Mortal Kombat will be rebooting itself yet again with the launch of the upcoming Mortal Kombat 1, which, of course, means we’re going to see entirely new takes on familiar characters, locations, narrative threads, and more when the fighter launches later this month. And unsurprisingly for a series that’s so focused on narrative, developer NetherRealm Studios is already looking to the future, and has built Mortal Kombat 1 as a “springboard” for its inevitable sequels and the stories they will tell.
That’s as per NetherRealm Studios’ narrative director Dominic Ciancolo, who said in a recent interview with ComicBook that where the last Mortal Kombat reboot – the 2011 game – was something of a “speedrun” through the original trilogy’s events and had a lot of overlap with those classic titles, Mortal Kombat 1 is going to be developing characters and plotlines in different ways, and will serve as “just the beginning” for this new story.
“I think there’s an expectation that was established because of MK9,” Ciancolo said. “That was obviously a speed run through the first three games. So we saw characters fully develop to what people knew them to be over the course of that one game. Mortal Kombat 1 as a narrative is a springboard. It’s the first step on this road. And so we’re going to obviously see the characters develop, they’re going to change, things are going to happen, but this is not the end. This is just the beginning. And so that’s going to be something we hopefully will evolve as we go forward.”
Given how Mortal Kombat 1 is distorting and twisting familiar things from the franchise in its new timeline, it’s safe to say that there’s plenty of room to tell stories that even series veterans might be surprised by. And of course, the inevitable sequels will also serve as introductions for fan-favourite characters that might not be featured in MK1.
Mortal Kombat 1 launches on September 19 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.