A new online mode is coming to Mortal Kombat 11 in the next downloadable update! Kombat League will give players the chance to play a new ranked mode in seasons to unlock new customizable cosmetics for characters. Watch the official announce trailer:

Four week seasons will test players through nine tiers of gameplay, challenging them to master the skills of Apprentice through Elder God. These ranks will only be part of the experience, which will utilize optimized matchmaking to pit players against their perfect match. A new meter will predict chances for victory before every battle. Fight your way to godhood and you'll unlock exclusive in-game items! You can also check-in to daily and seasonal quests to earn bonuses based on unique challenges.

The Kombat League officially begins June 18th when The Season of Blood soaks kombatants in customizable crimson! Watch the trailer above to check out modified looks at Skarlet, Kitana, Erron Black, and Scorpion!

Players who've purchased the Kombat Pack can also look forward to getting early access to the first downloadable fighter: Shang Tsung! Watch the Shang Tsung gameplay trailer and join the discussion about all these things on the Mortal Kombat 11!

After skipping last year's event; NetherRealm Studios returned to E3 with Mortal Kombat 11 and the first fighter from the upcoming Kombat Pack! A playable demo wasn't the only place you'd find Shang Tsung and MK11 konsumables, though. He was also outside the expo on a working Ice Kream Truck!

The Mortal Kombat 11 Ice Kream Truck was soft serving sweet relief under the hot Los Angeles sun, touring the grounds throughout the E3 extended weekend. Social media shared locations and pictures [above], but the black truck with Shang Tsung on the side wasn't hard to spot!

The summer fun was all in the name of promoting the Kombat Pack and its first fighter, who bears the likeness of Mortal Kombat movie favourite Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. The sorcerer's smooth style was already sprinkled across a double scoop of official trailer and developer stream.

It isn't the first time MK has offered cool refreshment with a black label. In 2016, Sound Brewery released a range of Mortal Kombat themed beer! They weren't serving in the WB Games MK11 area at E3, but they did have big screens, playable demos, and a Fatality win pose booth!

Kombat Pack early access for Shang Tsung begins June 18th, with klassic skins and more coming soon! Click here for full details and join the discussion on the Mortal Kombat 11 forum!

Survival Saturday has officially been given the green light to move to our MKO Twitch channel this coming Saturday, leaving it's beta state one show earlier than expected! It's a spiritual successor to our normal Fatal Friday program. Hosted by our very own Fatalkade, the hype factor on this show goes up an even bigger notch than Fatal Friday. The show is all about the players, and bragging rights!

It's a forced competitive Survivor King of the Hill, where your health carries over to your next match. This makes win streaks harder to earn, and makes the players work harder to achieve success while also creating more exciting moments on our competitive show. The highlight reel is gone, replaced by a "Player Spotlight" that focuses more on the player and who their main was, as well as their win streak. Like Fatal Friday, Survival Saturday is broken up into seasons. Season 1 is starting on XBOX ONE, with the current leader being MKUniverse with a streak of 8 wins! To join the competition, simply join the room titled "SURVIVAL SATURDAY" around 7 PM CST when it goes up to get invited to compete and test your might!

This new show has a much more 'esports' vibe, and is set to air this Saturday at http://www.MortalKombatOnline.com/Twitch at 8 PM CST. The schedule for Survival Saturday will be consistent with that of Fatal Friday, which airs every Friday at 8 PM CST. Be sure to catch the latest Fatal Friday, where TotalMK will be our special guest host! We're excited to continue bringing you fun and interactive ways to compete and show off your skills on MKO, and we assure you, there is much more coming soon!

Shang Tsung will be the first character to join Mortal Kombat 11 via upcoming downloadable content updates. Early access begins for Kombat Pack owners on June 18th -- but later today everyone will get a taste of things to come in a live developer stream! Watch the magic unfold with us right here:

The Kombat Kast will go live at the standard time of 3:00PM CDT and should illuminate more details about the sinister sorcerer.

Shang Tsung was announced with a wisened character render and officially revealed last week in full spotlight trailer! The trailer also named three more of the final six Kombat Pack extra fighters, as well as a raft of other goodies!

Be here at broadcast time to watch the Shang Tsung Kast in the embedded player above. Don't forget to share your impressions with us in the comments below and join the discussion on the Mortal Kombat 11 forum! Shang Tsung will be one of the characters you can review in the next 2019 Supreme Mortal Kombat Champion poll battle!

By and large Paul Neimeyer has been one of the unsung heroes of the twenty-seven year legacy of the first Mortal Kombat! As Logo Artist and Designer, he helped bring to life the lasting image of the first Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet! He recently unearthed original concept art sketches from his personal archive, perfectly preserved to give fans a glimpse into MK's arcade origins!

Series co-creator John Tobias originally provided the pencil sketches and color marker comps for development of the arcade coin-op cabinet's design. The drawings detail the now iconic Johnny Cage jump kick side panel, and red and gold dragon, as well as control panel colors and detailing. From these drawings, Paul Neimeyer "did all of the finished line art and color film prep for screening", according to a tweet shared by Tobias.

One image shows the iconic text logo in an earlier iteration as "Dragon Attack" -- a title considered during the game's development. Tobias noted this as "the coolest part of the find" while tweeting about the discovery, adding "I forgot we came this close to actually using Dragon Attack!"

In an interview with MK Online, Tobias explained further, "We would write ideas for the game's title on a marker board in Ed's office and there were a ton of them and some were god awful. "Dragon Attack" and "Ultimate Kumite" were two that were actually considered. I laugh now about how close we came to using those names."

Speaking in the same interview about the iconic dragon design used on the cabinet, Tobias went on to explain, "The dragon icon actually came from a small dragon statue that our general manager, Ken Fedesna, had on his desk. I believe John Vogel, who constructed our background graphics, digitized and used it in the backgrounds. I used it as reference for the dragon that appears on the coin-op game's side cabinet artwork. That dragon's head became the circular dragon symbol that is still used today."

Mortal Kombat was recently inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. John Tobias, John Vogel, and Ed Boon appeared with several klassic arcade cabinets at NetherRealm Studios, offering thanks for the honor.

What do you think about the perfectly preserved treasures of this unearthed lost kontent? Share your thoughts in the comments section below and keep it respectably retro by joining the discussion in the 2D Kombat Klassics forum!