Ed Boon Talks Why “Khaos Reigns” In Mortal Kombat 1

For those who loved the main campaign of Mortal Kombat 1, the “Khaos Reigns” expansion will bring plenty to the table for you to enjoy. The story revolves around the villain “Havik,” who has new powers and abilities to help bring his anarchy-filled style of terror to the multiverse. When he attacks the Kombatants, Liu Kang must assemble a new team to take him on before madness is spread. This content is the main draw of the “Year Two” content alongside the six new playable characters. In an interview with Polygon, NetherRealm Studios head Ed Boon discussed how this expansion came to be:

“It’s something that we started doing with Aftermathin Mortal Kombat 11 — it was the first time that we continued the story, and I think it worked out really nicely for MK11. This gives us an opportunity to continue this new Liu Kang reimagining of the universe, plus bring back more characters [and] more guest characters.”

Sektor, Cyrax, and Noob Saibot are the returning characters for “Year Two,” and Boon admits that it’s a “decision by committee” when it comes to selecting who’s next:

“I am absolutely an advocate of getting as many opinions from the rest of the team as possible. I always send out this obligatory email with, like, “Here’s all the high-profile characters we haven’t done yet. What do you guys think?” And everybody chimes in. I just kind of assemble all of that and put my take as well.”

The other big addition for Mortal Kombat 1 comes from the gameplay, as players aren’t just getting new characters to learn, but the return of Animalities to make devastating kills with. Boon notes that this was a true progression of what the team had been slowly bringing back since the original reboot:

“Once we did the Friendship moves [in MK11] and we got such a really positive response, in my head, I was like, Next is Animalities. And you know, we can represent them with so much more fidelity and they’re so much more interesting than they were in MK3.”

Boon also acknowledges player feedback throughout the interview, including the many quality-of-life improvements they’ve been asking for, including some character screen costume shifts:

“We always have a running list of what we hear players wanting. That list is very long, and that’s certainly [on the list]. And so we are going to be dropping new features like that as we continue to support the game.”