That came of harsher then intended, didnt mean to say you don't know anything.

I dunno, I gotta disagree with the idea that Sub-Zero is the mask, not the man. I mean, maybe it started out that way with Bi-Han, but after him we had only one other Sub-Zero for years, who has carried the name so much further, really defining Sub-Zero is something more than just another link in a chain. Let's look at some history here.

The first Sub-Zero we were introduced to was Bi-Han. In the original timeline he was abducted by his father, who was also a cryomancer, and brought to the Lin Kuei clan. It is possible that he inherited the code name Sub-Zero from his father, so at that point it was safe to say he was just another link in the chain. As far as he went, he was basically just a typical theif... he was egotistical, selfish, and pretty much just followed his orders. He didn't seem to care much about the morality of his mission, unless there was some serious risk involved, i.e his eternal soul. Maybe he had a few redeeming qualities, but overall he wasn't a great guy, and he wasn't really interesting until he became Noob and completely embodied the evil.

The second Sub-Zero, Kuai Liang, started out similar to Bi-Han, going into Outworld simply to finish his brother's mission. But he quickly proved that he was different. In MK3 he went on the run after refusing the cyber initiative; an act of defiance that would be completely out of character for Bi-Han and arguably most Lin Kuei members. But it didn't stop there; he went on to reform the Lin Kuei, transforming it into a benevolent clan and going out of his way to be a role model and earn respect from his clansmen. And it didn't end there; he continued to develop, learning the secrets of his ancestry and becoming one of the greatest heroes towards the end. He went from a basic assassin to an honorable, unique, dynamic hero. And mind you, this was all while he was known only as Sub-Zero (we didn't know his name back then).

I guess the point is, Kuai Liang made Sub-Zero more than just a name. He's not just another guy in a long line of guys doing the same thing; he just wears the same clothes. There have been games where he was given a non-ninja costume, and his fans still looked at him as Sub-Zero. Give him a different name and I'm sure his fans will still look at him as Sub-Zero. But tell the fans it's a different guy under the mask with a different story, and the fans will not see him as Sub-Zero.

What you guys fail to understand is, like someone else mentioned, there is nothing you can do about it. They already made a decision about who that Sub Zero is and it is not gonna change. Yes Kuai Liang was an awesome character. I think everybody here acknowledges that he was the character with the most amazing development in the game, but he died. Like his brother. They never killed him before so they must have had something in mind. And just like he replaced Bi-Han, they can twist things up and have a new guy replace him. You should be glad he doesn't have boobies and spikey hair made of ice

You know? I have to say I now understand how you Sub-Zero fans feel. If my favorite was replaced with some other than who I'm used too I would be upset too. I get it now....

Well, I am a big fan of Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond. So I guess I'm more willing to give this new Sub-Zero a chance.

But I acknowledge that it sucks what they did with Kuai Liang in the last game. Years of development, turning him from an assassin into one of Earthrealm's greatest heroes, all flushed down the drain.

Guys, some of you are treating Kuai like he's gone already. Boon said the EXACT same shit in MK9. He maintains Sub,-Zero is a mantle, but then it's Kuai.

We may see Kuai and who knows? Maybe Kuai's son. Which honestly I'm Fine with because I've always felt that is Kuai's endgame. Kuai discovered the CRYOMANCER heritage. He is also the only one who has reason to take the GRANDMASTER role from Sektor.

We may see a new Sub-Zero, but I wouldn't rule out Kuai either.

Ed said that to dodge answering the question. He knows that u will get raged if they went for "Lin Kuei has 100 Sub Zeroes" this way he is actually the most generic character in the roster.

My money is that this Sub is one of the two bros and that will be explained.

What if it's Frost after the surgery?

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say... I mean, I'm sure they've made their decision about that and everything else in the game. Does that make it pointless to speculate about the roster or new character ideas, or which characters could have had kids? I mean, it's not gonna change anything, but it always gives you interesting ideas to think about. But by your logic it just seems to me that you'd think all (or most) of the threads on this forum are pointless.

Yes, Kuai Linag died, but so has almost every other character in the franchise. I think it's conceivable that they did kill Sub-Zero, along with all those other characters without really thinking about how it would impact the story, and that if it would be a problem they could just write him back to life due to magic like they always do. Especially considering he's already been resurrected by Quan Chi. It's really just a matter of getting him out of the Netherrealm and out of Quan Chi's control.

And I liked Frost. Again, she's no Sub-Zero, not just because she's a woman, but also because she's a totally different character storywise. But I thought she was cool

Actually turning Liang to a cyborg was more shameful than killing him.

I actually went back to refresh my memory of some of the things that happened in Deception, and it does actually say that Sub-Zero believes both him AND Frost to be descendants of the cryomancer race. Somehow, this particular bit has completely slipped my mind. I thought that the origin of her powers was never explained, and her sharing the cryomancer lineage with Sub-Zero was just a likely explanation that was never actually confirmed in the story.

So I suppose I'll have to take back some of the things I said earlier. I still believe that bringing in people outside of the Sub-Zero bloodline cheapens the uniqueness of ice users, but now that it's been established, I suppose it's a viable option.

Although I do hope that they stress that the cryomancers apparently went extinct centuries ago, so there should really be very few of them left.


I love Batman Beyond. And even though I never actually read Batman, Inc., the premise of it sounds wonderful.

I like legacy characters.

The issue here, however, is that properly executed legacy characters don't overwrite their predecessor's achievements or write their entire history out of existence. The entire point of it is having actual LEGACY that can be passed on.

NT Kuai became a robot and died. He has nothing to pass on.


Certainly not to the current Lin Kuei.

If Sektor's arcade ending is canon, they are basically the Tekunin at this point.


Deception's Konquest takes place 50+ years before MK1. Vogel has already explained that the Sub-Zero who teaches Shujinko the Ice Ball is an ancestor of Bi-Han and Kuai.


Even if we pretend for a second that MKSM is not a non-canon mess of a story, I honestly don't remember seeing any ice users in there aside from Sub-Zero.

Perhaps you mean Armageddon Konquest? But even in that case, I don't recall the Lin Kuei using any actual ice powers. The slide doesn't really count because it was never exclusive to Sub-Zero.


There has never been an MK game without a Sub-Zero in it.

His mere presence by itself is nothing to be happy about.


Except they didn't.

He was still a cyborg. They just reprogrammed him to be able to override his programming and access his memory banks or some shit, which effectively gave him his soul back. That didn't change the fact that he was still a cyborg.

Hell, the exact same thing happens with CSZ in the same chapter he was introduced in.

Just to remind you, we've never actually seen the cyberization procedure reversed, and the games have never implied that such a thing is even possible. Smoke in MKD came the closest, but they've still made sure to consistently refer to him as a cyberdemon.

He died, yes. So did Jax, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Kung Lao and Kitana at the end of Deadly Alliance. They were back without a scratch (and they weren't just defeated, they were killed).

There are multiple ways to bring MK9 deceased characters back without needing a zombie version like Liu Kang or dark version like Raiden.

In Sub-Zero's case, with Quan Chi having history with his brother and Sareena maybe feeling sorry for him and wanting to help so he doesn't follow his brother's footsteps as Quan Chi's pawn, he has more chances than anyone else to be revived.

Honestly, I still believe there is more proof for this Sub-Zero to be Kuai Liang. The Cryomancer and Grandmaster styles alone support the theory of Kuai Liang reliving his original story.

Also recently in one of the E3 articles I read Ed Boon saying something about not pissing fans by taking something they really love from them, and I think there was enough rant about Cyber Sub-Zero and then the character death for the team to understand that there is a big group of fans that want the human form of Kuai Liang and not anyone else to be Sub-Zero. With that in mind I'd give the "sea of Sub-Zero's" thing the same credibility than the obvious fake sillouetes on the roster screen. He just wants to tease because when we finally see Kuai Liang after being tricked into thinking he might not return, we will be even happier.

Huh, I could have sworn they made him more so human but oh well. It was a stretch to throw out there just to see if anyone would be like "yeah they can do it that way!"

I figured they would just easily find a way to make it possible to de-cyborg-ise cyborgs and play it off that rather than just reprogramming them.

Exactly my point. Did Jax, Johhny, Sonya, Kung Lao and Kitana return for Deception? No.

Kitana returned (MK Unchained is Deception for PSP). They were found fighting for the bad guys on multiple endings and Liu Kang's spectre and Ermac helped with getting them to the good guys side again. At least 1 of them was playable, all of them were alive on the story and in the continuation of the story all of them were alive and playable without any scratch or mark.

And even if Kitana wouldn't have returned, the point is still there: characters have died before (Johnny Cage died twice, he did too on MK3, then he was sent by the elder gods to help in MKGold and he found out that his new body was permanent) and then have returned with no problem at all.

There is zero reason to not believe this is still Kuai Liang just because of the events of the previous games, and as I said, with connections with Quan Chi who could try to manipulate him and gift him with his body again so he can gain his trust to corrupt him, and Sareena who could help him avoiding Quan Chi's manipulation's so he isn't corrupted like his brother before, he has already connections to make a logical comeback. More than any MK9 deceased character.

Figured I'd go ahead and throw my two cents into the discussion. Subby is my favorite character as well, and I honestly don't much care for which one he is. It could be Kuai, Bi, or any of the other Sub-Zeros in the lineage. As long as there's a character with an ice ball, dressed in blue, and named Sub-Zero I'm good. Hell, I hated Cyber Sub-Zero with a passion. If he played differently, I probably wouldn't have cared.

That said, I love the whole bloodline. It's a uniqueness not known to any of the other characters. Granted it can get pretty confusing, haha.

IGN posted a tweet and in it is their site. It has the 6 confirmed characters and a little bit about them. However, only Scorpy, Subby and Cassie has the little bio. Nothing on D'Vorah, Kotal or Ferra/Torr.
Subby is infact Kuai Liang.

I'm going to have to agree with those who say " You are guaranteed to have your favorite character in every single MK game so chin up."

Not only that, but he's human this time. So really, Sub fans get a double dosage of what they want. There is never a doubt as to whether Sub will be in a game or not. I can't imagine how nice that luxury is.

I'm not saying Sub fans can't gripe about him, but sheesh be grateful. Be happy that your favorite character never misses a game. It just seems insensitive to be like "Oh fuck it might not be THIS Sub-Zero, but a different one!" When people have favorites that may not be in the next game.

Doesn't really read like a confirmation. The start of the bio even says "It is unconfirmed which Sub-Zero features in the game. Histories follow for both characters".

And the last part reads more like an assumption that it's Kuai Liang again, because he was the last known Sub-Zero.

There is still the possibility that it's a new Sub-Zero.

The "Oh fuck it might not be THIS Sub-Zero, but a different one!" used as an argument to make the fans shut up is... completly illogical.

Is Cassie Cage THE SAME CHARACTER than Sonya Blade? Or than Johnny Cage? Nope. Was Jarek THE SAME CHARACTER than Kano? Nope.

A random dude with a Sub-Zero mask could be anyone (it could even be me when I cosplayed as him). He is not the character, doesn't have his history or his personality.

A random dude with a water gun and a purple outfit calling himself Rain to honor the previous one and somehow being able to replicate his moves with the watergun is NOT Rain for example.

We want the character with the personality and chacater defining traits that we loved, this is what all these claims for Kuai Liang are about.

Seriously that argument is non-sense when it has been made crystal clear that this is about getting the character whose STORY we love in the game, same as the rest want the characters they love to see more of their story.

I couldn't care less about a random dude thinking he's cool because he got Kuai Liang's clothes.

Again, I'm really not too worried because I think there are very big chances that this is Kuai Liang indeed, but that argument of "hey it's the character that you wanted even if it's just some random person that for what we know could be the exact opposite of everything Kuai Liang represented as a person" doesn't make any sense.

You just don't get it. It's not a matter of if they were playable. Sub Zero is already playable, that wasn't what we were discussing! It's a matter of STORY. Storywise they were dead. As is Sub Zero. And he is back. I know that. I know that characters can be brought back. What the discussion was about, was WHO this Sub Zero is. And if they decided to kill a major character like Kuai, you can deff expect some changes in the next game. Exactly like what happened with all those characters in MKDA you listed.

I don't get it, does it bother you that some hardcore Sub-Zero fans want it to be YSZ, because we grew up and loved the character development. Is it an issue for you that maybe its just something we care about? I just understand you reason behind constantly arguing against something the vast majority of SZ fans care about, i guess you're just bored or something. And please dont give me that "be happy a SZ is in" crap, yes its not enough as loyal fans of character who has been probably the best fleshed out character of all we have a right to want him back. end of story

Wrong. It says right here that "(It is unconfirmed which Sub-Zero features in the game. Histories follow for both characters)."

That is more to illustrate that no matter what Sub will be in the game. No ifs ands or buts. He WILL be in every MK game. Can we say the same for any other character besides Sub and Scorp? No. It sure must be great knowing that your fav character will always be in the game in some shape or form.

Sub has got the best treatment of any MK character period. So forgive me if I have a hard time sympathizing with Sub fans when my fav character might not even be in the game. When a bunch of people's fav characters might not be in the game.

I don't get the logic of your argument.

Those 5 characters died (in fact it was almost like MK9, most of the heroes dying in the same battle).

Next game they were already alive and 1 of them was playable.

That's what happened and they killed 5 major characters at the same time just to make them return.

I don't get the logic on your argument about how this can't happen again...

You said "expect some changes in the next game. Exactly like what happened with all those characters in MKDA you listed". But what happened with all those characters that I listed is that in the next game story they were all already alive and unscratched and one of them was playable. So if your argument is that the exact is expected to happen, then you're supporting that they will all return with that argument because that's exactly what happened.