Be on the lookout, because they’re planting seeds now
During a podcast, NetherRealm Studios’ Ed Boon fielded all sorts of questions about the development of the Mortal Kombat games, and what his team has in store next.
When asked specifically what’s coming from NetherRealm Studios in the future, Boon said “It’s not like when we finish a game, we go ‘What are we going to do next?’ we decided what we were going to do a long time ago.”
He did note that NetherRealm Studios is sowing seeds currently for their next title.
“The next game hasn’t been announced, I’d love to give you that exclusive, but I’d probably get in big trouble,” said Boon.
“We’re supporting Mortal Kombat 1 with additional characters and what not, and we’re planting seeds for the next game,” he added.
Boon was asked about typical development cycles for the Mortal Kombat games. “Almost every MK game was two years or less [of development time], Mortal Kombat 1 was four years,” he responded.
“There were a lot of factors involved in it, game engines, the COVID-19 pandemic… I don’t think our goal is to take four years for every game at this point,” he said.
When NetherRealm Studios joined Warner Bros., they gave the studio six more months of additional development time to make Mortal Kombat 9’s release in 2011 awesome. It was the best selling Mortal Kombat game at that time.
Boon cited the decreased pressure to release the game and more time to improve various things as reasons why the game sold like it did.
Ed noted that the first Mortal Kombat game, released in 1992 had 4 people working on it for 8 months and less than a million dollar budget.
The second game had about 5 people, the third was roughly 9 and then went to 25 and about 70 people as they made each additional sequel. By the time they joined Warner Bros., they had about 90 staff members working on Mortal Kombat.
Now it’s hundreds of people who work on a Mortal Kombat title.
Ed Boon was then asked how he approaches making a new Mortal Kombat game, and what his mindset is going into it.
“If you were to ask what the common thread or theme is, answer the question of ‘Why should somebody play this version when they’ve played 10 other ones?’,” said Boon.
“Let’s answer that question, let’s add something to the fighting, the story, or to the overall experience that’s never been done in a Mortal Kombat game, and ideally has never been done in another fighting game or video game,” he said.
Boon cited Mortal Kombat 1’s Kameo system as the unique and special thing about the latest entry in the franchise.
When covering some potential pitfalls they’ve run into in the past, Ed said that releasing games in the same franchise too often was an issue.
“So we went a few years where we were releasing them, in my opinion, too frequently,” said Boon. “There was one year where we did three games in three years, Mortal Kombat Deception, Shaolin Monks and Armageddon.
“I felt like there were periods of time where we overexposed MK, but then we gave it a rest and then people said ‘Where’s my next Mortal Kombat game?'”
Closing this out, Boon is one of the people cited by the Guinness World Record for the longest running voice actor, for Scorpion. Boon was asked if he plays the character he voices in the game. “Most of the time,” he said.
You can find the full interview with Ed Boon on The Fourth Curtain’s Spotify page. The podcast is over an hour long and covers tons of subjects, like Ed’s time at Midway and how he got his start in video games.
Source: Event Hubs
