Electronics giant Sony are in the throes of celebrating the 20th anniversary of the PlayStation Experience - and they're holding an event of the same name to mark the occasion! Mortal Kombat X is adding some sizzle to sin city this winter, with the demo build on the Las Vegas floor at PSX. Joining it is Executive Producer Shaun Himmerick, who spoke to GameInformer about the game.
With no new content reveals scheduled for the event, fresh details are becoming scarce, but the producer assures production is "coming along well". The 2015 fighter is in testing phase - Himmerick citing an army of around 300 testers spread across the games' many functions and modes! That's with 150 people at NetherRealm Studios -- including a quoted 30 temporary staff, and 15 outsourcing companies -- working diligently to create high quality material for cutting edge hardware. "I think it's been harder on art than anything because look at the number of polygons used to create any character and it could have been done in a couple of weeks. Now it's like a six week process."
The more things the change, the more some things stay the same. Despite a massive increase in visual fidelity of character models and the strains that places on creation - the art of creating fatalities is still the domain of series co-creator Ed Boon and his famed stick figures. "Yup. He is. He gets really fancy now. They used to be on paper, but now he's using his tablet. He can drag his stick figure characters around and reposition them."
On meatier issues; GameInformer attacked the longstanding mystery of the game's plot, where some of the juiciest material came from:
[Game Informer]: How are you going to explain the game taking place in the future in story mode?
At the beginning of the game we do one of those 'Hey, remember what happened and then jump to the future" kind of moments. A lot of people die. I always joke that I think one of the reasons Ed wanted to do Quan Chi is because he's the guy from Hell who can resurrect people, but they are not always the same. Quan Chi obviously lets us do that. The nice thing: We have a whole new generation of people to play with, not just the one age. We can kind of have different tiers from different ages.
The importance of Quan Chi was revealed back in October, with a trailer (appropriately) narrated by Himmerick, and debuted at another PlayStation event. All signs point toward the necromancer's involvement in bringing back cast favorites who didn't make it out of Mortal Kombat (2011) -- or those who meet ill ends during the 25 year timeline of Mortal Kombat X. Leading the charge for these speculative returns - the as yet unidentified Sub-Zero of the announce trailer.
Himmerick also notes, "Quan Chi probably gives away some hints for the story stuff, like where are we, and what's going on." This seems to support theories the new timeline of MKX will touch upon the events of Mortal Kombat 4, potentially twisting them in new ways. The identity of a skull fixed to Quan Chi's chest raises questions about his loyalties to master Shinnok.
[Related Article: Reintroducing Quan Chi - Official Mortal Kombat X Render]
Read the full PlayStation Experience interview for more on GameInformer.com. Stay tuned for more from NetherRealm Studios in December, including another live streaming preview via Twitch. Register to join the speculation and anticipation on the Mortal Kombat X forum!