Mortal Kombat 1’s next year of content will bring six more characters, new story content, and a returning finishing move, the Animality, to the fighting game, developer NetherRealm Studios announced at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday.
NetherRealm chief creative officer Ed Boon was on hand at SDCC 2024 to reveal a new Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath-style add-on called Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns, which arrives on Sept. 24. That expansion will include the following characters:
- Cyrax
- Sektor
- Noob Saibot
- Terminator T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- Ghostface from Scream
- Conan the Barbarian
Cyrax, Noob Saibot, and Sektor will be available when Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns launches in September. The three remaining guest fighters will be released afterward, at to-be-announced dates.
Cyrax and Sektor, who are both cyborg ninjas, are already featured in Mortal Kombat 1 as Kameo Fighters. But the new iterations are female human versions of the characters. Voice actors Enuka Okuma, Erika Ishii, and Kaiji Tang are confirmed to voice Cyrax, Sektor, and Noob Saibot, respectively. (Tang also voiced Sub-Zero/Bi-Han in MK1.)
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Roger L. Jackson will reprise his role as the voice of Ghostface, and Robert Patrick will return to voice the T-1000 in Khaos Reigns.
Animalities, a finishing move introduced in Mortal Kombat 3, are also returning in year 2 of MK1. Those Fatality-like moves involve characters transforming into animals and killing their opponents in inventive ways. At the Mortal Kombat 1 SDCC panel, NetherRealm showed a couple of Animality examples: Mileena transforming into a praying mantis and eating her opponent, and Rain transforming into a puffer fish, then exploding his victim from the inside. A trailer for Khaos Reigns revealed much more, with Animality moves that include a hyena, hippopotamus, a gorilla, and a scorpion. (Huh, I wonder who that might be?)
Mortal Kombat 1’s expanded story will focus on masochistic menace Havok and his decision to unleash chaos on the NetherRealm at the end of the original game’s story. Havok serves as Khaos Reign’s major threat, and seems to be responsible for reviving Sub-Zero as Noob Saibot.
The Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns expansion costs $49.99 on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The Nintendo Switch version costs $39.99. Kombat Pack 2 will not be available as a stand-alone character bundle, publisher Warner Bros. said in a news release.
Kombat Pack 1 included six post-launch characters for Mortal Kombat 1: MK mainstays Quan Chi, Ermac, and Takeda, and guest characters Invincible’s Omni-Man, The Boys’ Homelander, and DC’s Peacemaker. Six Kameo Fighters were also release via DLC, with Mavado, Ferra, Tremor, Janet Cage, and Khameleon joining as assist characters.
The Mortal Kombat series’ roster of guest characters has typically been incredibly varied, leaning on comic book, action movie, and horror film villains and antiheroes to flesh out its lineup. The previous game in the franchise, Mortal Kombat 11, featured John Rambo, RoboCop, the Terminator T-800, Spawn, and The Joker as guest fighters. Past games have featured God of War’s Kratos, Alien’s Xenomorph, and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees as playable characters.
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