People are going to be upset if their favourites are gone either way, in fact, after MK9, many fans had the time to accept the untimely demise of many of their beloved characters, but NRS decided to bring back Kitana and Kung Lao ( popularity), and now we're back at the point where every MK9 character is a possibility, getting old or "transitioning" wont make any difference, there're already fans discussing how their favourites could stay young forever so they wont have to let go.

lets hope Liu, Sonya, Jax, and Johnny AREN"T included(unless Liu Kang turns evil) and get swapped with Reiko, Havik, Fujin, and Kenshi.

Tbh with Sonya, Johnny, and Jax that is SEVEN members playable of just one faction.

Kind of overkill.

I don't wanna believe it's real because of no cyborgs BUT it says Kung Jin is the "Bow Guy" even before anyone knew he had a bow, as far as I remember they hadn't mentioned that in the comics, also Kenshi and Ermac in the same game again seems kinda overkill but I've been saying this since MKD lol
On the other hand I really want Erron Black to be playable but I guess he's pretty much confirmed
also I hope Liu Kang is evil and not a zombie or a dumb gimmick

Hoping for any cyborg as DLC I guess?

Loving your signature. Gives me good memories of the PS2 era of MK games!

Anyone from Outworld or Edenia has slowed aging, but dead characters who are not yet revived like Kabal, Stryker, Nightwolf, and Smoke could stay young as a result of being revived.

Of course there's always other magic/time travel stuff that could happen. But I doubt that'll be needed. They'll never sell a MK game with an entirely new generation of fighters and they'll always have to cycle in some of the older characters each game, if they died or not.

This. Liu Kang for example may become immortal/stops aging because of being a Mortal Kombat winner, but other human characters like Johnny Cage would be brought back eventually with popularity and gameplay in mind first, even if that means that they'd have to make up a BS excuse like "Raiden went back in time and brought MK1 Johnny Cage to present time to defend Erathrealm" or something like that.

I always thought Raiden's champions never aged.

Nightwolf's MK9 bio mentioned that his spirit world connection has granted him unnatural long life, but I agree that being freed at the end could allow the other fallen Earth heroes like Stryker, Kabal, and Smoke to return in MK11/12/etc.

Actually, maybe that's the reason the U/MK3 characters got whacked and haven't been rezzed yet...

I think it's because Stryker and Sheeva are unpopular. MK3 is where the series first introduced crappy characters and based on usage in MK9, Stryker and Sheeva are still unpopular.

MK4 gave us Jarek who was nothing more than a clone of Kano and Kai who was more than a little similar to Liu Kang.

MKDA brought Drahmin who had no personality, Moloch who was an annoying trial and error boss and Hsu Hao who was more than a little bit of a gay stereotype. Then there was Mokap who just didn't fit the game at all.

MKD was responsible for Kira who was the second fighter to be a clone of Kano, Shujinko who was unsympathetic, dumb as a goldfish and offered nothing but stolen moves and Kobra who was nothing more than a rip-off of Ken from Street Fighter.

MKA introduced Taven who was boring but he was one of only two new fighters.

The MK1 and MKII rosters were the best the series ever had since neither game had any fighter worthy of contempt. At the time, Boon and company were batting 1.00.

I don't think looking like a Village People reject was Hsu Hao's problem

Stryker and Sheeva definitely had more fans than most of the post MK3 characters. Sheeva also didn't die and Stryker also died next to some of the most popular fighters in MK9.

I'm also gonna be one of those guys who says "Gamefaqs? really guys?". I've been to a few of these fighting game leak rodeos in my day and some random dude dropping the info on Gamefaqs is new to me.

Wy would sonya and Johny be included ?.
I think they have a big part in the story but are not playable.

Wut? I've never heard of characters not aging because they are from/in the Netherream. Also, the only one who is granted immortality is the champion of Mortal Kombat, until the next tournament. Nightwolf, Edenians and some species of Outworlders are the exception. My point wasn't about dead popular character should stay dead, that's almost impossible, it's the excuses to make the comeback. Characters staying young for some BS reason because fans need to have them playable in every tittle, despite time clearly passing, It's fucking atrocious writing. Why not better...uh idk, not driving themselves into a corner by avoid making massive time skips between games?

Here's my realistic, un-bitchy problem with this 'supposed' roster; That is a pretty lackluster final roster and to my eyes not every base is covered. If what NRS said was true, and they filled the roster based mostly on story needs, then based on what we already know of the story, I call BS and here's why;

- Not going to mention bloodlines but as an overall faction, there's too many Special Forces characters, 8 is way too many. If you have 4 SF kids, 2 adults would've been just fine. 8 is just overkill.

- There are other characters apart from Johnny and Sonya we know for a fact are involved around the time of the Netherrealm War; Fujin and Kenshi being two prime examples.

- Not enough evil villains; So Mileena is seemingly one of the focal points of bad guys yet none of her henchman are playable while Kotal Kahn has 5 that are possibly all neutral-ish and morally grey? How does that make any sense what-so-ever?

Just realistically speaking, if we're only going by story terms here, Mileena needs her back-up. I mean, what? Are we ONLY going to fight Mileena in story mode whenever her "army" is involved in the story and literally NONE of her lackies? No Reiko? No Rain? No Baraka? Sonya, Johnny or Jax could've easily been in the story mode and just sidelined to DLC to fulfill that "Klassic Kharacter" promise to fill that gap for Mileena's crew. There is just simply not enough diversity in this roster between the good, neutral and evil spectrum and seeing as the Outworld Civil War is a MAJOR component of the story mode, the roster is incredibly one sided when it comes to who all is involved.

You're absolutely right, I'm starting to have my doubts about how much the game storymode will cover the Outworld civil war, it's possible it will be just a couple of chapters around the period the main characters will be in Outworld and directly involved in the conflict.

I't might be no coincidence none of the Outworld groups are included in the faction feature and we're getting so much exposition about them through the comics, but even so Mileena and Kano as sole representatives of their factions while we have 8 SF characters seems grossly uneven.