With the release of Mortal Kombat 11 just one month away, NetherRealm Studios decided to amp up the fanfare for the game with a special panel at the biggest comic convention in their hometown of Chicago, C2E2. On hand for the Mortal Kombat 11 C2E2 panel were Director of Art Steve Beran, Story and Voiceover Director Dominic Cianciolo, Senior Cinematics Artist Shannah O’Meara, Senior Systems Designer Derek Kirtzic and legendary Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon. Beforehand, it was confirmed by NetherRealm that the big highlights of the panel would be the new announcement of a fighter and the first DLC character, but it also provided more insight into the creative decisions that were made for the game.

Boon states early in the presentation that the big overarching idea for the game was to bring the past to the present. The classic Mortal Kombat characters will be able to meet their future selves, or at least the present versions of the characters, as we know them now in 2019. This theme will be made especially present with the game’s new story mode villain Kronika, “The Keeper of Time”, who will attempt to recruit some of the classic iconic fighters. However, she is not all powerful, as Cianciolo clarifies:

 “While she sets things in motion, she cannot control every single outcome. And so, she has gone and figured out through the actions of the characters what she has wanted to do has not gone as she hoped. So now, her only choice is to start this whole thing over again and restart time.”

Fans present at the Mortal Kombat 11 C2E2 were able to see returning characters, like Scorpion and Jacqui Briggs, kicking posteriors and staying superior. When asked how NetherRealm has been able to give their modern games such a cinematic field, O’Meara had this to say:

”We start like a regular movie production. We start with pre-vis and storyboards, and go from there. The writing helps a lot with character development. We work on really amplifying the sets, the props, the characters, the animations, on point, and all that really tied together gives it a movie feel.”

She also mentions that like many major film productions, they stick pretty close to the script, leaving the improvisation more to the physical performance than to the voice acting and lip motion capture. When it comes to building the moveset for each fighter, the process for the designers selecting which character they want to help build can be just as cutthroat as players at home choosing on the character select screen before their friends do. As Kirtzic puts it:

Once the email goes out saying ‘Hey guys, here’s the cast. Pick which characters you want’, it’s basically a race to respond as fast as possible. Everybody on the design team are huge Mortal Kombat fans. We’ve all grown up playing this game. We all love these characters. We kind of just claim who we want for the game. Obviously, if they’re a legacy character, you have a good starting ground, but new characters like Geras, it’s an open palette.”

O’Meara also walked the crowd through the process of creating the iconic fatalities, beginning with the basic storyboard photos, leading to the rough animatics which have textures, lighting and other details added to become the final cinematic fatality seen in the game.

The panelists also confirmed that characters can be customizable, with players being able to choose between the newer versions of the characters, as well as the character looks from the original games dating all the way back to the original Mortal Kombat. So, those looking for the simpler costumes and bright colors of yesterday can have their nostalgia fulfilled. Finishing out the presentation portion of the panel were the big reveals of Noob Saibot’s return and the reprisal of Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung, which were both met with much applause. All in all the panel was quite a success, with many laughs, gasps and cheers throughout made by the crowd witnessing in person. Call it a fatality, because NetherRealm certainly killed it. What did you guys think about the Mortal Kombat 11 C2E2 panel? Let us know in the comments below!

Be sure to stay tuned for more stories from C2E2 and updates on Mortal Kombat 11, such as the possible return of Babalities to the franchise, here on Don’t Feed the Gamers! Follow us on Twitter to see our updates the minute they go live!