Mortal Kombat 1 marks another reboot for the venerable fighting series, and that means that in a few years' time, developer NetherRealm will once again have to figure out what to name the next sequel. Series boss Ed Boon says that The Last of Us could serve as an inspiration.
"If we did another game in this lineage of Mortal Kombat games, I think I'd want to call it Mortal Kombat 2," Boon tells 12DOVE. "We could do Part 1, or Part 2 like The Last of Us does. We certainly won't call it Mortal Kombat 13." The Last of Us and Mortal Kombat already have a surprisingly close tie, thanks to the HBO series.
The last MK reboot released in 2011, and was simply called Mortal Kombat. Since that's nightmarishly confusing these days, most fans have taken to calling it MK9, and its own sequels were appropriately referred to as X and 11. Numbers that high can scare off new players, and while Boon says MK1 wasn't making any special efforts to be a jumping-on point, he's coming to recognize that the name might help there - as will the rebooted continuity.
"There's a big number 1 in the title. If a player was looking at MK11 and thinking to themselves: ‘I've missed the first 10, I can't jump into this one,’ then yeah, maybe this one is a better game to on-board new players. The fact is we are telling a new story, literally from the big bang of this universe, it's a new story that we're creating."
You can read our full interview with Ed Boon for more.
Find out how the Kameo system reinvents Mortal Kombat for a new generation.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate villain Minecraft Steve is the star of the "best Smash clip of all time," as genius player makes a literal Trojan Horse to destroy an unsuspecting opponent
Masahiro Sakurai says Super Smash Bros "might have died out" if not for late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata: "There's no doubt that he influenced me in many ways"
