1) They still haven''t revealed the full roster officially yet, so any complains are still based on mere speculation, they simply will ignore it.

2) If the roster leak is legit then it's done, there's nothing they can do about it. It's finished, even the DLC.

So all in all its pretty pointless, the only way people can truly show their discontent is by not buying the game and we both know that's not going to happen.

I know. It'll be weird not seeing him because he was in MK9, MK vs DC etc...

He's a lot more interesting to me than Johnny Cage and Sonia. I'm hoping for Reiko too!

You guys don't know the direction that the story is headed. You have some general idea given to you by the comics and that pretty uneventful Story Trailer, but it's not enough to support these wild assumptions that the roster is narratively faulty/uneven/too many this, too much that, too little everything...

It seems a few people have already touched on this very important point: "Good Vs. Evil" makes for an uninspired story, no matter how gimmicky or action-oriented it is. Most MK fans at this point can safely be assumed to not be children looking for a Saturday morning cartoon. Especially nowadays, we realize that a strong narrative comes from gray areas, blurred lines; conflicting causes and morals and goals, not necessarily "I'm bad, you're good, let's kill each other!"

I get the feeling that this is precisely the direction that MKX is headed, the notion that it is trying to explore. The Story seems to be, not surprisingly, a war of Factions; not necessarily trying to fight off an invasion or an evil emperor, but a conflict of interests between fighters whose decisions will shape the future, the "next generation". I'm sensing Kotal's Empire Vs. Mileena's Rebels Vs. Earthrealm's Special Forces Vs. The Netherrealm; that is a bounty of possibilities for fights and conflicts and new rivalries we probably wouldn't have expected. These factions may seek alignment here and there (like Kotal going after Sonya in the comics), but it is pretty obvious no one is on anyone else's side, but rather all are coming to a head as the fate of the realms is decided not by the opposition of a single threat, but by the decisions and actions of many powerful beings. It's Civil War everywhere (thus "Pick Your Side!", "Pick Your Faction!", "Next Generation of Fighters!"). The emphasis is right there, and has been, for you to conclude upon.

In my case it was already up in the air as to whether or not I would buy the game at launch because I am a poor college student. It would have been a strain for me to get it. If this roster is indeed the final and complete launch roster I probably will not be picking up the game at launch as a direct result. Just not excited enough anymore to justify the expense. If I had money to burn I'd pick it up at launch but I don't. I'm not being melodramatic and saying I'll never get it but I'm probably going to wait awhile.

The problem is mileena a and shinnok a factions are not represented well. The other sides have way more

I bet there's more than the leak shows, and all the people that wait gunna be pissed they waited

but then again those people wont care to find out themselves they'll just be happy to find out, then buy the game

Yup. Not ONE Mileena henchman on the roster? Where's Reiko or Rain?

And I don't care to hear the revenants excuse. There should have been at least one playable Brotherhood of Shadows member besides Quan Chi and Shinnok.

I'm willing to bet that if Liu Kang and Shang Tsung are not on the initial roster they will be DLC. Who knows if Cage and Sonya are on the initial roster, I bet Tsung and Kang are the two "Klassic characters" included in the Kombat Pack.

That's why we need Reiko , he could be both XD

Cage was confirmed as playable by Adam Urbano in an interview that WB keeps pulling off of Youtube due to a "copyright claim". Based upon the leaked screen of Cage, Jax and Sonya together from story mode and Jax and Sonya' appearance in the challenge towers I think you can be pretty damn sure they are both playable members of the roster, too.

Yup, he could start off working with Shinnok/Quan Chi then join up with Mileena after the NetherRealm war is over.

Who knows, we may see that happen. Li Mei and Rain are in the story mode. They just aren't going to be playable. It sucks.

Cant believe I already forgot about that lol

At this point, it's just weird that Mileena has a whole rebel army, but none of tgem involved in a fihht..since Mileena was heavily featured in the trailer, this battle between her and Kotal seems rather important. So I ask you: what potential story mode fights are there now? Mileena vs. Kotal, Mileena vs. Dvorah, shall I go on? At least freaking Rain, Baraka and a live Goro would make this a lot more interesting! Rain vs Reptile, Baraka vs Dvorah, Goro vs Ferra..

Ugh. Will you marry me?

As Irving Rosenfeld once, so adequately put:

"That's the way the world works. Not black and white. Like you were saying, extremely grey."

To everyone upset that Havik won't be part of the main roster... he just won't work like the other order/chaos fighters unless they're a main part of the story.

MKX isn't focused around Seido and Chaostrealm. Therefore, he'd just junk up the plot. He's also too tied to Hotaru, Dairou and Darrius when those three felt vestigial in MKD since the game didn't need them and they made the whole story more convoluted than it needed to be.

And even with DLC, I feel like Goro + Kombat Pack fighters (Spawn and probably Rain, Sindel and Fujin) should be accompanied by a second Kombat Pack consisting of Sektor, Noob, Li Mei and Sareena because they fit the setting and narrative better than Havik would.

I still feel like war between Seido and Chaosrealm should be the focus of the next game and Havik should return along with Hotaru, Darrius and Dairou but that stuff should stay far away from MKX.

It's weird how Shang hasn't been mentioned considering his history with the game.

It'd be cool if he was in disguise this entire time as another character though.

I sincerely hope you're right and the focus on factions means much less of the "group of plucky heroes versus the big bad guy and his minions."

Multiple factions vying for control or trying to keep order in the proverbial power vacuum / wasps nest that Outworld seems to be post Shao Khan makes for a ton of storytelling potential.

So maybe it's the cynic in me that wonders if the reason why there are so many good guys or neutral characters on the roster and why the more evil factions are so woefully under represented (we think) is because MK9's story, great as it was, basically involved controlling all good guys and repeatedly kicking the crap out of bad guy minions.

Maybe the roster construction is just Netherealm's response to fans wanting to play as both good guys and bad guys in story mode? A possible work around for that issue from MK9?

Either way, the current roster, if the leak is to be believed, feels rather safe to me. It's the returning roster from MKDA plus or minus a few characters and another set of newbies. Will they stick around or will the end up on the island of misfit 3D era characters?

I like a new group of characters, but I also feel that the balance is lacking. I mean, if NRS can make Stryker awesome on MK9, and the comic can make characters like Reiko, Mavado, Frost, Fujin and Tasia seem cool, then why not GIVE us Reiko, Mavado, Frost, Fujin and Tasia and leave Cage, Jax, Sonya, Kung Lao and Kano out and give the spotlight for their roles to new characters and less utilized characters?

Sure, have those characters in the story, without a doubt. Maybe even bring them in as DLC. But it's not like leaving a good amount of sacred cows out will leave the game without ANY sacred cows. Sub Zero, Scorpion, Raiden, Kitana, Ermac, Mileena and Goro are all very familiar faces.

So yeah, I'm still getting the game. It looks awesome and I can't wait to play story mode. But I don't think it's over-servicing the hardcore base (and seriously, enough with the "real fan" crap, it sounds like people that say they're "real Americans") to take some more chances.

I believe that you can please everyone and do a better job balancing things out than what we're getting in this roster. The question is whether that balance is thrown off by the way they're going about story mode.

I don't even know how they could go about attempting that. It's always been a series with that kind of narrative with shlocky kung-fu movie elements to it. I think that's part of the charm. The story is neat but it doesn't try to be too thoughtful or complicated. It's straightforward and tight.

Thank you, sire.

I do see what you're saying, and I wouldn't argue that the supposed roster is surprising or risky. There are indeed characters that even I, happy as I am with the cast, would switch out for others if given the power to do so. But I say that, and you say something similar, as hopeful fans who are ultimately unaware of the studio's intentions toward this story and its implication on future games.

Some might diminish my words as blind faith and premature adoration (I'm not one to praise or expect much from anyone or anything), but what I think is that the setting for this game is so deliberate, such a curveball, that there has to have been a plan in motion from the very early stages; a plan that held up long enough to support this unexpected direction for the narrative. I mean, you guys wanna talk about "safe" and "expected"--I think it's very unsafe and very unexpected to focus on an MK game that spans 25 whole years of the timeline, and includes familial extensions of the core characters, and excludes a pinpoint antagonist and "saw-it-coming-from-a-mile-away" threat. Right there, NRS is taking risks and are not playing it safe. Now, what this tells me is that, all along, they have tackled this game with ambition, with the goal of doing something different, and with a narrative to back it all up and tie it all together. And if this is the cast of characters they need in order to tell that story, then I'm excited to see why, more so than immediately disappointed with the reinventions and reintroductions that did not happen right away.

We're all focusing intently on the novelty that has been lost, while growing ever so numb to the novelty that we gained the moment this game was announced.

Point-blank, would I have loved to see what they'd do with the likes of Reiko, Tanya, Fujin, or Havik? Of course I would, and I'm sure it would have been (eventually will be?) great! But I have and will gladly take the promise of what they're doing instead. More so than seeing a new spin on these characters, more so than having my favorite in the playable cast, I'm most excited about the fact that I can't readily distinguish a villain in the story, and that all these wildly diverging groups of characters are clashing (seriously, we go from Raiden and Co. VS the Netherrealm to a fucking civil war in Outworld to fucking God-knows-what-else 'cuz we haven't been told who the "big bad" is!) It's new, it IS surprising, and it's undeniably exciting, and it bums me out when there are people who can't get as excited as I am because the face value of this product (all content aside) is not to their immediate desires.




I understand what you mean, and I can't deny the inherently cheesy charm of the series; however, times change, and the medium of storytelling is nowadays much more vital, with much more expected from it, than it was back when MK started out. NRS knows this, and that is why they keep upping the Story Mode with every iteration: from character bios you wouldn't read twice, to epic Konquest Modes, to MK9's Movie-style narrative! I'm not saying NRS needs to forget where they came from--but they're evolving, living up to the times, and rightfully so.

I submit that there is absolutely no excuse to tell a half-assed story, and when I say that, I am encapsulating the Entertainment world at large--not just video games or movies or books.

As far as anything that's not just Good vs. Evil I think Kotal vs Mileena is the closest thing we've gotten to that so far in a MK game. Maybe if they had a game with some Mercernary/Clan wars as part of the story focus. A Seido vs Chaosrealm thing could work for that too.

I've always just really liked a few Earthrealm peeps and a couple of Outworld/Edenian folks helping out vs Kahn/Shinnok/Tsung/Onaga. Maybe it's because I'm surrounded by shitty people and in fiction I was always drawn to moralistic conflicts of that clear cut nature because I felt people I knew too often used that "life is morally grey" mantra as an excuse to do generally shitty/selfish things. Not saying everyone does, just it might explain it.

Kotal vs Mileena has been pretty cool so far though.

Damn, that's deep.

Yes, people are generally like that, more often than not. But the way I see it, a realistic depiction of that in fiction is a good way of causing society's "mask" to drop. A strong story with morally gray characters (even though there is always some tipping point in morality for the sake of climaxes and resolutions) puts a mirror up to the audience's face, dares to ask how far humans might go to defend or attain, and forces everyone to realize harsh truths and then make a decision about who they want to be based on that, given what they just saw and experienced. Have you ever been ensnared by a really good movie, and at the end, felt compelled to change something about yourself, or wish for something different in your own personal life? Modern storytelling is our biggest weapon in the stimulation of change in mass consciousness.

I do romance a would-be world where, right away, you know what someone is about and what they stand for. You know the big dragon-looking guy is up to no good, the twin with the fangs is likely to be bad company, but the busty blond in army clothing and her spiritualistic Kung-Fu friend will save your day anytime
Shame that we don't live that way; and as such, we have to provoke self-realization and subsequent personal growth, in order to affect the grander world.

I'm derailing... but this is actually a very captivating topic for me; I could and have gone on for hours about this stuff Don't let the shitty people get you down, man! You always end up reaping what you sow. Always.

Crazy thread

I was all for new characters before they were revealed, but these are disappointing. Ferra/Torr, D'Vorah, and Kotal Kahn looked great and they had me excited for the game and for the rest of the new characters. Cassie Cage wasn't too interesting to me since I wasn't a big Sonya fan but I could accept her, since an offspring of Johnny and Sonya would make sense. But then all these other new characters just happen to be like her. Basically new versions of old characters. I think that's real lame. (I want to make it clear that I have not read the comic nor do I really know anything about it, I don't really care for comics) Not only are they just retreads of the same characters we've been seeing, but I think they'll be even more bland since they're not the original characters themselves. They'll be like some knock-off versions. Obviously I have no real idea yet of what they'll be like as far as move sets and abilities go but I can't imagine them having moves that are original and interesting. What makes Ferra/Torr, D'Vorah, and Kotal Kahn interesting is that they are their own NEW characters with NEW moves and styles and these others will basically be some generic stuff thrown together.

If all the new characters were actually NEW I probably wouldn't mind the roster at all. In fact if these characters were good then I would like it.

The reason why the roster feels safe is because we got these new characters who take thing from there parent. It feels like nrs got worried they wouldn't be accepted so they put there parents in too. The story could have just as easily had a intro that covered what happened and then skipped to mileena or something. In the future they could have just been a oracle but nrs probably got scared about the backlash they would get and now it's backwards.

And it just so happens to be a juicy fat plus that your favorite character, her daughter, her baby daddy, her best friend and his daughter are all the headliners of the story, correct?