hi my name is Edie Boone I am the
creative director at NetherRealm Studios
and co-creator of MORTAL KOMBAT we are
here to talk about each and every
character in Mortal Kombat 11
[Music]
Baraka
was introduced in Mortal Kombat 2 the
coolest thing about Baraka is obviously
his blades on his arms as well as those
crazy teeth of his fun fact is his teeth
were actually fake nails that we found
at a custom shop that we put together to
make these kind of vicious teeth
he is tarkatan warrior and his race was
kind of like you know always in jeopardy
and the Mortal Kombat universe and he
was kind of like representing them well
I personally think that Baraka is one of
the coolest looking characters and
Mortal Kombat 11 he's got a lot of
legacy people known what he's looked
like since like 1993 but the visual
upgrade that we gave him in this game is
probably the best of any character in
the game he is easily one of the most
savage characters in the Mortal Kombat
universe
[Applause]
know what that was strike three Cassie
cage is the daughter of Johnny Cage and
Sonya Blade two characters who I don't
think anybody would have seen getting
together let alone having a kid she is
the absolute perfect combination of
Johnny Cage and Sonya she has a very
disciplined you know military upbringing
from Sonya but she's very flashy very
cocky that's the Johnny side she's
exactly what you would expect a
combination of Sonya Blade
satori on is a new character in Mortal
Kombat 11 she is the daughter of our big
boss chronica she is there to serve her
mother it's gonna be really fun to see
people's reactions to what becomes a
pervert at the end of the Mortal Kombat
story Centurion is a good example of the
challenges that we have introducing a
new character in the Mortal Kombat
universe by now we have about 80
characters in our roster over the years
and whenever we introduce a new one the
question is what haven't we done before
and so her relationship the fact that
she is the character we're introducing
who is the daughter of another new
character you know really gives us an
open slate to do something interesting
and how she serves her mother and her
interest is a really big part of what
makes her so interesting
[Music]
Devorah was a character that was
introduced in Mortal Kombat X she was
one of the favorite new characters in
Mortal Kombat X so we knew we were gonna
bring her back in Mortal Kombat 11 I
personally think a lot of Devore's
appeal is her look she is a very unique
looking character and you know she has
these kind of ovipositor x' on her back
that she uses you notice to stab her
opponents poison her opponents she is
actually consists of a human body that
has been taken over by bugs insects and
she has some of the the more kind of
gruesome story mode killings that a lot
of the other characters don't get to do
so she really kind of represents you
know Mortal Kombat from that perspective
she's also very interesting too in terms
of her story she used to serve Shao Kahn
but at the end of the day she's really
just loyal to herself and her people and
you know so she has some backstabbing
moments that you'll be very interested
to see it
[Music]
Aaron Black is another character
introduced in Mortal Kombat X that is
kind of like a a wandering Nomad in in
Outworld he's one of our more mysterious
characters when we created him we wanted
a lot of his backstory to be mysterious
you know he put a mask on him we want
people to really wonder what the history
of this character is been we do reveal a
little bit more in Mortal Kombat 11 but
at the end of the day we really want him
to be one of the mystery characters of
the game I personally feel that the
biggest challenge we had with Aaron
Black was not to make him look like a
typical western character you know we
really wanted to push that whole Nomad
aspect of him the wanderer the guy who
is you know it doesn't really have a
home I personally would have liked to
have him a little less cowboy than we
had but I think that he's one of our
cooler mysterious characters in the game
I'm patiently waiting to kill you with
every Mortal Kombat game we do want to
introduce a character that players
haven't seen in a long time
frost is a character that we introduced
in I believe it was Mortal Kombat Deadly
Alliance the simple explanation might be
she's a female sub-zero but she's a lot
more than that she is been cyber rised
but with her own ACCA's kind of
technology so she's a lot more advanced
she still has the freezing abilities but
at a much more sophisticated level than
the other cyber ninja that we've shown
over the years
nothing within your power reader garrus
garrus is one of the coolest new
characters that we are introducing in
Mortal Kombat 11 particularly because he
can't be killed
[Music]
you can temporarily kill him but
eventually he is going to rewind time
and come back to life so he is kind of
eternal in the game as far as gameplay
is concerned he can actually rewind time
and put himself for you in a situation
that you were a few seconds ago he can
affect the game clock so there were
technological challenges that our
gameplay and designers faced in terms of
having the ability to rewind time the
game needs to remember what happened a
few seconds ago and rewind it back to
the beginning of that so he plays very
different from other characters as far
as this design as far as this look is
concerned I think he's one of the
coolest looking new characters that we
have in the game again he's got this
ethnic / magical look about him probably
one of the most unique characters in the
game and he has maybe my favorite
fatality in the game
it's so ridiculous he hits you in the
back of the head and your face and
brains shoot out its
now you see my Jade is a hidden
character originally started as a hidden
character in Mortal Kombat 2 back in the
day we love to give players peaks of
characters that were some somehow hidden
in the game and Jade was one of the
first ones a reptile I think was a very
first one you couldn't play as them but
you could fight against them later as we
started expanding on the story we really
gave her more of the history and in
Mortal Kombat 11 we established that
she's had this relationship with Kotal
Kahn that dates back way back so she has
really become a much more rounded and
character than kind of hidden very
shallow kind of representation that we
gave her Jade's fighting style she has
this really cool staff that expands uses
it in combat she uses it in her
fatalities as well she has this great
kind of boomerang type weapon which uses
as well in terms of projectiles so she's
a really great penalty boy character so
she was one of the few kind of
all-around kind of weapons based fighter
[Music]
then I hope it washes off Cotto Jackie
Briggs like Cassie cage is the offspring
of one of the classic Mortal Kombat
characters so Jax had a daughter that
ended up just like him came back you how
about we keep this between me myself and
I her game play she's got you know he's
great arm guns on her and it's kind of
like a you know a little bit of a
parallel with Jax who has those kind of
mechanical arms he's kind of known for
at this point but so she kind of carries
on that tradition a little bit more
modern a little bit more high-tech than
her dad obviously 25 years later Jackie
is one of my favorite looking characters
in the game the actress and the mall
that we use to create the Jackie
character it was just it's just perfect
you know we were casting when we saw her
we were like that is Jackie and you know
in the winter that was the dirt we're
gonna use I often do double takes
thinking that it's an actual real person
than there she looks so real
how about you turn yourself in Jax is
one of our classic characters you know
we introduced him in Mortal Kombat 2 in
Mortal Kombat 3 we kind of gave and gave
him these kind of cybernetic arms which
really became a big part of his
signature look his signature moves that
he does in the game
fun fact in Mortal Kombat 2 I was the
voice of Jax I was the guy who was a
gacho and when he would bang the guy he
punched him I was a voice for a number
of characters before we actually hired
professionals to do that I was a voice
of Scorpion Jack's Luke hanging in the
first game
Jax is one of my favorite characters in
the game just because he is our first
kind of big brawler type of fighter you
know big guy you know big hits and not
super agile like or Sonya
[Music]
have you been to Hollywood Johnny Cage
is Mortal Kombat 11s comic relief I
think he is the funniest character we
have ever made especially his antics and
Mortal Kombat 11 just would you asked in
Mortal Kombat X we kind of introduced
this kind of magic heritage that he has
that explains like the green energy that
he can shoot out and we also explained
how he's passed that on to Cassie Wow he
is very much a funny kind of comic
relief with Mortal Kombat at the same
time you know Cassie was the winner of
Mortal Kombat X and it was because of
this kind of magic power that he gave
her that let her win so he does have a
really big important role in the world
Kombat story who hired this guy with
deadly uppercut take 19 never forget
I've always been the biggest fan of the
flash in the DC Universe and cabal was
kind of my personal outlet trying to get
him into one of our games you know his
SuperSpeed was absolutely you know
inspired by the flash when I put that
move in the game we had to write a story
about and so you know we
explained how he got the super fast
speed cabal in MK 11 you can actually
see him in his burn State and his pre
burn stick and he has just this variety
of gear that is the different variations
of hooks that he has in the game it's
very cool to see this character you know
and all his renditions tons of hooks
with the mask without the mask burned
non burns and every iteration of the
ball is representative
finally make two strikes to get here
Kano is one of the original bad guys and
Mortal Kombat 1 you know he has this
kind of rivalry relationship with Sonia
that was really a big part of Sonia's
motivation listen if you killed her
partner she is obsessed with getting
revenge on him and he is easily our
dirtiest character he will backstab
anyone he will do anything for money he
has no loyalty to anyone except for
himself but he has been hired to a
number of times throughout the world on
that storyline to do somebody else's
bidding and he doesn't care as long as
he gets paid
on behalf of them you duh katana was a
character that we introduced in Mortal
Kombat 2 she is the daughter of sindel
and she has a very complicated
relationship with sindell Shao Kahn
Molina where there is probably more
deceit in her story than any of the
Mortal Kombat characters and what
happens to her and her continued
relationship with sindell and Shao Kahn
is one of the biggest beats in you know
Kitana and Mileena as far as when we
introduced them they were kind of
motivated by our desire to have like
kind of the female version of Scorpion
and sub-zero we wanted two characters
who kind of look the same but we're
almost the polar opposites of each other
and so we came up with a costume that
can the color can change and it can
become a different person you know there
were other wins of that in terms of just
you know from a technology standpoint
the amount of memory
and these arcade games that allows us to
make two characters out of one but we
really wanted to have the female version
of the Scorpion and sub-zero kind of
parallels but conflicts at the same time
and that's pretty much what inspired the
creation
[Music]
Oh God the beds Bone Collector is
another new character that we are
introducing in Mortal Kombat 11 he
collects basically heads and body parts
and hearts from from all the opponents
that he kills the hardest thing about
making collector was the technical
challenges these additional arms that
are on this backpack were a design and
technology nightmare in our game we have
what we call skeletons and so we have
medium male big male small female big
female and the collector has his own
skeleton as we call it because he has
the forearms we have to animate those
independently of him and give him his
own unique skeleton and that introduces
a ton of problems as far as throws
special moves fatalities fatal blows all
of those we have two kind of special
case for a collector so in the motion
capture studio we would have somebody
standing next to the main motion capture
talent pretending to be his upper arms
and so he would they would kind of work
in unison you know to do the special
move and then our animators would take
those the second guy's upper arms and
attach them to the collectors backpack
and that's basically how we managed to
get four arms
[Applause]
the color is reserved for Asha techcom
Kotal Kahn is Shao Kahn after Shao Kahn
effectively you can almost think of him
as a boss but he's kind of like in the
same vein as Shao Kahn and what's cool
about this game is Shao Kahn who is kind
of from the past and Kotal Kahn is kind
of like the present in the future with
time folding they actually meet and
that's one of the big conflicts that is
in Mortal Kombat xi and they are
basically battling for who is Kahn who
is ultimately going to be the king so
that the challenge was kind of like
making him live up to the scope the
legacy the the awesomeness that is Shao
Kahn somebody can parallel like him but
you know Shao Kahn was the big boss in
Mortal Kombat two and three corticon
were just introducing you know how do we
make him in the same league kalau was
one of our classic characters that we
introduced in Mortal Kombat to our
future Liu Kang it is insane along with
Liu Kang had the unfortunate outcome of
being killed and turned into a revenant
the thought of becoming used sickens me
what was once one of our most noble
characters has become you know one of
our villains now his journey along with
Liu Kang's and they're kind of similar
outcomes is one of the things that is
kind of revealed when we bring Kung Lao
from the past and he realizes that he
and Liu Kang have died and have become
revenants in there and now bad guys you
know the conflict that those four have
together both kung Laos both Liu Kang's
is to me is one of the coolest kind of
novelty moments that you would see in
in our story mode because you know
seeing your future self haven't turned
evil and how you would react to that is
just such a big moment for like a hero
like a con law or Luke a chronica is the
boss that we are introducing in Mortal
Kombat 11 she is the architect of every
single event that has happened in Mortal
Kombat history
this is not our destination Ock no we
learned that she wanted everything to
happen she knew everything was going to
happen all the way up to the point where
Raiden cut shinnok's head off so cool
because she's the first female boss
character that we've had in the game she
is the boss of bosses and I'm very
excited to have people finally see who's
been running the show all along one of
the biggest challenges with chronica was
what she was gonna look like she
actually started off as a male character
and we tried a number of different
concepts that just wasn't resonating
with us somebody on the team you know
suggested what if we make this character
female and at that point everything just
kind of clicked together I'm Veronica
Keeper
I mean I come from the real Lu Kang has
been the hero of MORTAL KOMBAT since the
very first one he is our protagonists he
is the main hero he's the one who won
the first two Mortal Kombat tournaments
and he is unfortunately was killed in
the Mortal Kombat story and turned into
what we call a revenant and a revenant
being kind of like an undead version of
the character basically turned evil well
what's new about Lu Kang is we get to
see him again as his in his heroic self
and it's also even more interesting as
to see him interact with his revenant
self at the end of the day you know
Liu Kang in his current form is still
one of the bad guys you know used to be
a hero and now he's a bad guy and that's
what makes this story that much more
interesting he's probably the sum of all
of the heroes that we've seen you know
throughout our experiences with movies
you know he is Bruce Lee he is Luke
Skywalker he is you know all of the kind
of martial arts and action movie hero is
kind of locked into one
he is the ultimate good guy he's a
Shaolin monk is all about good is he
does not have ego I think he's the
epitome of the hero up until the point
[Music]
noob saibot was one of our first hidden
characters in the Mortal Kombat arcade
games he had no story at the time and
then later on we established him as
behind who was the very first sub-zero
his name noob saibot is actually my name
and John devises name our last names
spelled backwards and you know it was
something very silly that we never
anticipated to be taken seriously let
alone become the lore of you know part
of the whole Mortal Kombat story but
there it is
Mortal Kombat 11 has by far the best
visual and story representation of noob
saibot
in a lot of ways he reminds me of Batman
would be so proud look at him you just
go you know what is the history behind
this character what is behind you know
those masks what's the origin of this
character the fact that he is so
shrouded in mystery and is so cool so
many people are intrigued by it and how
he started with such a simple really
dumb idea and a dumb name that had he's
become one of our coolest characters
part of how interesting this story is
just just from the development
standpoint
[Music]
Rayden is the mentor to the Mortal
Kombat characters from the very
beginning he was the one who is kind of
like you know guiding them telling them
what they need to do inspiring them and
he's a God so he can't participate in
the tournament but he can stand on the
sidelines in the shear but he's the
Thunder guidance so you know he has he
commands a lot of respect you know but
ultimately he is kind of like a mentor
to all the beacon Raiden is inspired by
a number of action movies that we all do
Big Trouble in Little China had a big
influence on us and so there's a number
of kind of visual cues that we borrowed
from the character in that movie and
applied it to Raiden
he has a lot more of a noble presence
he's less shrouded like you can actually
see his face but the Hat and the
electricity and all that was kind of
inspired I think at least from the
beginning the should I buy you embrace
danger scorpion is my favorite character
in the Mortal Kombat universe for a
number of reasons not only his look and
his moves but he was the first character
that we got in the game that really set
the tone of how Mortal Kombat was gonna
play we always wanted more outrageous
moves than the other fighting games that
are out at the time you know it's so
scorpion he teleports he has this
awesome spirit took to a chain that
pulls the opponent in gives him a free
hit he became a specter because you know
that voice was kind of like like a
little hellish his infamous fatality you
know taking his mask off and breathing
fire on the on the opponent he was also
you know him and sub-zero were kind of
like the first rivalry that was in
Mortal Kombat that really established a
lot of the story between those two that
has expended some twenty something years
later he just represents so much to me
in terms of us starting Mortal Kombat
and where it's going you will always be
my favorite
I will open scarlet was one of the first
DLC characters in Mortal Kombat 9
she's like the blood character you know
she was created by Shao Kahn from the
blood of dead warriors even though she
was the DLC character in Mortal Kombat 9
she was one of the most requested to
come back in Mortal Kombat 11 so when we
had started this game we knew from the
very beginning that scarlet was going to
be one of the characters who was gonna
come back with a completely different
look a completely more sophisticated
costume and we're very happy with how a
players of attached er that's exciting
for us because it's always a big
challenge to introduce a character when
we have so many and to have them stick
and like players want to see more of
them the biggest challenge with scarlet
was probably just how far we want to
take the blood blood is kind of a queasy
visual and you know her fatalities and
Mortal Kombat 9 probably cross the line
a little bit in terms of her kind of
bathing in her opponents blood I think
we toned that down a tiny bit with
Mortal Kombat 11 but where that line was
was probably the toughest thing with her
you know making her unique and cool and
dangerous but not getting too too
nauseous about it
trust me I'm not your type Sonia blade
is one of the original Mortal Kombat
characters from the first game what's
interesting is the first Mortal Kombat
that we tested did not have Sonya in it
it was just six characters we put it in
arcade and it was a huge huge hit and at
that point we realized that we needed
more than six characters so we decided
to add a female character we didn't have
any female characters in the game and so
on the blade was a result of that she
was kind of like military you know
Special Forces component to the Mortal
Kombat story everything was kind of like
you know a bunch of magic Johnny Cage
was kind of Hollywood and Sonya was
military so we really wanted to kind of
represent all these kind of walks of
life and she built that void and real
nicely Sonya is one of the few
characters who does not run into her
former self I can't tell you why but
it's a big deal you'll have to play
anything
[Music]
savagery is no match for skilled
sub-zero
like scorpion is visually the most
recognizable character in the Mortal
Kombat cast he has a very deep soap
opera-like
history and story and relationship with
a number of the Mortal Kombat characters
it's a main adversary of scorpion but
visually if you were to put any mortal
kombat character in front of people I
think Scorpion and sub-zero would be the
most recognizable in Mortal Kombat 11 I
can't give away too much you will be
surprised to see him working with
scorpion in Mortal Kombat 11 after all
the history of their more adversarial
Shao Kahn was introduced in Mortal
Kombat 2 he was kind of like where we
took our first step to expanding the
Mortal Kombat University it wasn't just
this tournament all of a sudden it was
for bigger stakes and Shao Kahn was kind
of the head of all of that his big
hammer is very iconic to him you see him
standing there with big hammer and you
know who he is his helmet is very
identifiable we got his shoulder charged
and swinging with the hammer functioning
in the game there was something really
special about this character he was one
of our most difficult to defeat boss
monster characters because of his that
shoulder charge in that Hammer but
probably the hardest thing was toning
him down to the point where he was
actually beatable you know he was just
so ridiculously powerful in the arcades
we had to kind of dial that down a bit
welcome traveler I am Shang Tsung Shang
Tsung is the original bad guy in the
first Mortal Kombat game as far as the
arcade game was concerned his powers
were inspired by our lack of memory you
know we had very little memory left for
Shang Tsung's images and so to make the
most of what we can we said okay let's
just make him morph into the other
characters and use their moves and so
that really just inspired his ability to
turn into the other characters it was
way more of technical limitations that
we had and so that really gave him a
mystique to him it was something that
was carried into the movies and other
forms of media from Mortal Kombat and
that's really what he's associated with
right now people expect
Shang Tsung to morph into other people
all because that first game didn't have
enough memory to give him a full moveset
take what you want within reason you'll
find the time spent years well rambling
well that's every character in Mortal
Kombat 11 I want to say thank you to all
the Mortal Kombat fans both old and new
and we can't wait for you to get your
hands on Mortal Kombat 11 - this