Everyone loves the secrets but that ain't gonna happen no more. They are dead. The only way the can make secrets work is thru online events which are super rare. So when the event happens is gonna be about something totally different but you'll have time window to do something like press down and start when you hear toasty ;d and bam!

I don't know man, with that datamining there's no chance for kool secrets. They are not gonna make free characters as secrets. Its gonna be micro transactions hell bruh.

Lol maybe you can pay to fight against secret fighters! I changed my mind! That is the only way to have secrets! Pay 4 them ;d

Here's the thing... double edged sword for me...

I can appreciate a good intriguing secret, and understand the OP's point...

That said, something that irks me immensely about a lot of the past secret characters in this game is: I REALLY enjoy the story & lore of this franchise... and by and large, the more secret a character is, the more NRS doesn't bother to flesh him or her out. They're often half-done and hastily put together.

Reptile had no story, no unique moves, and didn't even feature his own name in the lifebar.
The same was mostly true for Smoke, Noob & Jade, except they had names.

MKIII did a secret character right with Smoke imo. He had a bio, he had an ending, he fit the story, yet it still took some doing to unlock him. I remember Cyber Smoke being just as intriguing as the MK2 characters, but he didn't feel half-finished. (That said, Kano Noob still felt a little half-baked)

In UMK3, I feel like they did a mostly okay job, but the secret characters still felt a bit unfinished, in that they didn't all get a full compliment of finishing moves, and the bios & endings were more hastily put together (and lacked the unique art of the MK3 bios/endings). BUT that wasn't just true of Mileena/Ermac/Bi-Han, it also applied to the other new characters.

Now Chameleon & Khameleon... are both a bad example and good example, which baffles me. I liked that Khameleon was fully fleshed out, got a bio, an ending, a place on the select screen. Conversely, Chameleon remains one of the least fleshed out characters in the franchise to this day, to the point where some still debate if he's even canon. I HATE that.

Same things I just said of Chameleon basically also apply to Meat. I know many people didn't consider him canon before Armageddon. Such a half-baked character. Even today.

Mokap & Blaze were a touch better than most. They had stories, endings, unique art. But still lacking in many ways. No fatalities (that's blasphemy in this franchise), no weapons, no alt costumes.

And after that... secret characters basically got on par with regular ones. All the unlockables in Deception were fully fleshed out. But I agree, none of them had any intrigue, they just felt like regular characters.

Everything about Armageddon felt half-done, so... I don't place the blame on any particular secret character in that one. More the way the game was made on the whole.

I actually really liked what MK9 did, in that, all the unlockables were fully fleshed out characters, but it still had the secret fights with the classic ninjas, which gave people a bit of intrigue to hunt for. We were all on these boards scrambling for info on how to unlock the fights. BUT... the fights also weren't completely new characters, so nothing felt lacking in the fact they couldn't be unlocked to select (in fact, many classic skins COULD be unlocked)

X was basically like Deception, in that none of the unlockables felt all that intriguing or special.

SO ANYWAY... yeah... I'm of two minds about it. I both like and dislike it.

Would I love some good mysteries to hunt for in MK11, absolutely!

BUT... if they added a secret fight with saaaaaay... Khrome (to pull a rumor ninja out of thin air for an example). And that was the only way we saw Khrome. And that was the only way Khrome appeared in the game. And Khrome was not unlockable, not fleshed out, had no story, and maybe not even his own moves... that would disappoint me. I'd rather see Khrome fleshed out into a real character if they add him, not snuck in as a half-done throwaway.

And frankly, that's what peeved a lot of people about the battles with Tanya/Baraka/Sindel/Rain etc in MKX. So many people were annoyed we could fight them, but that they weren't fleshed out into full characters, and chewed NRS out over it, and NRS has since said they're not likely to do that again because of the demanding flak they got from fans. Probably not a good thing, but I understand where it came from. I don't want a mysterious character I can't unlock dangled in front of me as a tease.

I'm okay with jumping through a few hoops to unlock a well hidden character or a well hidden secret fight, but once unlocked, I want it to be fully realized.

I hope so. At least one secret fight, that's all I ask.

Now, do I think there will be much in the way of secrets? No, since MK7, secrets have been scarce. MK9 did them right, but MKX, I can't even remember anything truly in that game.

https://www.gamecrate.com/mortal-kombat-11-developer-interview-towers-of-time-how-gear-works-secret-characters/21980

game developer says there will be secret kharacters to unlock .

I was just thinking about this the other day. What made the secret characters from MK1 and MK2 unique is that it required some patience and tedious effort.

In MK1 in order to fight Reptile you couldn't block, score a double flawless, and perform a fatality. He wasn't hard to beat. And then MK2 was always the hardest for me. Especially the Genesis version to reach Jade before the question mark, you had to beat your opponent 1 round with just low kick? You screw that up, you had to start the whole battle plan from the beginning. To reach Smoke was annoying since sometimes Dan's ugly face wouldn't pop up. What happen next was an unceremoniously ass kicking by them since they were twice as fast and immune to certain moves.

Anyways, what made the secret characters great was that they had no baring of the story line, couldn't play them unless you had a cheat devise (gameshark, anyone?). They should include secret characters from previous titles like that back.

Yes but... do I need to say the phrase, "Super Unlockables"? ... The people who've been here since before Deception know what I'm talking about.

Sometimes secrets are secrets in this franchise, and sometimes secrets are right there on the surface, and we all hope to dig up something that was never there to begin with.

Secret characters could mean anything from "deeply buried" to just, "takes a bit of unlocking" ... I mean MK9 & MKX both had secret characters too, but they only stayed that way for about a week. SO... we shall see... just how secret MK11's secrets really are... I suppose.

As much as I love the idea of secret fighters, unfortunately that kind of stuff is pretty much impossible today. By the time the game comes out, almost everything there is to discover in the game is data mined from early copies or put on Youtube immediately.

Lmao. Remember the whole MK:DA Krypt whisper "Time will lead to Saibot" and everyone and their mothers assume Noob Saibot was a Super Unlockable? Good times.

This always pisses me off to no end. There's no such thing as rumors and secrets in games anymore. Everyone wants to know everything right off the bat. They rarely even actually play new releases: it's just hack hack hack hacking away and posting it all on YouTube for their internet points that no-one gives a shit about. Sure, I can just ignore it, but it's hard to do that when YouTube puts them right on the front fucking page to spoil it all.

Sorry for the rant. It's just...Aaarrghh!

*punches pillow*

I feel like some of you miss the point. Yes, in the internet age things don't stay secret long. But that's not why hidden characters were exciting. I was told about Reptile the first time I played MK1, but that didn't take away my excitement about the character.

I played MK1 on Genesis constantly and the cheats were in the guide book I got with it. So I got to fight Reptile frequently. BUT...he wasn't playable. Do you think I cared about that? You couldn't play as Shang Tsung or Goro at the time either but again, this was not an issue.

Yeah it was a pain in the ass that ESTABLISHED CHARACTERS with long histories and prominent roles in the MKX story were not playable. That's nowhere near the same thing as a hidden character (or *GASP* a BOSS!) not being playable.

It's true that none of the hidden characters had stories in their debut games (until UMK3), none of them were fleshed out. THAT'S THE POINT! THAT"S THE BEST PART!!! It doesn't matter how fast people learn the secret to fighting them because you still don't know shit about them! They remain a mystery, a source of speculation until they become a playable character and their story is revealed! That's why they were so exciting even after we knew they existed. Because they were STILL a mystery!

I don't WANT hidden characters that can be unlocked and played, complete with fleshed out stories already in the game's files! I want unplayable, challenging hidden characters that remain a mystery until at least the next game (or longer), leaving players with something to look forward to, something to speculate about. Hidden characters used to capture our imagination and now too many fans have forgotten what that feels like!

Yeah, the problem is when they flesh them out later, they become great, sure (Reptile, Noob, Jade, etc)

But when they don't bother to flesh them out later, we end up with these garbage plot hole characters running all over the franchise that no one knows how to account for... yet who are seemingly canon, despite no one enjoying their presence or acknowledging them. (Chameleon, Meat, Mokap, etc)

I don't want more garbage plot hole characters running around. I want to know who these jerks are and what they're doing here.

We don't need Khrome showing up in this damn franchise with no explanation or motivation.

I don't like having secret characters I can't unlock as playable. I understand secret fights were a special part of the earlier games but...yeah...worked for Ahnka back in the 90s...but not so much now in 2019.

Secret playable characters would be cool but is impossible these days.

Secret doesn't mean unplayable though. Unplayable characters in offline modes have no sense and are detrimental to the enjoyment of the game. I still regret NRS for not having the bosses be playable offline in MK 9.

Personally I want to unlock characters in the Krypt, like Deadly Alliance. I don't want special keys like Deception, because I love to unlock stuff with my pacing and collecting relics like Armageddon was a pain.

Secrets can be added to the game with patches and DLCs. The secret fights in MK 9 and X were totally unexpected and I still think they are great.

Yeah I'm not buying it, at least not hidden characters who you can fight and unlock or something along those lines.