Ed Boon Is Asking Questions

Ed Boon is back to stirring a bit of speculation over on X. The man is well aware that his every word will be getting dissected by the NRS fans and the games media, but this time things are not too subtle.

Boon presented the community with two questions, first one is about the name for the next Mortal Kombat game.

Many have seemingly agreed here on the similar interpretation, what direction do you want to see from the next title? 

Mortal Kombat 12 assumes that Mortal Kombat 1 never happened, or serves as a point where the series branches off into something else, while the next title should follow up on the staples that were established in earlier games. After all, even when MK got a reboot in 2011, the next game was still called Mortal Kombat X. It implied that the 3D era games and the reboot were still parts of one continuous line.

Mortal Kombat 2 is the polar opposite. MK1 acts as both a reset and a new direction for the series, so continue down that road and iterate on it with the sequel.

Mortal Kombat 13 is sort of a mix between the two. Even if awkward, it sets MK1 as the 12th mainline entry, but still leans back into countinuing the series legacy, with MK1 just being yet another entry to experiement with stylistic changes and system mechanics.

The second question, however, is somewhat strange.

Both are Marvel tag fighters, however Boon previously mentioned that the next NRS game is not a 3v3 tag fighter when the rumors started to surface following a private playtest. Next NRS game but not "next MK" could be important here, that or the 3v3 portion, but with NRS being fairly concious about the broader audience, it doesn't seem like they would pick such a niche sub-genre to begin with.

However, another way to look at it is "spirital successor vs sequel from original devs." NRS has a lot of talented people working for them, and they are never limited to just two series. On the other hand, it would also make sense to bring in other studios to handle spin-offs in the same vein as Shaolin Monks.

It's no use to speculate too much over this, but it certainly doesn't seem like just a random post, so it might still be indicative of what NRS is up to.