You're welcome. At least somebody around here doesn't need their eyes checked.

I saw that new render of sindel on Twitter this morning and instantly thought how much it looks like silouhette number 2 on the kp2 tease. I don't know if she will be in KP2 though I can't really believe that NRS would put her and Baraka in it if that's who silouhette 1 and 2 are. Both are very dull, boring and unpopular characters and that's not only my opinion but the majority hence why they were both bottom 5 characters in the last game and have made very few appearances in previous games.

I think it would be pretty silly of NRS to make fans wait over 6 months for two dlc characters that already feature as NPCs and that nobody really wants. Given the time delay on this newest dlc pack they are going to need big popular names to draw in the sales I know that I won't be handing over money for crappy old sindel and Baraka and I am sure many others feel the same too.

Maybe sindels appearance is a hint to her being in kp2 maybe it isn't I guess only time will tell

It's a diversion so people won't guess Ashrah!!! *still promotes my bullshit ideas*

Except that People do want Baraka & Sindel.

You could argue that Sindel is unpopular, but Baraka? Baraka is not an unpopular character, lol. Casuals fucking love Baraka. He is an MK2 debut and is iconic to the franchise.

Sindel, meanwhile, is the most popular female character in fanart, cosplay, etc apart from Sonya and the Kitana/Mileena/Jade/Tanya quartet. All those characters are already in the game except for Jade, who has been folded into Kitana. She was the face of MK3! I know a lot of people here are younger, but for people in their late 20s and 30s who played MK3 in the arcades Sindel's picture on the side of it is the image that pops into your head when you think MK3. That was the arcade cabinet.

If there's a female in KP2 and they want the most popular they can get, Sindel is the obvious choice. The only trilogy females left are Jade as aforementioned and Sheeva who has never been popular (and who would play just like Goro, already in-game). Frost is up there as well, arguably, but she was and continues to be very divisive as a "clone" of Sub-Zero. There's a reason she didn't return in Deception. With them already struggling to give Sub three viable variations, I just don't see it for Frost this time.

There are any number of reasons Baraka and Sindel were underused in MK9 apart from character prominence or popularity. They did not have Story Mode chapters, so a lot of people got a feel for other characters first. They were also shit-tier characters! I say this as a Sindel main in MK9, because I'm a character loyalist and I suffered through her gimped scream (way weaker than in U/MK3/T and Deception) and lousy combos.

If you go to Twitter right now and search 'Sindel', the overwhelming majority of tweets -- hundreds upon hundreds -- are casuals excited by the fact that she was the Invasion Boss and asking Boon to put her in KP2. Which, I'm sure, is exactly why they made her the Invasion Boss in the first place.

Look I am not that anti sindel and I must admit I was a bit excited to see her as the invasion boss last night too mainly cause it was something new. I think she will be in KP2 because equity and diversity is everywhere these days and no matter how much better male fighters in these games are we still need females represented which is unfortunate but it's the way the world is. And given all the popular/good female characters are already in the game (except jade who is gone for reasons unexplained) I think sindel is a sure thing it is to late and would be to risky for sales to go with a lei mie, frost, sareena or one of the lesser known females so I think sindel is as good as in.

I disagree with your thoughts on Baraka I don't think he is that iconic or that popular with the casuals he may have been initially way back when MK2 came out but even then he pales in popularity or recognisability to the ninjas or cyborg ninjas. I really hope it isn't him in that first silouhette (There are some undeniable similarities to Baraka but the silouhette is also a very close match for fujin and sub zero)

If the KP2 is Baraka, sindel, Bo rai cho and another then it is quite dissapointing to me. Baraka and sindel are already in as NPCs so getting them as playable a a year after the game was released would be really shitty by NRS. And as for Bo rai cho I would struggle to be less interested in another character he was a lame gimmicky characters when he was introduced and if they take away his gimmick of being a drunken oaf then he is just a lame character with no gimmick.

Certainly a cyborg would sell better than Baraka, probably, but Baraka will sell very well and they already have him semi-completed, whereas a cyborg would have to be built from scratch. (Note that the NPCs really are only semi-completed -- they need a ton more moves, variations, fatalities, x-rays, dialogues, all stuff that takes a long time. A few months to mocap the x-rays and fatalities alone is really not that unreasonable.)

Apart from Cyrax and Sektor, though, I think for the casual audience the MK2 debut cast will always take precedence over the MK3 debut cast. Sindel, Nightwolf, and Kabal are reasonably popular, but not anywhere near as popular or pop culture recognizable as Kitana, Mileena, Jax, Baraka, and Reptile.

The iconic core cast of the MK franchise is the MK1-MK2 cast: Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Sonya Blade, Kano, Kitana, Mileena, Reptile, Baraka, Jax, Shang Tsung, Smoke, Jade, Noob Saibot, Goro, and Shao Kahn.

Cyrax and Sektor alone are arguably added to that core group from MK3. From the updates (UMK3, Trilogy) you can add Ermac and Rain.

Next tier down is Sindel, Kabal, Nightwolf, and Quan Chi (the only MK4 char to really make an iconic impact). Kenshi and Tanya have maybe joined the core group now at this point, but it's too early to tell.

Sheeva and Stryker are the lone trilogy era also-rans, the poor things. They only turn up in compilation games like Trilogy, Armageddon, and MK9.

Everyone else, though? Is not even in the conversation by comparison.

Note that when Boon and Vogel felt the Deadly Alliance cast didn't have "the nostalgia factor", and they wanted to bring some of that back for Deception, they immediately defaulted to a mix of MK2 and MK3 characters -- Baraka, Mileena, Jade, Sindel, Kabal, Nightwolf. Tanya from MK4, the most popular there after Quan Chi, rounded out the set. These are the characters people recognize.

I agree with who you say is most recognisable definitely the cast of Mk1-2 with a few extras from the trilogy but I think the core of MK will always be characters from 1 and 2 and that's fine with me because they were the two best MK games in my opinion from the old games (except MK trilogy which was my fav but can't really count as it was a compilation game with playable bosses so no contest there!)

I just really hope I see either noob or smoke in KP2 to leave those two out of this game has been criminal in my opinion. As long time fans of both characters it was so good to see both of them fleshed out in the last MK game with good unique moves and stories only to have them almost completely disappear in MKX (completely disappear in noobs case) has been very sad for me.

I just don't see the point in putti Baraka in as late dlc given the fact that he isn't that popular of a character and there are many more deserving characters in front of him and the fact he died in MKX makes it even more pointless to me. Any character released now for dlc should be in MK11 and there inclusion as dlc should be used as a bit of teaser/appetiser for the return in MK11 sort of like what they did with Kenshi in the last game. Putting in a dead character like Baraka seems pointless to me. He had his last hoorah in Mk9 with Stryker, Nightwolf, sheeva and many others.

Yeah, but he's way more popular than those other three.

I think the teaser/appetizer DLC character in this game a la Kenshi was Tanya, who will probably return. I hope so, at any rate.

Smoke or Noob would undoubtedly be a smarter choice monetarily, sure. But Smoke is a Faction Kill, which makes me think it's not happening, and based on character intros and whatnot they clearly have some kind of plan for Noob/Bi-Han that isn't going to happen in this installment.

Again, with regard to Baraka the fact that the model already exists and is rigged for play makes it more cost-effective to release him than anyone else.

Yeah you're right about smoke if he was included you could potentially have smoke fighting smoke with a smoke assist modifier and then faction kill smoke with smoke!!!!! That's too much smoke so I doubt he will make it which sucks cause it was so good to see him as a stand alone human character With actual unique moves for the first time in MK9 and his popularity in that game was absolutely incredible!

Noob is possible but probably more likely to be held over for next game with Shang tsung which is unfortunate.

So I think KP2 will be Baraka, sindel, fujin and Bo rai cho. Which will not attract my money so I will just continue to enjoy th game for a bit loner as it currently is.

You might be right about tanya too I don't think her treachery is over and I can definitely see her taking up the fight for outworld in the next game. Possibly aligning with kitana or a returned Shang tsung!

Someone needs t'rip and make a nice transparent .png version of that render. It's gorgeous.


I saw some footage of the fight against Sindel. I don't own the game and have never played any one player portions so I was surprised... super armor and cheap tactics out the ass... are these Faction Bosses even supposed to be beatable?

Except for the fact that he died in game. Do you think Mileena and Quan Chi should have been excluded because they died in game too? On that same topic, should Smoke, Noob Saibot, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Kitana, Jax, Jade, Kabal, Stryker, Sub-Zero, Nightwolf and Sindel have been excluded from MK9 because they died in game too?

As previously mentioned, NRS probably had a strategy involved with the DLC. KP1 had two guests which they knew were going to sell well, so for monetary sake and maybe because they actually like the characters they included them. Tanya and Tremor were both controversial decisions but I think that coupled with fan demand helped drive sales too, not to mention, NRS does actually have fondness for their creations (with the couple obvious exceptions) and maybe, just maybe they included those characters, not just because of fan demand, but because they too actually wanted those characters in game.

KP2 feels similar, but now, they have no need to shoehorn guests in because they've already made bank with KP1. A couple of characters that already had some work done on them which now they're endeavouring to finish. One other character has the highest fan demand since MKX was released and a character I imagine they've struggled to have decent ideas for so have probably shelved numerous times. Fan demand in this instance has perhaps inspired them to finally bring this character out (in case it isn't obvious I'm talking about Fujin).

Lastly, Bo' Rai Cho is a character who almost nobody expected. This is the curveball (ala Tremor, Batgirl and maybe Skarlet) that people wrote off because they didn't think anybody at NRS cared about these characters (I use that term loosely in regards to Skarlet and Tremor).

Basically I'm trying to say that the devs and creators at NRS are fans of the game, the lore, the characters and the universe too, they're not always doing things based on the demands of punters or sales forecasts, sometimes they're putting in the things that they want to, because they want to and fans (us) need to respect that.

They're a teamwork thing. Your whole faction fights them together, and you chip away at the same health bar in multiple attempts.

Difference with Baraka dying in game as opposed to mileena and Quan chi is that he is useless jobber and his death was meaningless just a way to wipe him out of future games and establish Dvorah a bit more. He had no impact in the story what so ever and was completely replaceable with almost any character unlike mileena and Quan chi who were much more integral to the story and much more important.

Also you can't compare what I said to the last game that was the almost all the earth heroes wiped out in a single battle it was ridiculous.

My point still stands Barakas inclusion as a dlc character is pointless and a massive waste even rain would be a better addition.

She's actually one of the easiest imo because once her armor is off and you're far enough away to avoid her annoying overhead kicks all she can do is rely on fireballs.

Which a Mileena player can use to their advantage.

The 2nd silhouette is very obvious now, with that photo. It could definitely be a tease. If Sindel is in, you can bet the silhouettes are true and we will be getting Baraka, Fujin & Bo Rai Cho as well :D

Queen Sindel will reign and all people who refuses her crucial existence part in Mk will be shocked by Queen's anger !!!

That only leaves Rain although I bet they would have plans for him too.

And think about this if its really Baraka, Sindel, Fujin & Bo Rai'Cho for KP2 that's a character from MK2, MK3, MK4, MK5.

Rain will definitely be released as free down the line if that really is the case. I don't see why they'd release every other major story mode NPC and not him when he's sporting a hot new look like the rest of them.


So that would leave Li Mei as the only major new and improved story mode character to not make it. Fingers crossed she does.

Fuck Li Mei.

I love Li Mei's MKX redesign but at this point I think she's a no-go. They haven't even teased her once. She hasn't been mentioned by any NRS staffer at all for the entire run of the game.

If they honestly release the NPC characters as this big hyped up 2016 surprise, I will personally be pissed. They will make themselves look pretty stupid as well.

Do no get me wrong, Sindel & Rain are two of my MOST wanted BUT they are ALREADY IN THE GAME. These should be released in addition to what we are getting.

SURPRISE, we waited until next year to reveal we are giving you on-disc content!!!!

It's not on-disc content. They are not complete by any stretch. They're half-done. They need more moves, variations, x-rays, fatalities, intros, all of which take months to mocap and animate and complete.

Anyway, Baraka, Sindel, and two entirely new characters would be fine IMO. Nobody's mad about Tanya now that it's clear just how unfinished she was as an NPC.

I don't mind it as I wanted the major story mode characters playable- the game won't truly feel complete to me until they are. Especially Fujin.

Baraka, Sindel, Fujin, and Bo would be a solid enough pack for me. Especially the latter two- with the additions of Bo and Fujin we'd have six 3D era characters which is pretty good.

This roster may finally start looking halfway decent. Thank the high almighty for DLC.