Following our extended hands-on with Mortal Kombat X, we had the chance to speak with NetherRealm creative director Ed Boon. During our conversation, Boon gave us some additional info about how players will be taking the fight online.
"As far as the gameplay is concerned, I think the main thing is the online component," Boon told us. "We're going to be introducing this online metagame that everyone participates in. It's an online experience that is persistent. Everyone is going to be playing it, and there are benefits. It's definitely something that's going to play a major role in people's experience playing Mortal Kombat." More information will be coming on this in the future.
He also shared that the cast will feature a number of fresh faces. "I think, according to my immediate memory, we're introducing more characters in this game than we have since the first Mortal Kombat game," Boon says. Additionally, every character will have three different variations (you can read more about that in our "kandid discussion" of our hands-on). This makes for more exciting and unpredictable matchups, but it also is ambitious in terms of balancing.
"It makes balancing a lot harder, and we're going to get all those pro players in the studio and give them as much time on the game as possible," Boon shared. "I really think you need to do that. I don't want us to put out a game that's MK9.5 and just has nicer graphics. [Mortal Kombat 9] was the highest selling Mortal Kombat of all the games. Who would have thought 22 years later that would have been the case?"
Mortal Kombat X (pronounced "ecks") has a number of different meanings. According to Boon, it represents the tenth entry, of course, but it also symbolizes the next generation of hardware and the next generation of fighters in the series.
We also spoke with Boon about the creation of fatalities and how the prototyping happens. There are ideas that have been declined for going a bit too far. "There have been a few that have been pitched that are just like 'no, no, that crosses the line.' The fatality meetings are some of the more entertaining and disappointing for the person that's pitching it. Someone stands up and they start acting it out, and we're like, 'No, no. We can't do that.'"
Those that do make it out of concept go forward to completion. You'll be able to see more of those when Mortal Kombat X is released in 2015 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PC.