I believe the point of introducing new family members is to usher in a new generation of fighters. Nobody stays gone in MK but I do think they will retire Johnny, Sonya, Jax, Kung Lao, and Kenshi after this game for a while. So this might be our last time seeing these favorites for a bit.

I also think it helps bridge the gap between descendants and the old MK characters. If they introduced these new characters by themselves, with no interaction from their ancestors I don't think people would buy into them as much.

No, the game sells will do that.

Contrary to popular belief, fans who buy MK are intelligent and won't take a shitty story. 3D era games sold well for what was invested in them because the story was amazing even though the final product was flawed in terms of gameplay and they weren't the cause of Midway's fall.

Now we get Defenders of the Realm fighting Australian dingos with papa Jax on their tail.
Time will tell if MK X will make its money back. It might. But it surely doesn't deserve it considering the level of stupidity its story has reached.

Honestly, if they never said the descendants were descendants nobody would be accusing Takada or Jacqui of being clones of their parents. Cassie seems just as new as Kotal and D'Vorah, and her having callbacks to her parents doesn't make her a hybrid. Kung Jin only seems similar to Kung Lao in name only.

So why are these guys descendants? Most likely, story reasons. We know that they team up, and that they aren't a trusting or organized team. So why do they team up? Why does Takada leave Scorpion's side and his quest for revenge to team up with the Special Forces? Why does Kung Jin team up with the Special Forces? Do the White Lotus approve? I can imagine it has to do with their ancestors. Maybe, finishing a mission their folks started but never finished. We actually haven't seen any of the descendants with their ancestors, yet. We still have to little information to fully piece together the puzzle, so saying this piece is unneeded is jumping the gun, in my opinion.

Also, I feel like I'v said it 20 times, but the dead guys from MK9 were shown to become solders for Netherrealm in MK9 itself. Completely ignoring them and saying, "They are dead and gone. That's that." is horrible writing when this game has a literal war against them. Death is not meaningless, it is a plot device. They came back for a reason.

People like sindel are being ignored tho by nrs. Also jax daughter has metal arms. She would of been compared to jax even if she wasn't his daughter. Oh and the people being set free is suppose to take place before the comics. Jax is training his daughter.

Sindel isn't being ignored, she is there in the story trailer. I feel as though the others will be shown, too. Having an excessive amount of NPCs like her would piss a lot of people off. "We can fight Kitana, but can't play as her? Bullshit! Just make her selectable! It's not that hard!" Look at the Jade fans who were upset when she was deconfirmed. Also, I'm sure the playable people will play apart in the story later because of their new designs.

Jacqui doesn't have metal arms. She has some device on her wrist, though.

It has been confirmed a long time ago that this game starts where MK9 left off and spans 25 years. The Netherrealm War happens during the game.

How much u wanna bet they are used to make her stronger. They are also probably used cus no one knows why jax can throw a pink projectile.

It used to just be his arm-pit funk after a long day of working out and backbreaking Outworld punks.

Like other people said, we'll see the parents and dead characters playable again in future games anyway.

It looks like a flamethrower or little machine gun to me.