Kung Lao, Earthrealm’s original champion and Kung Lao’s ancestor.
So this reboot seems to do a Transformers Beast Wars and tampers with events from before the first Mortal Kombat we knew. It’ll certainly be interesting to see what Ed Boon and his team has planned next.
