After years of speculation, NetherRealm Studios has finally begun teasing Mortal Kombat 12, but as it turns out, it may not be Mortal Kombat 12 at all.
It's been four years since Mortal Kombat 11 launched and since then NetherRealm Studios – who before now had released Mortal Kombat and Injustice titles on a two year cycle since 2011 – have been relatively silent, outside of releasing DLC for the game up until October 2020. After years of speculation on whether Injustice 3, a Mortal Kombat vs DC title, or even a movie monster fighting game would be the studio's next project, the lid was finally blown off in February, when Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav casually dropped the bombshell that Mortal Kombat 12 was on the way during a leaked earnings call. And not content with Street Fighter 6 going unchallenged for the 2023 fighting game throne, it's arriving this year (via @Aluminum54 on Twitter).
Despite the leak, NetherRealm Studios remained silent until earlier this month when a Mortal Kombat 30th anniversary video was posted on the official Mortal Kombat Twitter account ended with a clip of grains of sand falling out of an hourglass – which to folks who remember Mortal Kombat 11's time travel-centric plot was an instant giveaway. It came to a boil last night when the same Twitter account once again posted a clip, showing a clock ticking past nine, 10, 11 before skipping 12 to go straight to one, implying that the series will once again return to the original Mortal Kombat era (after doing the same with 2011's Mortal Kombat).
Players joked around that the new title would be called Mortal Kombat 1, which is a hilarious idea but surely that wouldn't happen right? Well as it turns out prominent PS Plus leaker extraordinaire @billbil_kun has the scoop that not only is the game actually titled Mortal Kombat 1, but it'll be releasing on PC, Xbox Series X |S, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
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@billbil_kun isn't the only one with Mortal Kombat 1 leaks however. Windows Central writer Jez Corden has also chimed in echoing @billbil_kun's statement that the game will in fact be titled Mortal Kombat 1 and the game is aiming for a September 2023 launch., according to the site's sources.
Corden goes one step further, stating that one of the characters included in the game's eventual DLC fighter roster will be DC's Peacemaker – portrayed by John Cena in The Suicide Squad. Corden also claims that Homelander from comic book-turned-tv-series The Boys may also appear as DLC, although he seems less sure about that one (although it would be a good way to bring Superman's Injustice 2 move set into Mortal Kombat).
No word has been given on when exactly NetherRealm Studios intends to fully reveal the game, but we'd have to imagine it'll be revealed before June 2, 2023 when Street Fighter 6 will likely take the fighting game community's attention. If I had to wager, I'd get my hopes up for a reveal at the PlayStation event rumoured to take place at the end of the month.
