Something that could have been entirely awesome that was ruined by the reboot. He should have been built up to be a boss character after Armageddon.

Moving to Future MK.

Raiden was about to go full on evil, but still not harm Earth.
The constant being he was obsessed to protect Earth at a very unhealthy level.
I think it would've been very interesting after Armageddon to have Raiden challenge the other realms to Mortal Kombat.
Attempting to merge them into Earth.
Earthrealm becoming the aggressor with ruthless chosen ones of Raiden such as Zombie Liu Kang or even Sub-Zero (Bi-Han).
While the more heroic Earthrealm fighters start a rebellion against Raiden.

That was the interesting thing about it, Raiden had gotten to the point where he was willing to destroy other realms to "protect Earth from them". Or maybe even start mergers like Kahn, because if every realm was Earth, then no realm could threaten Earth, lol.

I so wanted to see a game set after MKA where Dark Raiden declared war on Edenia or Outworld and then proceed to do things like fight his own replacement and former charges like Fujin and Kung Lao and/or trick old allies into following him by making them believe the other realm was the aggressor, not him.
That sort of plot would've been crazy, in the good way.

Then he'd be 100% more interesting then he currently is now.

Yeah, I've never liked Raiden more than when he was becoming evil.

I could've forgiven taking the character backwards if MK9 presented some kind of moral conflict over what he had become. Raiden never seemed to question the fact that he had become a total dickhead, that was a real missed opportunity in my eyes.

Who knows, with Raiden making so many mistakes and appearing so desperate to save earth by the end of story mode, he may very well be heading in that direction again.

It would be quite cool but how could you line that up with the rest of the series and who would he align himself with?

Raiden would make a great boss and having him turn Evil was already down in MKD and MKA. If anyone should turn Evil it is Liu Kang.

Wasnt Raiden evil in MKDA?
Maybe you should think before you act if you are trying to get dragon points...

It's tough to figure out where Raiden falls on the Good/Evil spectrum. On one hand, had he won the first MK tournament, he was going to invite other Gods to compete in the tournament (due to being bored with facing mortals), which ultimately brought about the destruction of Earth.

Then all of a sudden, he's the good guy protector of Earth, as he warns its warriors about Shao Kahn and, had he won the Outworld tournament, he would've closed the portals and destroyed Shang Tsung, Shao Khan and all of his minions.

His Trilogy ending is somewhat similar to this, as he takes the form of a mortal to compete and then, ya know, destroys Shao Khan in his ending.

In MK:DA, he relinquishes his status as an Elder God to live on Earth as the protector and God of Thunder in his ending, stating that Earth must be protected.

In Deception, he isn't "evil." He simply destroys the one that put Earthrealm in harms way, even if that character, Shujinko, wasn't evil himself. It's really the first time we see shades of gray in Raiden, but even then it's still debatable how far he's gone.

Then in Armageddon, yes, he goes off the deep end, destroying all realms other than Earth in his ending, presumably destroying all of the other good realms with the bad ones.

So I don't know if "evil" is the right term for what I'd like to see Raiden become. To me, that's a little too black and white. I'd like to see more shades of gray.

He could be the type of character that knows what's going to happen (even though he changed the timeline, Shinnok still seems to be the next bad guy) and does things that his former allies might interpret as evil, but are really for the good of Earthrealm long term.

To me, that seemed to be where he was heading (minus the foresight that he seemed to have in this current MK game). He now seems to be willing to protect Earthrealm, even from itself if need be and especially from any realm that might threaten it.

Does that make him "evil" or even heading in that direction? Who knows, but I'd like to see that develop further.

Why does everyone want raiden evil? All i Want to see is Raiden fry up Quan Chi's A$$ and get rid of him once and for all, that is unless Scorpion Gets to him first.

Seeing the End of MK 9 i would think Raiden would see what he had become and then try to prevent that, but at the same time, in the next one now that Quan Chi has Liu Kangs Soul, Liu Kangs gonna come back basically like a demon who wants revenge on Raiden and is even more twisted because of Quan Chi. Smoke is gonna free himself as he is already a smoke demon (watch Smokes ending) but hes gonna be different like Scorpion from being in the Netherrealm, The Lin kuei will find a way to Reboot Sub-Zero which will release his soul from Netherrealm. All of these things can happen. I don't think that Netherrealm Studios is going to make Raiden "fall to the dark side" again.

You have been nothing but trouble since you've been here, cut it out.


And just so you know, Raiden was good in Deadly Alliance, he didn't become corrupted till MK Deception please kindly stop trying to be snobby and derailing threads.


@ the OPI would love to see this happen, Raiden needs to be interesting again and this was his best development Raiden becoming the aggressor and a boss would truly turn the series on its head and give Fujin an opportunity to take up the helm, I approve

On the topic of Raiden being evil, I miss his MK1 self. The one that participated in the tournament out of pure boredom. I just liked how, despite not being a boss, he made even Shang Tsung and Goro seem insignificant.

Raiden himself doesn't need to go back to that persona. You could have a new character based on him.

Does anyone agree with me? That his MK1 self should be brought back in some way? I think there could even be a non-canon spinoff game based on his MK1 ending where he invites the other gods to fight in the tournament.