Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns finally launched earlier today with the expansion plus update bringing a bunch of new content to the game just over a year after its initial launch.
But there’s a lot of people out there who always want to look ahead to what’s coming next after the current thing in front of them.
Even with more updates and content on the horizon, there’s been some talk now about what NetherRealm Studios is doing in the future.
A lot of this discussion appears to be stemming from a ComicBook interview with Mortal Kombat Co-creator Ed Boon where their headline stated “NetherRealm’s next game has been in development for three years.”
This is what Boon had to say directly on the matter:
“I’ve said this before but we start planning the next game long before we’re done with the previous game,” said Boon via ComicBook. “There is so much prep work, research, and planning. It is absolutely not the case that when we finish the game we go, ‘Okay, what’re we going to do next?’
“There’s a lot of people who need to be working on something. We’ve known what our next game was going to be three years ago and we’ve been working on it in some capacity ever since.”
That seems to have sparked some confusion as to making some fans believe the next NRS title has been worked on full time for multiple years now, even before the launch of MK1.
Boon took to social media to clarify that statement and double down on their continued support for Mortal Kombat 1 moving forward.
“Love the fact that there is excitement for our next game. And I don’t want to be a stickler for words… But we haven’t been working on our next game for 3 years already,” wrote Boon. “The actual quote was that we KNEW what our next game was going to be 3 years ago.
“NetherRealm is still fully committed to supporting Mortal Kombat 1 for a long time to come.”
Love the fact that there is excitement for our next game. And I don’t want to be a stickler for words…
But we haven’t been working on our next game for 3 years already. The actual quote was that we KNEW what our next game was going to be 3 years ago.
NetherRealm is still…
— Ed Boon (@noobde) September 24, 2024
There’s certainly some debate to be had over what “in development” really means when it comes to the modern video game industry because as Boon put it himself, there’s a lot of steps involved.
Large studios generally need to go through many early steps to even get a project off the ground including pitches, planning, early storyboarding and prototypes before a game enters full production.
As far as we know, NetherRealm itself isn’t really large enough to support two projects in that state at the same time, and a majority of their effort was focused on MK1 until at least September 2023 when the game launched.
We don’t know each individual case, but development teams tend to start moving more and more their resources to the next project once the current one is released or has gone gold.
Meanwhile, a smaller team remains behind to keep working on new content and updates on the game that’s now being supported — though MK1 may have had a bit more than usual on that front for the Khaos Reigns Story Mode expansion.
Assuming that is all the case here, the longest amount of time NRS’ next project could have left pre-production and entered full production would be like a year though potentially even less.
We do believe the next AAA title from NetherRealm is more than likely in production because of recent job listings for the studio suggesting that to be the case.
Shortly after launch, Warner Bros. stated they planned to support MK1 for around 3–4 years, which is a notable step up from their past titles that only saw 1–2 years of updates and content.
Boon himself reaffirmed just a few months ago that they plan to produce “years” of content for MK1, and they’re currently only on year two.
Noob Saibot, Cyrax and Sektor just released as new playable fighters in the Khaos Reigns expansion, but we do know that Scream’s Ghostface, the Terminator’s T-1000 and Conan the Barbarian are coming in the future too.
So at the very least, Mortal Kombat 1 will likely be supported through at least the end of 2025 and even beyond if they keep to their word.
With how long modern AAA titles take to develop and release now, we probably won’t be seeing what NetherRealm is cooking up behind the scenes for another three years or so if not more.
That could all change with Warner Bros.’ situation too, however, with the company remaining in financial trouble from their other entertainment ventures, so impacts on the parent could impact the studio too.
NetherRealm did already face layoffs this year to their entire mobile team and shuttering of Mortal Kombat Onslaught after just a year.
But for now, it doesn’t look like Mortal Kombat 1 is going anywhere any time soon.