I think it would be stupid to leave us with such a cliffhanger ending in MK9, then just go in a completely different direction with a prequel.

Yeah like the way they handled MKArmageddon was any better

I don't know how the folks at NRS are going to unfuck what they so royally fucked. So they're probably going to see MK4's remake through.

I would love nothing more than to see a prequel of some kind in the near future even if NRS hires a new team to do so while they keep screwing around with their comic book games.

In the direction of where the latest game ended, it would be more foolish to work backwards, making it a prequel, rather than allowing us to see what happens next with majority of the cast turned into zombies, the fates of those left untouched, and what the evil is planning on doing.

Armageddon was nothing more but a lame gimmick of adding features that will most likely never resurface in future game for the series as well as finding a way to end a generation with lack-buster entertainment. There's always learning from mistakes, and what Mortal Kombat 2011 showed is that they somewhat did.

a prequel at some point might be good, but not now. NRS really need to finish the story situation from MK9 first, i think.

Yeah. There's no good reason in hell to start walking backwards once more. Especially at the moment. Maybe in 10 years? If they get stuck who knows, but now? That would be stupid not to push forward in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE a prequel. Just not right now.

I don't mind going into the MK4 territory. Fujin is my favorite character, while Reiko and Shinnok are among my favorite villains, so yeah I'd love to see them.

A game, maybe SM style, with the Great Kung Lao in the lead role would be okay sometime in the future too. Since Fujin is a god and Kitana is 10 000 years old there's no reason why both of my favorite characters wouldn't show up. :p

Nobody ever ends a story with a teaser unless that's what they're actually going to do in the sequel. That's just plain how it works.

That said, they could always have the next MK game not even be a fighting game, like after Injustice, they make another Shaolin Monks-style beat 'em up, and THAT game's plot picks up from the end of MK9.
Or, and this is what I would prefer, they could get a second team at their studio and make fighting games and platformers at the same time, with one following one story and one telling a completely different story, perhaps prequels or side-stories, or perhaps the two lines of games could be not even set in the same timeline. Like one set of games could be set in the Rebootverse and another set of games could be set in the old MK universe, or in some parallel "What If?" dimension where the characters are even more rebooted and different like if Rebirth or Legacy were made into games, or if Vincent Proce's concept art and pitch had been greenlit. Like how Lego Batman, the Arkham series, and Injustice all exist at the same time but none of them are set in the same world.
Personally, I've always wanted to see a canon-accurate depiction of the original MK1 thru 3 as, like, an action-RPG of some kind where the characters you play as constantly shift to follow the narrative instead of just being one guy the whole game. The 1-on-1 tournament matches might not seem like a natural fit for that style of gameplay, but it would work if the engine is dynamic enough, and once you get into shit like everybody having behind the scenes meetings and missions during 2, and then especially the Invasion, there's a lot more situations where the characters should be fighting together as a team or "party", and it makes sense for the characters to "level up" and learn new moves as they go because in the original games, that's exactly what they did, they gained new specials and Fatalities in 2 and 3 that they didn't have in 1.

Well I can't say I'm looking forward to MK10 then...

Even tho MK4 was one of my favorites... I'm just scared to see it ruined by another one of their reinvisionings

I'd rather have a sequel to MK 9 than a prequel, MK 9 was left on such a cliffhanger the story needs to be continued.

Since MK is part of WB now, couldn't they try to a comic book series explaining the origins perhaps in DC or Vertigo or Wildstorm? Go into one-shots of various characters? Perhaps since both Marvel and DC do it, a gender reversed universe of Mortal Kombat? You know a female Sub-Zero and Scorpion? I always wanted to see that.

The origins to me, could do better in comics. I just want to play MK 10 so badly after the cliffhanger in MK 9's Story Mode.

The last thing MK needs a is another prequel.

The series needs to continue with the new timeline in order for to surpass the events of Armageddon and establish the new timeline as the official state of the story.

The only way that I could see a "prequel" sort of thing work is if it only occurred through the storyline.

In other words, we start in the present, at the end of MK9, then go back to the distant past, perhaps when Shinnok first falls from the rest of the Elder Gods, why it happens, how etc and you actually get to play as him in the first chapter.

Then maybe it fast forwards to him striking a deal with Quan Chi and you take over from Quan Chi's perspective. Both of these scenarios would be to present the player with information that was necessary for the current time period.

The problem with both scenarios is that you have to have people that are currently in the game for them to fight. So basically, this would be brief, it would be largely story driven and not fight driven.

Basically, it'd be prologue.

I could see something like that working. But for the whole of the next story, I'd be shocked if they didn't go forward with the current story as is. In that sense, you have to stop thinking of this as "MK4." It's not. We don't know which characters will be in, which won't, who's dead, who's been altered by the timeline, and what will happen given the new timeline.

For all we know, this story could involve Shinnok, the emergence and destruction of the deadly alliance and the reemergence of the Dragon King.

Or it could involve Shinnok alone and go in a completely different direction. Honestly, if they're going to reboot the timeline of their own series, I'd be absolutely floored if they just ran through what's already happened in the 3D MK's, slightly changing things here and there like "Jarek never fought in MK4 because Mavado killed him because herp derp timeline derp."

I think that Ed Boon will want to really change things up. New hardware coming out... Something tells me that they'll really try to go big on the next game. New storyline, better new characters than we've seen in the past, possibly even a new fighting engine. Who knows.

Unless we went so far in that direction that every game from here on was a prequel. Then there'd be a certain charm to it.

I vote sequel but I rather the sequel be a MK:SM style adventure game for two reasons. One reason is because I want the current gen consoles to have a MK adventure game, which will faithfully be a good game. Another and more important reason is because of the event that we believe is going to take place after MK9, which is an invasion/war between faction A and faction B.

A LITTLE OFF SUBJECT BELOW
Im not saying that NRS cant pull it off by making the next MK story progressor a fighter. I just feel it would be better for it to be an adventure game. Looking at MK1&2, perfect scenario for a fighter game especially MK1. MK3 was an all out war not a tournament. I myselft want to adventure around in story plots like in MK3.

That said, I hope for an adventure sequel that will end all of this 'war' madness so that the next fighter installment after that will be a pure MK tournament. That's what I love about MK1.

But...MK9 did a terrible job of depicting tournaments.

Shang made up the friggin' bracket in his head as he went along, gave his guys byes to skip rounds, and booked 2-on-1 matches repeatedly without Raiden ever going "hey, stop cheating", which is his entire fucking reason for being there.

The very first guy in the tournament fought two matches in a row. Scorpion eliminated Sektor and Cyrax but Cyrax got to fight again and eliminate Johnny. When we get to the point where Shang says "everyone's been eliminated except Liu Kang", guess what? We haven't actually seen Sonya ever be eliminated!
And most of the second tournament happened off-screen while the good guys were running around rescuing Sonya, Smoke, and Kitana.
Why would you want more of that? I'd say the less structured and scheduled something is supposed to be, the better NRS's "4 fights in a row" character chapters format is for depicting it.

@RE701 lol good points especially with sonya's elimination and the 2 on 1s. WTF was NRS thinking. But most of this could have been avoided if they would have frickin threw in non playable AI with some of the characters fighting styles.

Instead of revealing the hidden Reptile WAY TOO EARLY, why not let us fight some random NPC with reptile's movesets and limited special moves or no specials at all like they did in the challenge tower? Thats not so hard is it?

Reptile and baraka are not my favs but I didnt like how they were used as punching bags over and over again when you had so many guys who were just.......there

I'm actually looking forward to seeing this future game. I mean if they're going to retell the fourth story in a new way, I'm for it.

If they want to bind in together more stories, let it be.

I would say it's not so much a prequel or re-make of MK4...but it would be an alternate timeline, i.e. Abrams vision of Star Trek. That's how I look at it right now anyway. Having said that, I want a continuation of this timeline...I don't want to see us going back AGAIN.

Well Abrams' Star Trek didn't end with Ricardo Montalbon popping up at the end and going "Kirk...I'm going to fight you and quote Moby Dick again! New Star Trek 2 will have the same badguy as Old Star Trek 2!"
MK9's last scene, on the other hand, was all like "Hey remember what came after MK3? We're still doin' that!"

I am sure that Raiden is not the only character that is seeing "hot flashes" from the past. I'm pretty sure Shinnock is also hip on what's going on in the new timeline, which makes things kind of interesting because he can easily turn Lui Kang into his pawn against Raiden.

I espect the same old MK4 war but with different results; anything that will dodge a repeat of frickin MK:A...

I must be interpreting the OP's idea of a sequel differently...

Everyone thinks a sequel implies restarting the story over again and creating a third alternative timeline to MK...

How about just a sequel that tells a story that we've only read through bios/endins/konquest mode, but would not contradict what we already know?

Just a chance to introduce new characters, new arenas, new situations that don't conflict with the already established canon? This would avoid redoing the same bullshit like Scorpion hunts Quan Chi, Reptile and Baraka are punching bags, Sonya chasing Kano, etc. etc. It could bring about new rivalries, conflicts, etc. etc. that don't touch the back stories to MK1 - MKA

... is that asking a lot? I don't think it is.........

It can be another experiment. Kind of like Tetryarch's spin-off games from the main Call of Duty series.

EXACTLY

You. Read. My. Mind.