Mortal Kombat 12: What to Expect With the Roster

With Street Fighter 6 having an open beta and Tekken 8 releasing character trailer after character trailer it leaves one more big fighting game to announce its next installment being Mortal Kombat. Following on from 2011's Mortal Kombat 11 this next game will serve as a strong reboot following the timeline reset this may prove to be the most interesting installment for a while. We ended the story with Liu Kang the new elder God of Fire & Thunder shaping his new world choosing Kung Lao as his champion of Earthrealm as Raiden did to him previously. Outside of this we know nothing really. I wanted to use this post to breakdown a few character we can expect or in general what we can expect. 

With this being a story around Liu Kang as the elder God shaping his realm we saw he was doing it with Kitana by his side in the pre DLC ending of MK11. I would imagine as confirmed as confirmed can be we will have Liu Kang, Kitana, Kung Lao & possibly Raiden all in the base roster. Looking at it in terms of what Liu Kang would do I think characters like Jade, Jax, Sonia & Johnny Cage would all be in being his friends and allies and would likely have Edenia rebuilt which could also give us Rain. 

Now on a pure marketing basis and how the series it I think we can confirm Scorpion & Sub-Zero before the game is even announced. While Liu Kang may be the protagonist the faces of the series are those tow. I hope they go back to having human Scorpion being an ally of Sub-Zero/Kuai Liang it was nice to see a character like Scorpion evolve past being just a cool demon guy. I think in terms of characters that work alongisde these two I can see the likes of Smoke & Cyrax being brought back without being robots. Cyrax has been positioned as regretful of being turned into a cyborg and I think he can add a lot outside of that.

Personally I would have all the ninjas in the game and I think that there's as way to bring two of my favourites in Noob Saibot and Ermac back. Starting with Noob desrbied on the Mortal Kombat wiki as 'very incarnation of evil' I feel that is justification for him to come back he never truly can be killed he's kinda like Vanitas in Kingdom Hearts an evil entity that can always live as long as evil exists and that will always be the case with Mortal Kombat. Ermac I think you can do something very interesting with. Ermac being a fusion of many lost souls from Shao Khan conquests I think you could have it that lost souls from the previous timelines merge into Ermac to give them life as they fight to rule the new era and depending on who you want to use you can make Ermac either the big bad or a strong sub boss.

Speaking on Noob & Ermac has me thinking on the antagonist or MK12. I do think our big bad will be someone new as I can't see Liu Kang creating a timeline with Shao Khan, Shang Tsung or Quan Chi as part of it and I do not expect a return for Onaga, so I think the creating a new realm creates new issues which would be an interesting.

All in all I think a lot depends on popularity of character in terms of them returning as well as roster space. I can only imagine on top of this a push will be made for new characters as well so I think with a timeline reset characters like Cassie Cage would miss out so maybe cut back on the third party DLC for actual characters to flesh out the full world. I may be hoping for too much with a huge roster (mainly just ninjas) so we can get a fill for the future direction of Mortal Kombat and this new timeline.