Quan Chi and Khameleon’s gameplay trailer for Mortal Kombat 1 was recently revealed. During the trailer, it was shown that Khameleon as a Kameo sports attacks from Kitana, Mileena, and Jade, though it’s currently unclear how the player will cycle through which set of attacks that Khameleon has access to at a given point.
As far as Jade’s moveset is concerned, we saw that Khameleon can either grant the point character projectile immunity for a time or throw a glaive that travels forwards then backwards. Additionally, we also saw that Khameleon has different forward throw animations, one of which involves her using Jade’s Bo staff to strike the opponent multiple times.
With Khameleon now channeling Jade, some fans may have begun wondering if Khameleon’s inclusion as a Kameo somehow disconfirms the possibility of Jade becoming a DLC fighter sometime in the future after the Kombat Pack.
It’s difficult to say for sure at the moment, but things actually look pretty favorable for Jade fans. For starters, we already have multiple instances of fighters acting as both playable characters and Kameos with Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Kung Lao.
While it could be argued that Khameleon having many of Jade’s signature moves could render the addition of Jade as a playable character as being pointless, it’s important to remember that things have been reworked within Liu Kang’s rebooted timeline. Since Jade had virtually no part to play in the story, it should be relatively simple to enact changes upon her moveset if need be.
By this point, Ed Boon has already acknowledged that there’s a significant demand for Jade to join the roster. Boon has even noted that the voices clamoring for Jade may even be louder than the requests for Mileena back during the days of Mortal Kombat 11.
“But now… and we haven’t released the whole roster, but I knew it was going to happen, Mileena will be replaced with somebody else,” said Boon back in August. “And that’s Jade. It’s Jade. Absolutely. And it’s just as vocal, if not louder, and it’s just part of making the game. That’s what it is.”
Similarly, some fans may have been led to think that Mileena was disconfirmed for Mortal Kombat 11 when Friendships were added to the game. Notably, this was due to how Mileena made an appearance during Kitana’s Friendship. Regardless, Mileena ended up being added to Mortal Kombat 11 as one of the last DLC fighters alongside John Rambo and Rain.
Needless to say, Ed Boon will likely want to honor the request to add Jade to Mortal Kombat 1 once fan demand reaches a certain point. Of course, we can probably expect plenty of teasing from Boon, just like last time with Mileena.
References to Jade are already reportedly present in Mortal Kombat 1’s code, according to dataminers. Ed Boon recently confirmed that NetherRealm Studios is already working on a story expansion for Mortal Kombat 1, suggesting that Mortal Kombat 1 will continue receiving developer support beyond this first Kombat Pack.
Ultimately though, NetherRealm Studios are able to add any of their characters that they’d like to Mortal Kombat 1. Khameleon as a Kameo likely doesn’t have any real impact on Jade’s future chances. We’ll ultimately have to wait and see how things unfold.