For years now, NeterRealm studios has constantly put out the Mortal Kombat franchise. While not annual, it’s probably been one of the most consistently released fighting series ever, and under the publishing arm of WB Interactive, has also become easily the biggest fighting franchise out there. NetherRealm also dipped their toes in the world of DC Comics (also owned by WB), to make the two well-received Injustice games. But it seems as if there may be more to the company soon.
In a lengthy Q&A Session with Ed Boon and Geoff Keighley, the two talked about Mortal Kombat. While the focus was on the new expansion for Mortal Kombat 11, Aftermath, it did verge into talk about both Injustice and “other stuff” in the oven, separate from those two franchises.
“Mortal Kombat has become like a staple thing, almost Marvel-like. You don’t expect the last Marvel movie to ever come out, they’re just gonna keep coming. Even though we’ve been able to scratch other itches, you know doing Injustice games and stuff, and we have other stuff in the oven, but it’s always nice to do the Mortal Kombat games. Especially when the players have been embracing them as they have. If you would have told me that this would be our, so far fastest-selling Mortal Kombat games of all of them, 20 something years later, I wouldn’t have believed it. The fact that they’re doing as well as they ever have is great.”
This isn’t the first time Ed Boon has talked about branching out, saying the company would love to do around this time last year. However, this seems to be the first time it’s been outright stated the company seems to be working on something else. While the company hasn’t always worked on just fighting games, even the titles they either developed or oversaw during the pre-WB days were Mortal Kombat spin-offs like Shaolin Monks. It would be very interesting to see what they could come up with outside their two staple franchises.