Game Informer has just posted an interview with Midway's Ed Boon and Shaun Himmerick concerning their upcoming action-adventure game, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks! The interview gives some new insights into the game not previously mentioned. For example, they give the definite answer as to whether the game is online-capable. From the interview:
Game Informer: First off, will I be able to fire up Shaolin Monks and go online and play cooperatively with someone else?

Ed Boon: No, so far there isn't a plan for this game to go online yet, but for future games it may be a consideration.

Shaun Himmerick: We looked at online and the things that we would have to cut back on, and what we found were some things that we didn't really want to do gameplay wise. And, it would have been too expensive. We really want to maximize gameplay and that's the decision that we ended up making: no online.
In addition, there is word that Liu Kang and Kung Lao may NOT be the only playable characters in MK:SM. From the interview:
GI: How many playable characters have you settled on so far?

SH: More than two! There isn't a final number yet. We could fit in a ton of playable characters if we were willing to sacrifice differentiation. If one character fights the exact same way as all the others, heck, we could have everyone be playable. But, we don't want to do that. We really want to make each character feel and play differently. Right now Liu Kang and Kung Lao feel and play completely different from each other. So there may be as few as three and the most there would probably be is six.
The article also goes into detail about the state the game is in at present.
GI: We broke the first news on Shaolin Monks, but so far, how is the development cycle progressing? We got to see a lot of illustrations of boss battles and plans for other characters, but what sort of plans do you have for that element now? How are you going to make each boss battle different?

SH: Believe it or not, content wise, the team has reached their limit in what they've put in the game. So basically we have from now until the game ships to add a ton of stuff that's related to storyline and camera and other things. We have a tremendous amount of time now to just polish every single piece of the game. All the boss fights, in particular, will get a lot of this sort of attention.

EB: One of the things that we'e balancing right now is being able to have all sorts of gamers be able to pick up the gameplay. We'e dealing with queues and flashes in certain areas to get people in tune with what they need to do at certain points in the game. Once we can communicate these nuances, the game is so much more fun because you realize what you need to do. Some people still pick up the game and can instantly figure out what to do, and those are the people that we need to say that you need to do more than simply mash on the buttons.
The interview also contains details on gameplay, elaboration on how the extra characters will work, and gameplay information. It ends with a brief discussion of Mortal Kombat: Deception online, and a quick word on Raiden in Unreal Championship 2.

To read the interview in its entirety, click here.

Our thanks to forum member justycist for the heads-up on this important interview!