With this month's release of The Terminator: Mortal Kombat 11 is now halfway through its Kombat Pack DLC expansion. The sixth and final character will arrive March next year, but in an interview at the Brasil Game Show, Ed Boon has suggested there may still be a big surprise to come in 2020! Read on for details:
Asked via translator if there was any news he could share about new or future Mortal Kombat projects, Boon answered with a reserved and slightly cryptic "yes and no".
The Creative Director went on to allude to Mortal Kombat 11 being viewed as an end to the Mortal Kombat story, with more characters still coming to the game, and a "big surprise" in 2020. The Sao Paolo interview clip can be watched in the embedded video above.
The story of Mortal Kombat, we're pretty much calling this one the end of the story, but we're certainly not through with Mortal Kombat. You know, there's more characters that are going to come, and we have a big surprise coming next year for Mortal Kombat.
The MK11 Kombat Pack is scheduled to release Sindel in November, with comic book guest characters The Joker and Spawn bringing it to conclusion next year. The final download release is forecast as late as March.
Data-mining of the game revealed the possibility for additional characters still to be revealed for subsequent release. Listings for undetermined "Environments" and "Story" were also noted in the examined files. Data-mining and "Kombat Pack 2" have since been playfully referenced in-game via Terminator's victory sequence. Ed Boon previously confirmed the leak of the main roster in an interview with Gameinformer, but plans for additional characters remain unverified.
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It's unclear if Boon's interview has simply ruled out the possibility of additional DLC chapters for Story Mode, or if Mortal Kombat 11's time-bending plotline will indeed serve as an end to the saga.
MK11's story closed with the defeat of Kronika and the rise of Liu Kang as a god who will oversee the creation of a new timeline. It presents an ambiguously open-ended future for the series, similiar to 2006's Armageddon, with the prospect of another cyclical reboot similar in circumstance to 2011's Mortal Kombat, which served as a slightly altered retelling of the original three games.
Avenues for speculation about the series' future span the mundane to the radical, with some fans choosing to put their hopes in remastered re-releases of past games. The schedule of the last decade has conditioned fans to expect an Injustice sequel around the corner, but a big surprise involving Mortal Kombat might spell something different. Rumors of animation and comic book projects continue to linger without result.
Big things are certainly on the horizon for the Mortal Kombat franchise as a whole. Filming in Australia will continue next year for a theatrical reboot release coming in 2021. What do you think the future holds? Dive into the comments below to share your thoughts and find more speculation for what's next in the Future Mortal Kombat forum!