Mortal Kombat 1, a new game in the ultraviolent fighting series, is cranking up its star power.
The upcoming title’s first live-action trailer featured WWE-icon-turned-action-hero Dave Bautista — and now it’s adding scream queen Megan Fox to its roster.
Fox will provide the voice of vampire Nitara in the new game, which lands on consoles and PCs on September 19.
Warner Bros. Games revealed the actor’s inclusion in a new trailer. The clip intersperses gameplay footage of Nitara bludgeoning and taking bites out of her opponents with scenes of Fox in the voice-over booth.
“I really like her,” says Fox of the character. “She’s a vampire, which obviously… resonates for whatever reason.”
Fox famously played a flesh-eating succubus in Jennifer’s Body, the cult 2009 horror comedy film. She also briefly appeared as a female vampire in Netflix’s Night Teeth in 2021.
While Fox was recruited to help promote Diablo 4 earlier this year, Mortal Kombat 1 marks the first time the actor is voicing a playable character in a video game.
The new title also sees Nitara’s return to the franchise after 17 years. Following her debut on Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for the PlayStation 2, the winged vampire was relegated to a background role in Mortal Kombat: Deception and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.
Alongside Fox, the new entry will also feature another Hollywood star in Jean Claude Van Damme, whose Kickboxer character will be available as a skin for Liu Kang. Also included in the growing list of celebrities are John Cena and Oscar winner JK Simmons, who will reprise their roles as DC’s Peacemaker and Invincible’s Omni-Man, respectively, in the game’s first downloadable content pack.
Ironically, the new game has more stars than the B-movie-grade Mortal Kombat film series.
Mortal Kombat 1 will feature reimagined characters, a returning story mode, and new Kameo fighters that can assist players during matches.
The game is developed by Warner Bros. Games’ subsidiary NetherRealm Studios, which is led by Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon and has been closely associated with the beat-em-up series since 2011’s Mortal Kombat.
Since its arrival in 1992, the franchise has sold morr than 80 million copies, helped in no small part by the controversies surrounding the blood-soaked games. The franchise has previously seen its entries pulled from shelves in countries including Germany and Japan, faced multiple lawsuits, and prompted the creation of video-game ratings agencies and regulations.
