Midway Games released a tentative release date of September 2002 for Mortal Kombat 5 during it's conference call that was held yesterday. Mortal Kombat 5 will be released on all three next generation systems which include the Gamecube, XBox, and PS2. A new GameBoy Advance title "Ultimate Mortal Kombat" has also been slated at a release of December 2001 or March 2002.

Planet Mortal Kombat, our affiliates, contacted MK team veteran John Vogel to ask him a few questions about the next generation Mortal Kombat game. John Vogel is the character animator for MK5 and former stage/background creator.

PlanetMK: Jax seems to be extremely detailed, but he still has his old look. Are you going to give him new clothes?
John Vogel: Jax looks different (better) than in the pics released. He was updated recently.

PlanetMK: We like the way the characters are sculpted. What is the average amount of polys per character?
John Vogel: Average is probably around 6 thousand polygons per character. Some have more, some have less.

PlanetMK: It was confirmed that MK5 will be on all three next generation consoles. Are you going to use the speacial features each console has to offer? Or will it be the same MK for PS2, Xbox and GC?
John Vogel: The plan is to make each version special.

PlanetMK: You are the character animator in MK5. Can you tell us who performs the moves for the motion capturing?
John Vogel: Motion captured moves so far have been performed by martial artists, movie and TV stuntmen, and Carlos Pesina (Raiden).

PlanetMK: I guess it's useless to ask "who's in and who's out", but can you tell us how many characters can we expect in MK5?
John Vogel: I'm not sure, but at the very least 15. It would be safe to say there will probably be more than that, though.

PlanetMK: Thank you

The #mortalkombat IRC Network hosted Fight Night with Mortal Kombat Annihilation star "Marjean Holden" (Sheeva) last night. The chat transcript is availible here.

We now have our own copies of the pictures that IGN released a few days ago.We have also improved the quality of them. You can also check out these pictures in our Mortal Kombat 5 Images Section. Click on the thumbnails below for a larger version. Enjoy!

IGN PS2 made a visit to Midway's Gamers' Day 2001 event in San Diego, CA and scored some pictures of pre-rendered art from the next-generation Mortal Kombat game. The pictures look great, although at this point it is difficult to say whether the artwork is from the actual gameplay. Check out the 2 photos here: Photo 1 | Photo 2. The game is slated to hit shelves sometime in 2002.