NetherRealm Studios refreshed the 32-year-old Mortal Kombat universe in last year’s installment Mortal Kombat 1resetting the balance of power and giving classic characters fresh origin stories. This week, NetherRealm will continue the story MK1 With Chaos rules expansion that introduces fresh (redesigned) characters and fresh conflicts.
Mortal Kombat 1Liu Kang’s story ends in utter chaos, much to the delight of Havik, the masochistic leader of the Chaosrealm, who seeks to disrupt Liu Kang’s fresh order. Chaos rules welcomes fresh characters to the cast: Cyrax and Sektor — reimagined versions of the armored warriors — and Noob Saibot — now a twisted creation of Havik — and pushes the Mortal Kombat story into uncharted territory.
Ahead of the expansion’s launch, we spoke with Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boone about what fans can expect in Year 2 MK1how NetherRealm chooses fresh characters for the game and what they think of Karl Urban as Johnny Cage.
The following interview has been condensed and edited.
Polygon: What was your approach going forward? Mortal Kombat 1 With Chaos rulesWhat did you want to achieve?
I wanted to talk about the character selection process, the balance between trying to hit on nostalgia and also hitting a broader range of guest characters. You have three returning characters—Cyrax, Sektor, and Noob Saibot—and you have three guest characters. What’s that filtering process like? Do you just barge into the conference room at some point and say, “Noob time!”?
We try to find a balance between novelty and modernity.
Speaking of Noob Saibot, is his smashing head Death blow reference to Hot photos: part two?
Why bring back Animalities now?
We brought them back because of the feedback we received when we brought back the friendship moves and even Babalities in MK9. Again, I think this scratches that nostalgic itch that a lot of Mortal Kombat fans have.
Which warrior and animal combination do you like best in the fresh Animalities expansion?
Oh man, there’s a lot of stuff that no one has seen before. Let me think. Probably, and this is a bit of an excuse, but Scorpio turning into a scorpion is probably my favorite.
What about fresh Kameo Fighters? You haven’t announced any fresh ones, but is that something you plan on expanding into year two? MK1 also?
MK1 was a huge foray into live services, seasonal content with Invasions. What did you learn from running the live game that you want to improve on in Invasions? Obviously, people are always looking for bigger rewards in Invasions, more reasons to play.
From my perspective, the term “live service” means that Here’s another piece of content you have to pay to seewhether it’s a battle pass or a fresh expansion or something. And we never imagined Invasions as, Here’s season two, pay us to play it, so we can play season three, and so on. So I never really thought of Invasions as a game-as-a-service type of feature. I always thought of it as a re-engagement. There’s more to look at in each season, but that comes with the expectation Where are my skins? Where is my game currency?
For me, it’s more about commitment. Why would I come back? You know, in single-player? Everyone kind of gets sucked into the story mode, and then it’s like, OK, what reason do I have to come back?
But now that you have a second year ahead of you, are there any changes to Invasions? What’s your take on it based on feedback?
Yes, oh, 100%. There are a lot more different game modes coming up next season. There are more Test Yours, just a wider range of experiences, some of which we’ll announce soon. But there are others that we just want people to discover. But ultimately the goal was: Let’s create a wider range of things to do.
And just like before, we will be introducing more updates, more skins, more Cameos, more characters and things like that.
I know you probably hear about it all the time on Twitter, but one quality of life update that people won’t stop talking about is the skin and color selection on the character select screen. Is that something you’re actively working on?
Finally, I know you’ve seen the draft Mortal Kombat 2 (movie). Like Karl Urban as Johnny Cage? Do you have any notes?
I like it. He’s very humorous. You know, it’s compelling – oh God, no, I shouldn’t say that. You’ll see. He’s very humorous in it. He’s definitely different from our Johnny Cage, like in MK1. He’s a little more depressed. He definitely has a lot of humorous lines.
Karl is 52, by the way. He didn’t have to do the splits for the movie, did he?
How can you not think of Johnny Cage doing the splits?
This is exactly the kind of perfect, evasive Ed Boon answer I love to hear.
