Emperor Shao Kahn has finally defeated Raiden and his allies. Faced with extinction, Raiden has one last chance to save Earthrealm. To undo the Emperor’s victory, he must strike Shao Kahn where he is vulnerable…the Past. Sending a message to himself in the past (before the events of the original MK) he warns of the future. This allows a reboot of the entire franchise through the story. Now, any character can return but be different.

 

Scorpion could be a good guy. Lui Kang could be a woman! Smoke may never become a cyborg. The possibilities are endless.

 

Creator of Mortal Kombat, Ed Boon said this “We’re also talking about a new take on the series’ story. Mortal Kombat has this timeline – eighteen years of making games, and we really didn’t want to just continue, like, chapter seventeen of the whole story. So we’re kind of doing a Back to the Future type of thing, where Raiden is about to be killed by Shao Kahn, and just before he delivers the last blow, he sends a mental message to his earlier self, so the camera rewinds back to Mortal Kombat 1. The Raiden from back then gets a message and he doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows something bad’s going to happen, and the game spans Mortal Kombat 1, 2 and 3, retelling the story with an enlightened Raiden, and he’s changing the course of things, so everything you’ve seen happen before – Liu Kang winning, the guys turning into cybernetic ninjas, are changed around, so you might see a character become cybernetic who wasn’t before, and so you see a different version.”

 

So what do we know for sure?

 

The fighting returns to the old school 2D fighting plane but in 3D form. This is more like MK 1, 2 and 3 than anything. However, the depth of the fighting is there with a new 4 player tag-team mode and Co-op arcade mode. All fighting is based off of a Super meter that helps players turn the tide of a fight. It builds whenever you perform a special move but also builds when you take damage. So the more you’re getting beat, the faster you’ll be able to respond with an X-Ray move. More on X-Ray moves next.

 

The new graphics engine brings back all the fan favorites in a whole new light. The blood and guts are back and better than ever with an all new X-Ray moves where the camera will zoom inside your opponents body and watch as the bones are crushed and the organs ripped apart.

 

So who will be in this game? An official list isn’t being revealed. Boon wants this to be like the old MK games where little is known about all the hidden secrets in the game. I love it. We DO know that Scorpion, Sub-Zero (the original we know as Noob Siabot), Reptile, Raiden, Mileena, Kung Lao, Sektor, Nightwolf, Shang Tsung and Johnny Cage. All in all 26 characters from the first 3 games will make their triumphant return plus some DLC characters.

 

This is a reboot to the great parts that make MK awesome. It has been updated to be a fun game and should be fun for a long time to come. This is due out in 2011 at some point but has not been announced yet.