NetherRealm Studios (NRS) pulled back the curtain at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 last month to reveal what all is coming next for Mortal Kombat 1. The next major DLC update, entitled Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns, aims to bring six additional main roster DLC fighters, a brand new series of cinematic story mode chapters, Animalities, and more into the fold.
Three out of the six upcoming DLC combatants will be outside guest characters, one of which being Arnold Schwarzenegger’s version of Conan the Barbarian. Though the fighter will clearly be using Arnold’s likeness in-game, people are wondering if NRS will also be getting the world famous body builder turned action star to voice the character, and it seems that “people” in this context also includes Mortal Kombat series co-creator Ed Boon.
In an interview with ComicBook.com at SDCC, Boon spoke about the upcoming guest characters in MK1. When asked about the voice actors for the new guests — specifically if Arnold will be offering his voice for Conan — Boon responded by saying he doesn’t actually know, but it sounds like the development team is trying to make it happen.
“I don’t know yet,” Boon said about Arnold voicing the DLC character. “We couldn’t get him to do Terminator [in Mortal Kombat 11], and that was always a challenge.
“But there’s so many variables and we’re in constant discussions with them about ‘Can we do this? Can we meet him here?’ Because it’s a good amount of lines that you have to record, so… fingers crossed,” Ed concluded.
Boon goes on to say that though they haven’t quite nailed down getting Arnold to voice Conan, they did get the original actors to play both of the other two guests in the T-1000 and Ghostface. Robert Patrick is reprising his role as the unstoppable threat from Terminator 2 (both in likeness and voice) and Roger Jackson as the classic Horror movie slasher from the Scream franchise.
Fans are familiar with this exact situation as the T-800 from Terminator was a guest DLC character back in Mortal Kombat 11. While Arnold’s likeness was used for the additional fighter, NetherRealm got an Arnold soundalike in Chris Cox to provide his dialogue.
What’s interesting is that Chris Cox can be found in Mortal Kombat 1’s credits, so it does seem like NetherRealm and Warner Bros. are still working with the voice actor. We can only imagine that if Arnold Schwarzenegger is unavailable for the role or simply unwilling, the developers will likely resort to giving Cox the gig again.
If what Boon is saying here about not knowing whether or not they’ll get Arnold for the role is true, it also paints an interesting picture about the DLC character release timing for Kombat Pack 2. The upcoming Kombat Pack is rolled into the Khaos Reigns update, and three of the six fighters will be available when the update launches.
Noob Saibot, Cyrax, and Sektor are all slated to release with Khaos Reigns on September 24, 2024, and the three guest DLC fighters will follow at a later time. Considering the fact that NetherRealm and Warner Bros. have already been able to definitively say that Robert Patrick and Roger Jackson are voicing their characters, but Conan the Barbarian’s voice is still undecided, makes it sound like Conan might be coming further down the road than the others and potentially might be the final character of Kombat Pack 2.
In the Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns announcement trailer, we do see the DLC guest characters revealed one at a time, with Ghostface being the first to appear, then T-1000, and finally Conan. This obviously can’t be taken as any kind of confirmation of their release order, but it certainly is interesting given the comments from Boon about who is voicing Conan the Barbarian.
Khaos Reigns will be available this September on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch. The new returning finisher type, Animalities, will be added to the game on the same day as a free update.