Here’s What We Know So Far About MORTAL KOMBAT X

Mortal Kombat X, the follow-up to the highly successful reboot/sequel of the Mortal Kombat series of video games, is said to take place 25 years after the events of MK9. However, the story will time jump everywhere, from five years after MK9 to ten years after, with most of the story being 25 years after the previous installment. If you look back at the release date of the original MK game in 1991, one can safely assume that that was the time period of the games’ storyline. Having the game jump forward 25 years sets the time period closer to 2016.

Ed Boon also mentioned that MKX will have the most “new” characters than any other Mortal Kombat title. Among the first ones revealed were Ferra/Torr, D’Vorrah, Kotal Kahn and Cassie Cage. The latter two characters are interesting because they could possibly be the offspring of older characters. For sure Cassie Cage is the daughter of MK9 survivors Johnny Cage & Sonya Blade, but Kotal Kahn is a bit confusing. From the information revealed about Kotal Kahn, we learned he is one of several rulers of Outworld who came into power after Shao Kahn’s defeat. Sharing the same surname with the former emperor of Outworld could mean he is in some way related to Shao Kahn, or “Kahn” could be a title given to certain rulers of Outworld.

With characters like Cassie Cage, we’ll be seeing a lot of new “descendent” characters, meaning the offspring of some of our old favorites will be playable fighters. Aside from Cassie Cage, some other “MK kids” we could see enter the tournament are the children of Baraka & Mileena, Kitana & Liu Kang (if they somehow came back to life), Tanya & Rain, Sheeva & Goro, and maybe Sub-Zero with Sareena or Frost.

With returning characters like Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Raiden and Kano, we can assume that somehow their views may have changed since MK9. Scorpion may have, once again, discovered Quan Chi was actually the one behind the deaths of his family and clan. The character I believe will “flip” the mos, in this game is Kano, and only because in one of his fighting variations, his cybernetic eye glows green, which for me, being a Star Wars nerd, means Kano may have turned to the light side. It sounds kind of dumb putting Star Wars and Mortal Kombat together, but MK creator Ed Boon has said before that Star Wars has served as one of the many inspirations for the hit fighting game franchise (Sektor and Cyrax have, at one time, sported Lightsabers called “pulse blades”).

Another interesting returning character is Sub-Zero. Ed Boon has stated before that he believes there have been many Sub-Zeros over the centuries. However, from some of the starting match banter between Scorpion and Sub-Zero in MKX, I believe the Sub-Zero we will be able to play as is actually the “original” Sub-Zero: Bi Han, who had been brutally killed by Scorpion in MK9. After he was killed, Bi Han became Noob Saibot, who was later tossed into a “soulnado” and, once again, seemingly killed. What really happened, I believe, is that Bi Han was actually “purged” by the ghostly twister and returned to the mortal plane, once again, as Sub-Zero.

Since the game takes place 25 years after MK9, we know that Raiden killed Shao Kahn once and for all and prevented Armageddon. Shang Tsung also met his permanent end having his being fused with Sindel’s. We also know from MK9 that Johnny Cage and Sonya survived, Liu Kang accidentally died by Raiden’s hand and Quan Chi controls all of the other dead warriors like Smoke, Kitana, Jade, Stryker, Jax, Cyber Sub-Zero and Sindel. Shinnok also revealed his plot to move forward with his invasion. So across the years, MK4 passed, Deadly Alliance didn’t because Tsung was alive for Quan Chi to form a partnership with, which means deception probably couldn’t happen because Quan Chi didn’t have Tsung to help put souls into the Dragon King’s dead soldiers. This means Armageddon never took place because the warriors’ blood lust never reach critical levels, calling for the safeguard to rise from the Edenian desert.

So in the 25 years since MK9, what went down? Expect complete “flips” for characters over the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games. We’ve seen good guys turn bad (like Kabal) and bad guys turning good (Scorpion), and I believe one of these reformed characters will be Kano. While I might be totally wrong about these assumptions, it’s still fun to speculate and I’m sure once the game is released, we’ll be treated to another great installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise.