He's here. Right on time! Kano loves punctuality - don't you? The Black Dragon scoundrel can be on your time if you complete the latest Mortal Kombat X Mobile free-to-play challenge!
Unlocking Klassic Kano means completeing five tiers of challenges - ear to ear! Each tier consists of 12 battles, with the exception of the final 15-fight challenge! Tier 1 is a lightning round of all Bronze Kards, Tiers 2 & 3 promote you to Bronze & Silver kards. You'll need all Gold Martial Artists in your Tier 4 team, before Tier 5 demands you use Kitana to takedown the Earthrealm scum!
Are you feared and respected by kombat's inner circles? Register to share your marksmanship on the Mortal Kombat X forum! Support the kommunity by liking & sharing via @MK_Online, Facebook & YouTube!
You know him as one of the founding fathers of Mortal Kombat and the creator of the series' most enduring icons. John Tobias has revisited one of his famous creations, sharing an all new drawing of a klassic Raiden!
Raiden first donned his trademark blue in Mortal Kombat II (1993), where Carlos Pesina appeared as the actor digitized for sprites. This remained the iconic look for the character for many years, appearing animated for the 1996 cartoon, and rendered in three-dimensional polygons for the first time in Mortal Kombat 4 (1997). It continues to inspire even his most recent designs.
MK4 was the last game completed before Tobias departed Midway Games. He recently shared a hand painted character sheet from Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm that showed the cartoon versions of Raiden and the other characters [full story].
The Raiden digital drawing, shared via Twitter, is a "semi-recent" piece made using Cintiq: HD Wacom graphic tablet that allows artists to draw directly to the pad with vivid detail.
Need more John Tobias in your diet? You can read his own words in a 2-part interview published in the MK Online Interview Archive! You can also follow @therealsaibot & @MK_Online for more updates!
There's a target on your back and Kung Jin is drawing a long bow! The Shaolin archer with a dark past can be yours if you complete the latest Mortal Kombat X Mobile free-to-play challenge!
Unlocking Marksman Kung Jin means hitting the bullseye on five tiers of hard targets! Each tier consists of 12 battles, with the exception of the final 15-fight challenge! Tier 1 is a lightning round of all Bronze Kards, Tiers 2 & 3 promote you to Bronze & Silver kards. You'll need all Gold Outworld fighters in your Tier 4 team, before Tier 5 demands you use D'Vorah to swat aside the staff of Kung Jin!
As speculation over Mortal Kombat X's content future defiantly simmers post-MKXL; GameInformer have tapped into the always engaging, often contentious subject of guest characters - past, present and future.
Ed Boon revealed the best selling downloadable characters of the most recent game were Alien and Predator. It follows a trend started by Freddy Kreuger and Scorpion, who topped DLC sales in Mortal Kombat (2011) and Injustice: Gods Among Us respectively.
Mortal Kombat X featured the most downloadable characters of any NetherRealm Studios fighting game to date: eight in total. Four of those were guest fighters, meaning the combative Alien vs Predator mega-franchise trumped classic horror icons Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) and Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) in latest sales. That fact hasn't stopped Ed Boon being open to the idea of a dedicated horror fighting game [full story].
On the appeal of the crossover characters, Boon says, "There was a coolness and a novelty factor to seeing the mixing of the things." Supported by a history of monetized success, Boon noted of guest fighters in Injustice 2: "... I would be surprised if we didn't do any of that." Potential good news for those who enjoyed Scorpion in the first DC Comics fighter, and may be holding out hope Todd McFarlane's well documented interest in a Spawn crossover.
How does a character like Spawn make it to the roster of another company's fighting game? The tangled web of corporate licensing and intellectual property has the final say, but Boon broke down the basic process for GameInformer:
"Probably the biggest one is simply someone suggests someone," he says. "With Mortal Kombat, we stepped outside of the universe with characters like Freddy Krueger, Jason, Alien, Predator, and stuff like that, so the movie stuff kind of mixes things up. Fan feedback is another big one; just hearing some very loud, insistent people saying what they want. And what's available; obviously we can't just choose what we want to do, like 'we want Robocop so he's in the game!' You have to do something that can be accommodated as far the company. So there are a number of variables, including what the players have been asking for. We're always listening to feedback."
For every guest character that makes the cut, there are several that don't go beyond consideration. In the past, Boon has revealed several fights they almost started with: Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal), Marcus Fenix (Gears of War), Michael Meyers (Halloween), and characters from the Terminator franchise.
Comic book creator Todd McFarlane has also been notably interested in his independent creation Spawn crossing over with both Mortal Kombat X and Injustice. He has claimed to have Warner Brothers permission to use the character in the past, even though nothing came of it.
Mortal Kombat characters themselves are no strangers to being invading presences. Characters have been crossing over with klassic Midway arcade games since NBA Jam. Their in-house proliferation has continued with Kombatants in titles like The Grid, Injustice: Gods Among Us and WWE Immortals! Appearanes in Unreal Championship 2 and NFL Blitz made Raiden one or Mortal Kombat Online's Top 10 unlockable kombatants!
Since being acquired by Warner Brothers, the makers of Mortal Kombat have spent a lot of time thinking about other properties.
After developing the 2008 crossover Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe for Midway; the fighting game developer entered a new era of ownership, and a new decade with Mortal Kombat -- a game packaged with Kratos for PlayStation, and Freddy Kreuger as the first downloadable guest character.
The console exclusives may have ended with Sony's God of War mascot, but the proliferation of horror movie icons has continued. Freddy Kruger's nightmare appearance inveitably led to calls for Friday the 13th rival Jason Voorees. His Kombat Pack appearance opposite Predator - another recipe for the expected arrival of Alien in Kombat Pack 2. Whether or not obscure movie trivia connected the Xenomorph to Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface by accident, or by design -- the fourth guest in MKX was again a horror icon.
The perpetual fixation with horror movie monsters and slashers may be a tenuous link for the martial arts fighter, but the constant has inspired many calls for NetherRealm Studios to break-off their guests into a separate game for movie maniacs! GameInformer asked Ed Boon about the possibility during an interview at the ESL Season 3 Finals. The Creative Director was well armed to answer the question:
"Yes, yes! You know, as we've been accumulating them, that idea has been coming up more and more frequently," he says. "You brought it up and a few other people have brought it up like 'why don't you do a horror movie fighting game?' Maybe one day we'll do it."
While assembling a cast of horror cinema's darkest death dealers could pose a challenge, the modern era of the crossover has certainly opened up the realm of possibility more than ever before!
The biggest question: Who would make the cut in a movie maniacs fighting game? The bonus round: Which Mortal Kombat character is terrifying enough to turn the tables as a horror fighting game guest? Lets hope your answer is better than Casey Becker's!
