Ed Boon shares new details regarding Mortal Kombat X’s story and characters

There’s certainly a lot of hype around the upcoming Mortal Kombat X, and with good reason! The game not only introduces us to brand new characters such as Cassie Cage or D’Vorah, but also promises to tell one a hell of a story. While fighting games are not exactly best known for their interesting narratives it seems that NetherRealms’ latest title aims to be among the few exceptions. We learned earlier this year that Mortal Kombat X will begin shortly after the events of Mortal Kombat 9 and will span across 25 years. But that’s not all according to director Ed Boon, the game will also jump back and forth between different time periods.

“It’s a direct continuation, but the timespan it crosses is 25 years in length,” Boon explained in an interview with IGN. “There are periods that are directly after MK9, then there are periods that are five, ten, 15 and 20 years out. A lot of the events take place 25 years after where we see older versions of the characters, like Cassie Cage and all that. But it does jump around in time; it’s not a linear thing. You still play the different chapters and each chapter has a character where it follows their actions, but instead of just jumping from one character to the next, it’ll jump in time as well. So all of a sudden, you may have a flashback and you’ll participate in those, but sometimes the story will just move forward five or ten years.”

Definitely sounds like an interesting concept and this isn’t even half of it! Mortal Kombat X also does a great job at explaining how the new characters came into power following the previous game. One of these new characters is the Sun God Kotal Khan, one of the rulers of Outworld who apparently works with another newly introduced character, D’Vorah. Speaking of new characters, Ed Boon reveals that the addition of Cassie Cage doesn’t mean that her parents, Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage wont appear in Mortal Kombat X. You may or may not know this, but half of the current line-up is comprised of new fighter and there is a reason for that. The upcoming game wants to feel fresh and as such, a lot of old characters had to be replaced by new ones according to Boon. “The last game we did in 2011 was a complete fan service title, so we really felt it was time to add a lot of new characters to the mix,” he said. “So yeah, a lot of old faces won’t make the roster, but to us it was more important we did introduce new characters. We’re probably introducing more in this game than in any other MK title ever.”

Mortal Kombat X will be released next year for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and the PC.