NetherRealm Studios has listings indicating that they are working on their next game now.
These job listings were originally found by Exputer forum member Specter, and shared on the GamingLeaksandRumours subreddit by user TheAppropriateBoop. Both job listings are on the Warner Brothers Discovery website.
This first listing indicates that:
“This position is for an Associate Producer to be a part of the production team in the day-to-day management of a AAA title that NetherRealm Studios is working on.”
The rest of the listing describes the work that an Associate Producer does. There isn’t much more insight to get here, outside of that NetherRealm Studios needing people to help manage this next game.
The second job listing says that:
“NetherRealm Studios, a division of Warner Brothers Discover, seeks a Senior Animator to be responsible for creating consistent, high-quality cinematic animation for our story mode campaign.”
For those who were curious, the job listing also divulges that NetherRealm Studios uses these programs:
- Autodesk MotionBuilder
- Autodesk Maya
- Autodesk Flow Production Tracking
- Unreal 4 and Unreal 5
- Perforce Source Control
So that NetherRealm Studios has a bulk license with Autodesk, but that doesn’t really tell us a lot about what their next game is.
For those who don’t know, this studio was once upon a time the original Midway Amusements Games LLC, based in Chicago. While Midway is best remembered today for making the Mortal Kombat franchise, they were at one time one of the big publishers in the industry. Their other games included NBA Jam, Rampage, and Wizard of Wor.
In 2009, Midway filed for Chapter 11, and sold their Chicago studio, alongside Mortal Kombat and Wheelman, to Warner Bros. The studio was originally simply renamed WB Games Chicago, but then they decided to reincorporate to their current name, NetherRealm.
And as NetherRealm Studios, they have almost exclusively made only Mortal Kombat games. Their other biggest franchise, Injustice, is also a fighting game franchise. As we explained above, the roots of this studio do go beyond Mortal Kombat, to their arcade video game and pinball roots. But NetherRealm itself has stuck to fighting games for a decade and a half now, and may be ill equipped to move on to other franchises.
It is possible that NetherRealm Studios is not making a fighting game now, but it doesn’t seem likely. Since WB Games owns Wheelman, they could have set the studio to finally make their first original game in this franchise. We had just reported on WB delisting The Suffering games from GOG. And it is possible that that delisting is happening because they are making a reboot of the game. NetherRealm Studios is certainly uniquely qualified to make a game with violent content and adult themes.
There is certainly a good reason for WB Games to tell NetherRealm Studios to move away from Mortal Kombat, at least for now. After success for over a decade, Mortal Kombat One did not sell as well as previous games did. WB Games is also in an unusually pivotal point right now, with Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League coming out as a notorious live service bomb. WB Games still has the Harry Potter franchise to rely on, and they can still be betting on Monolith’s Wonder Woman game.
But this would be a good time to have NetherRealm Studios make something that could have a bigger potential audience than Mortal Kombat, something like, say, a horror action game? But at this point, we are speculating. It may be best to wait and see if and when WB Games or NetherRealm Studios finally announces their project.
