It seems that one of the MK fandom's most requested games is a new
"Everyone is Here" game in the vein of MK Trilogy or Armageddon. Let
me explain why this simply will not happen for the Netherrealm trilogy.
The previous two versions were much easier to do.
MK Trilogy is just the third iteration of MK3. Gameplay-wise, MK3 is mostly the same as MK2,
aside from minor changes like gameplay speed, running and things that don't affect movesets.
And being built on MK3, it already had a foundation where most of the characters
already existed in this form. By UMK3, the only absentees were Raiden, Baraka,
Johnny Cage, Goro and Kintaro. Everyone else was already on the roster. And aside from redoing
Johnny's sprites for legal reasons, very little work was needed to make them fit in MK3's systems.
For Armageddon, while only having two games in this gameplay style to build from,
it already had a strong base on which to build, since the gameplay of the previous two games was
mostly unchanged in the ways that MK2 and 3 are largely the same. Combine that with this era's
willingness to completely revamp the roster, by which I mean only six characters from Deadly
Alliance's 24 characters returned for Deception, allowing the rest of the roster to be filled with
characters who were absent from the last game and a bunch of newcomers. By the time Armageddon
entered development, the only characters who didn't properly exist in the 3D Era systems were
Rain, Chameleon, Sektor, Stryker, Jarek, Reiko, Fujin, Kai, Khameleon, Shinnok, Sareena, Sheeva,
Motaro, Meat, Kintaro, and the three (technically two) newcomers; which isn't much, what with a
bunch of movesets from Deadly Alliance already being redistributed amongst the Deception cast.
And Armageddon switching from two martial arts and a weapon each to one art and weapon each meant
they could easily reuse existing movesets for the newcomers to this system. So all that actually
needed to be done was to make new designs, weapon movesets and special moves, and we had our roster
of sixty-two characters (sixty-three on the Wii) with relatively little work.
As for the Netherrealm Trilogy, I've criticised this plenty of times before, but they revamp the
gameplay every bloody time. MK9, X and 11 feel as similar to each other as they do to Injustice
- the basics are there but they feel totally different. Can you imagine how much work it
would require to implement characters from MK9 and X into 11's systems (which would presumably serve
as the base)? Let's also consider that every one of those characters would need new models and as
many costumes as the 11 cast carried over, all of which need work to be functional with Fatalities,
because unlike the 2D and 3D eras, the graphical style of the Netherrealm era changes every game.
Then there's the topic of pre-fight intros which you'd imagine would need to pick up the slack in
the presumed absence of a new story mode. I mean, at best we might get the existing
four story modes with cutscenes remastered with the new models. Highly doubtful though.
And let's consider what the roster we'd get would actually look like. I doubt many people would
expect the guest characters to stick around. At best, they might recycle their movesets for
other characters. But the roster would go one of two ways: one is every singe character from the
series, and the other is the much more feasible roster of just these three games, which isn't
as impressive as you think it is, given the immense overlap in the rosters of the three.
Trilogy had five characters missing and only one needed seriously redoing. Armageddon had sixteen
characters missing with most of the movesets already available from other characters. The
Netherrealm Trilogy needs to redo, even supposing that the MK9 and X characters can easily be
retooled as they are, twenty-seven characters, which is about as many characters as UMK3 had.
It's the exact size of MK11's base playable roster. It's an entire new game's worth of work.
And if we do take the necessary reworkings into account, even assuming Sektor and Cyrax's reworked
Triborg moveset is ready to go as is, then we have fourteen-to-sixteen that need to be reworked,
depending on how Smoke and Triborg are handled. All told, that's forty-three characters that
need some level of reworking, compared to the thirty-five that are ready to go,
and giving the guest movesets to other characters won't make much of a difference.
There is no chance in hell that Netherrealm would be allowed to make this, even if they wanted to.
The only realistic way we are getting this kind of game is if Netherrealm plan for it in the future,
stick with MK11's gameplay or whatever the next iteration is in MK12, and spend three or four game
building up to it by making sure everyone gets at least one appearance in this system before then.
But that will never happen with how Netherrealm is run, with how stagnant the rosters have become,
where over half of any given roster consists of MK1 and 2 characters without fail.
If you want Mortal Kombat: Everyone is Here 3.0, you need to get on Netherrealm
about their lack of variety in the rosters and lack of consistency in the gameplay systems.
And while we're at it, if you ever believe a leak with a guest fighter where there's
any doubt surrounding the rights holders or actor whose likeness will be used taking issue
with the character performing and receiving violent murders, like Neo or Master Chief,
you're an idiot. A damn fool. Please, just... think about this stuff more.
If you liked this video, why not subscribe and support me on Patreon like these fine people
here? I mean it's Mortal May, there's a lot more MK content coming this month.
If not, then I'm sorry I had to be the one to shatter your dreams.
Today's recommended video is Why Isn't MK TRILOGY the Klassic Competitive Standard? by Ketchup and
Mustard. I'm fairly certain these guys know what they're talking about when it comes to this stuff.
At the very least, they know their stuff more than people who believe
Netherrealm Trilogy leaks from friggin' Reddit.