histories and relationships new dimension.
The game’s story mode, in-game dialogue and
the individual tower endings all work together
to deepen our understanding of who our
characters are and why they fight.How do you approach trying to one-up
yourselves on Fatalities with each game?
That is always a fun challenge. There has
been such an awesome history of the
characters’ Fatalities. There are always a
few emails that go out to the entire team
to, “Please, send in your Fatality ideas!”
With a large studio, that generates a lot of
great ideas. Then a smaller group does some
filtering, organising and more brainstorming.
They look for as many brand-new ideas as
they can. They also look back at old Fatalities
and see if there is any homage that can be
done with our newer technology that can be
awesome fan-service.How do you go about deciding which
characters make it in and which don’t?
That is a harder and longer process than I
think people would imagine because there
are so many factors to account for. Who
was in the last game? What does the story
need? Who hasn’t been in a game for a while?
Who have the fans been clamouring for the
most? Who are the must-haves for this game?
Who does the design team have gameplay
ideas for already? Who do the artists have
ideas for already? Are we looking to bring any
new characters into the MK universe? Do we
have enough heroes? Do we have enough
‘evil’ characters? Just getting those lists
together is always more characters than
could fit into a game, so we have to cut it
down and make some hard choices because
there are so many characters we all want to
be in the game. I think fans would go crazy
if they could see Ed Boon’s spreadsheet of
that process.On that note, how do you handle bringing new
characters into the fold? Are certain things
dialled up to make them more appealing?
The most important part about bringingWhat makes story so important to the team,
where it’s more often an afterthought for
fighting games?
We feel it is important for the game to have
different experiences. Online player vs player,
single-player towers and story, all offer a
different feel and experience to players.
Additionally, the lore of Mortal Kombat is
so rich with stories and strong characters.
We enjoy, and hope the players enjoy, the
storytelling the game can do through the
robust story mode experience.The timeline gets kind of complicated
after all these games, how did you
approach keeping the story fresh for
Mortal Kombat 11?
The general approach to
story was to make sure that
it expanded both the depth
and breadth of our universe by introducing
intriguing new characters and places. Most
notable is new our new boss, Kronika, and
her hourglass. Through them we learn of the
much larger battle being waged in the MK
universe. The depth of the MK universe has
been expanded by giving our characters’OXM ENTERS THE ARENA TO CHAT WITH NETHERREALM STUDIO HEAD, SHAUN HIMMERICK,
ABOUT THE STORY, CHARACTERS AND NEW MODES IN MORTAL KOMBAT 11
BELOW Cybernetic
Black Dragon
mercenary, and
all-round
a-hole, Kano
returns in MK11.
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