E3 came to a close on June 17th, but as the media left the floor and the fans tuned away from their streams, Mortal Kombat was the game on everyone's mind. After winning Gamespot's Fan Choice award during Day 2, the game was chosen to close out the site's coverage of the event. Ed Boon narrated over the gameplay featured as designers Paulo Garcia and John Edwards took control of several of the game's revealed characters to showcase gameplay mechanics, special moves and fatalities. We've compiled some screenshots from the over 10 minute video:

There is much, much more contained in the video and it is definitely worth the watch. All 8 of the confirmed characters show off multiple fatalities, their array of special moves, fighting styles and custom intros.

In a bit of technical news, the game is confirmed to have a 3D option exclusively for the Playstation 3 console for fans of the high definition 3D experience. This was covered on 411mania and confirmed by the MK team as well. Thanks to forum member TheManWithTheGoldenGun for the word on this.

In the last week we've learned much of the upcoming entry to the series. To follow E3, we have compiled a useful list of facts that are current and up-to-date as of June 17th, 2010.

Gameplay

• Johnny Cage, Kung Lao, Mileena, Nightwolf, Reptile, Scorpion, Sektor and Sub-Zero are playable. Raiden and Shao Kahn are heavily implied to be in the game in some form. Around 26 characters will make the playable roster. A DLC option can be clearly seen in the lower right hand corner of the select screen.
• Each character will have unique punches and kicks; no character will share animations. This includes poses, styles, X-ray moves and anything else in the entire game.
• Dial-up combos are not present in the game. Combos are created entirely by the player.
• The super meter is a new feature of the game and has three levels. Level one empowers characters special moves, allowing for more powerful and dramatic abilities. The second tier allows for the use of breakers. The third allows access to powerful X-ray moves, which do devastating damage internally.
• Each character will have at least two fatalities. Other -alities are said to be not likely, though not entirely ruled out.
• Classic arenas return remade. So far, Shang Tsung's Throne Room, The Living Forest, Kahn's Arena, The Pit II, Dead Pool, Rooftop and The Street have been seen. Pit II and Dead Pool both have stage fatalities.
• Tag team co-op mode is available offline and online.
• Online play will be available in single and tag kombat. Spectator mode will be a part of the game and influence the earning of achievements.

Movesets

Johnny Cage

• Specials: Shadow Kick, Green Bolt (straight and curved)
• Fatalities: Head Uppercut and Torso Rip
• Fight intro - Shadow kicks into screen and martial arts warm up
• Tag exit - Slit throat taunt

Kung Lao

• Specials: Hat Throw (Vertical and Horizontal), Tornado Spin, Flying Kick, Teleport
• Fatalities: Hat Buzzsaw, Hat Decapitation and Body Split
• Fight intro - Teleports and adjusts hat
• Tag exit - Classic hat taunt

Mileena

• Specials: Teleport Kick, Sai Toss, Rolling Thunder
• Fatalities: Head Rip/Eat
• Tag exit - Rolls away in a puff of pink smoke

Nightwolf

• Specials: Rhino Charge, Hatchet Uppercut, Lightning Bolt, Reflector Shield, Spirit Arrow (Triple)
• Fatalities: Hatchet Throw
• Tag exit - Summons a moonbeam and disappears

Reptile

• Specials: Invisibility, Forceball, Acid Spit, Lizard Dash, Slide
• Fatalities: Acid Bath
• Fight intro - Appears from invisibility and snarls

Scorpion

• Specials: Spear, Teleport Punch, Leg Tackle, Hellfire
• Fatalities: Katana Assault
• Fight intro - Bursts through ground on fire

Sektor

• Specials: Teleport Uppercut, Straight Missile, Homing Missile, Upward Missile, Flamethrower
• Fatalities: Missile Barrage
• Fight Intro - Teleport and Flamethrower taunt

Sub-Zero

• Specials: Freeze Ball (Ice Stream), Ground Freeze (Ice Spike), Slide
• Fatalities: Spine Rip and Shatter
• Fight intro - Materializes as ice, bursts the ice shell

Story

• The game takes place in the world of Mortal Kombat 1 through Mortal Kombat 3, but is a sequel to MK: Armageddon as well. Raiden is defeated by Shao Kahn post-Armageddon, but is able to send a message back to himself in a previous time period to prevent the chaos from ensuing in the future. Raiden will attempt to alter the past to avoid the inevitable destruction.
• No new characters have been confirmed, though not completely denied.
• Ed Boon has hinted that events you may know could change in the new timeline, as examples he used a character that wasn't a cyborg before becoming a cyborg and Liu Kang not winning the tournaments.

Thank you to everyone who followed MK Online during E3 and those of you that sent in newsleads during this week. We still have more than half a year to go until the game's release, and as new information develops we will continue to bring you the most reliable and accurate coverage you've come to expect.

As the second of three days at E3 rolled on, new information about the upcoming Mortal Kombat game surfaced in the form of new interviews and video. Firstly, G4 conducted an interview with Ed Boon in which he talked at great length about the gameplay, specifically the combo system, of the game, which he confirmed would be about in Spring 2011 for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360. A small transcript from the interview:

Ed Boon: "... Our goal with the fighting system was to create something that's a deeper fighting engine. And so in doing that we really wanted to open the doors for players to create their own combos. In some of the previous games we had combos that were strung together with button sequences; they're more pre-programmed into the game. But this one we're really trying to - our goal is to say let's just open a big palette and see what players paint, you know, so that in combination with our tag team, we can have characters jumping in and out of the fight, in mid combo, it creates just an unbelievable array of special moves and combos that you can string together, you know, just using your imagination. That's actually the most exciting part about our fighting mechanic. In designing the characters we really focused in on individuality. We really wanted every character to feel completely different from any other character in the game. And so, they have their own way that they walk, they punch, nobody's sharing animations and so when you're playing a character, you're learning it, you really feel connected to it..."

To watch the rest of the video, click here.

Screw Attack posted a video previewing several of the games fatalities. It begins with the classic stage fatality in The Pit. Following this, Mileena ripped the head off of Kung Lao and drank blood from it, drenching her own body in it, before slamming the head into the ground and going into a win pose. A montage follows, in which several fatalities are seen including Johnny Cage's head uppercut, Nightwolf's hatchet throw, Reptile acid bath, Kung Lao's hat toss decapitation and many more. The "Finish Him" text seems to pay homage to the older games as well, specifically Mortal Kombat II. To watch the entire video, click here.

On a closing note, Mortal Kombat won the Gamespot People's Choice award this year. MK team member Hans Lo posted the following image via his Twitter page:

Congratulations to the MK team for this accomplishment! If you missed our coverage of Day 1 at E3, be sure to click here to check it out. One final day of E3 still awaits!

Day 1 of E3 has come to a close and the amount of information pouring in is staggering to say the least. Late today, major gaming outlets Gamespot and IGN posted their first looks at the game as well as some crucial interviews with series co-creator and project lead Ed Boon.

Starting with Gamespot, a summary of their first day in the field reveals a plethora of interesting tidbits. These range from the expected number of playable characters, details on a few unseen fatalities and explanation of the new power bar feature in the game.

According to Boon, this reinvigorated Mortal Kombat will focus on providing deep mechanics for veterans, an accessible combo system for all newcomers, and a strong return to the mature-rated violence and fatalities the series is best known for. Boon says the team is aiming for a dark and gritty look, and in terms of story, the new game will take place after the events of Mortal Kombat Armageddon but will have some time travel elements in place. Thus all of the characters you'll see will be classic ones from the first three games, with many of the locations also hailing from early in the series. In the E3 demo that we managed to get hands-on behind closed doors, there were eight playable characters: Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Mileena, Johnny Cage, Sektor, Nightwolf, Reptile, and Kung Lao, with Boon saying he's aiming for roughly 26 characters overall in the final game.

Probably one of the biggest changes (at least for anyone who hasn't played the game in many years) is the addition of a multi-level power bar that can be used for several different purposes. Performing souped-up versions of your regular special moves takes up one section of the bar, and this is done by simply holding down the block button as you input the command. For example, Sub-Zero's ground freeze will normally only have an area of effect directly in front of the frosty ninja, but power it up and the frozen area will extend across the entire screen.

This summary features several more interesting findings, be sure to read it by clicking here.

IGN covers similar points in their interview with Ed Boon. Among some of the most interesting findings include learning that the game is indeed a retelling of the first three Mortal Kombat games, but that it is not a "reboot" in the true sense of the word. The opening of the trailer showed Raiden and Shao Kahn locked in combat, and apparently Kahn wins this battle. However, Raiden is able to send a message to himself in an earlier time period, namely the first MK game, telling him what will become of the world in the future. This allows Raiden a degree of omnipotence and enlightenment, and he changes things accordingly to prevent the future of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon from coming to pass.

Boon: "Mortal Kombat has this timeline - eighteen years of making games, and we really didn't want to just continue, like, chapter seventeen of the whole story," says Ed Boon, the co-creator of the series. "So we're kind of doing a Back to the Future type of thing, where Raiden is about to be killed by Shao Kahn, and just before he delivers the last blow, he sends a mental message to his earlier self, so the camera rewinds back to Mortal Kombat 1. The Raiden from back then gets a message and he doesn't know what's going on, but he knows something bad's going to happen, and the game spans Mortal Kombat 1, 2 and 3, retelling the story with an enlightened Raiden, and he's changing the course of things, so everything you've seen happen before – Liu Kang winning, the guys turning into cybernetic ninjas, are changed around, so you might see a character become cybernetic who wasn't before, and so you see a different version [of events]."

The super meter is mentioned once again as well. There will be three levels on the bar. The first level allows for more dramatic specials to be used, such as larger fireballs or the previously mentioned ground freeze. The second will grant access to breakers, something we have seen in Mortal Kombat games since MK: Deception. Finally, the third and highest tier on the super meter grants access to what is being referred to as "X-ray moves" at this time, though that name could change in time. This appears to be a Klose Kombat type system, the way we saw in MK vs. DC Universe, but made a little more special through the use this new meter and the "x-ray effect" into the skeletons of the combatants. Ed is asked about new characters as well as alternate finishers like Friendships, but declines to confirm either way on either subject, though he hints strongly there will be none of the more lighthearted finishers due to the seriousness level of this game.

Boon: "Certainly this Mortal Kombat game we're taking a little bit more seriously, so we're probably not going to have a friendship move and whatnot," says Ed, "but if we were to do something like that we're definitely not going to do

cument it. That's what I think was part of the fun of the old games. 'You turned the guy into a baby!' What? Or, 'you pulled out a rainbow'! What the? It's such an odd thing. We really want these events – if they happen – to be almost rumors. That's a big part of what Mortal Kombat was. The question mark about - what else is in this game?"

You can find the remainder of IGN's interview here.

E3 has just begun, stay tuned tomorrow for several promised gameplay hands-on exclusives!

Though this week is typically reserved for E3, gaming magazine legend EGM has revealed their cover art for the upcoming Issue #239 and it features the upcoming entry in the Mortal Kombat series as the cover story!

One of Mortal Kombat's poster boys, Sub-Zero, stands menacingly in a classically themed attire as the Mortal Kombat dragon logo rests in the background. Accompanying this is the blood-spattered text Mortal Kombat: Remaking a Legend. This issue of EGM is also cleverly titled "The Komeback Issue". These clues seem to hint that the upcoming game titled simply Mortal Kombat will be a remake or reboot of the series, rather than a continuation of any existing storyline. Though there appears to be no exact release date announced yet, Summer 2010 is listed and we will be keeping a close one on this developing story to bring you news of the game's appearance inside the magazine.

As always, we ask that when this magazine hits the shelves you go and purchase it. MK Online will not provide scans and we do not permit users to post them on our forums due to copyright. The cost of the magazine is $6.99 US/CAN.

Thanks to forum member Mick-Lucifer for word on this story!

Update: June 24: We have learned that the issue featuring Mortal Kombat on the cover will be going on sell officially June 29, 2010. The image featured will be one of two covers apparently, the other will feature the thunder god Raiden. You can visit EGM's online magazine, EGMi, by clicking here. It is free to register and there is a small preview of the Mortal Kombat article.

It's that time of year again and the E3 Expo is once again in full swing! Lasting officially 3 days from June 15th through the 17th, E3 is one of the largest events of the year for the video game industry in which upcoming projects and games are showcased. Though MK Online is not able to be present for live coverage this year, we are still committed to bringing you the best coverage possible from around the internet through trusted gaming media sites. By rounding up the information for you in one convenient location, all the sights from E3 related to the new Mortal Kombat game due out in 2011 will be easy to see. As the event begins with news conferences today, we bring you these images from the Mortal Kombat advertisement banner at the show. Credit goes to GameKyo.com for these images. Also below is a screen of Mortal Kombat's booth this year, with an elaborate castle theme. Image was captured from a Gametrailers feature.

As the event rolls on this week, check back for the latest and most up-to-date coverage from Mortal Kombat's appearance at E3 this year.