It's that time of year again! I'm out in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada, where Midway Games held their annual Midway Gamers Day! Of course, the big news this year was the revelation that the first Mortal Kombat game of the current generation of consoles is to be a crossover game with the characters of DC Comics, in a game appropriately titled Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. While the game was not presented in any sort of playable form, we were given some information about the game.

During the presentation portion of the evening, Ed Boon gave a short presentation regarding MK vs DC. The presentation included the game's teaser trailer and a short bit of current information concerning the game.

Among the tidbits of information Ed gave during the presentation are:

  • The only currently confirmed characters are Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Batman, and Superman.
  • The game, as had been announced previously, will use Unreal Engine 3.
  • The storyline for the game will be written by comic book veterans Jimmy Palmotti (Monolith, 21 Down, Painkiller Jane) and Justin Gray (Jonah Hex, Crisis Aftermath: The Battle for Bludhaven, JLA Classified).

The teaser trailer was also made available. Not much was shown gameplay-wise, other than Sub-Zero and Batman fighting each other in a multi-tier environment (complete with fighting while falling between levels).

After the presentations were over, during the evening portion of the event, I got a chance to talk to Ed Boon on-camera about Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. We've made the interview available for download in both Quicktime video format and MP3 format.

During the interview with Ed, we were able to glean a few additional details about the game.

  • Whether or not the storyline will be considered "canon" in regards to the main Mortal Kombat storyline has not been decided. Such a decision will probably not be made until the next Mortal Kombat game.
  • While the game will have finishing moves of a sort and will have a dark and gritty setting and storyline (Ed specifically referenced Batman Begins and The Dark Knight), they are pushing for a hard T rating, hoping to get as close as they can to M without actually reaching it.
  • The development team knows that the idea is not popular with the fans and expected a backlash. They're hoping to show that the idea can and will work.
  • There should be a playable build by the time E3 comes around.

Finally, Midway has made available a press release announcing Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. While it is dated for Monday, we're going to go ahead and make it available to read. You can read the full press release here.

It has been a landmark day in the Mortal Kombat community, not to mention a very controversial one. We will continue to cover this game in the weeks and months ahead, and when we learn more, we'll be sure to report it here. From Las Vegas, this is D'Arque Bishop.