I would hate if after finally introducing some great new characters to the series, they then killed them all off.

I guess by defy destiny he meant, Cage managed to get Sonya pregnant regardless of how much they tried to change the timeline

Nahhh, I'd be happy for this to be the case. We need some different kinds of new characters, more leaning towards mythology. Give me Chaosrealm and Netherrealm characters! More Outworlders!

If the timeline doesn't change in the next few games, realistically a lot of the classic characters will need to take a back seat. Sonya is already looking much older in MK11. The new kids can easily replace their parents, I wouldn't mind, and we can have some more new characters.

Whatever the case is, you don't need to kill off characters to bring in new ones.

I certainly hope so. As a matter of fact it would be nice if this whole time travel thing just retconned them. I would have liked them more if they all weren't just boring dollar store versions of their parents but apparently NRS made a sudden U turn when developing the characters and we got dull cheap imitation versions in the final product.

My source on this for the record is from the concept artists themselves.

I was thinking the same thing. From Kronika's perspective they shouldn't even exist.

I get all of the criticism towards Cassie and Jacqui, but how do Takeda and Kung Jin fit this description at all?

Takeda = Kenorpion (Kenshi Scorpion) KUNG Jin = KUNG Lao

Yeah pretty much that. Honestly I'd save Takeda. That kid has potential but they would have to do something drastic with the other characters to save them instead of trying to make them simple replacements for certain elder characters. (Seriously NRS look where that shit got Soul Caliber.)

Oh and for the love of god tone down the sarcasm and insufferable Joss Whedon snarky quip dialogue with them.

I wouldn't mind thinking of MKX in years and just referring it to the Kombat kids and The Stupid Green Kahn game.

I just wish... I wish there is a scene where Shaolin Kahm smashes Kotal's head with the hammer

Or a game where Onaga returns and takes back his throne with ease by beating down and humiliating the dull green false king. Sort of turning him into a Star Scream. He knows Kotal is going to try and conspire against him to attain the power he once had, but Kotal is useful to him for the time being. So Onaga Keeps him as his right hand while manipulating Kotal to be a involuntary informant for him. Through Kotal's brash desperate attempts to reattain the throne he doesn't realize Onaga is onto him and now is letting Onaga know who the enemies of the throne are and who exactly he should be watching out for through Kotal's "secret" conspiratorial actions against the against him.

Classic characters like Sonya, Johnny, Liu ect will NEVER take a back seat. This is a video game series about magic and fantasy, anything can happen to keep aging characters alive long past real-life life expectancy.

C'mon now.

... what?

Takeda and Kung Jin don't look, act, have matching powers, or play anything like their predecessors. The closest thing is Takeda's mind reading, which is something Kenshi doesn't even do with anyone except his son. MK hasn't had characters quite like those two at all before, with blade whips and a staff/bow as primary weapons or similar character designs. We haven't seen anything this original in brand new human characters since Deadly Alliance.

One thing that does concern me is that Scorpion seems to have taken a cue from Takeda in using his spear kind of like a lashing weapon in MK11. It doesn't have Takeda's range and diversity, but it is stepping on the younger's toes a bit.

Back in MKX I wondered why Scorpion didn't use his spear this way until they revealed Takeda, and then it was like, oh, this is how they differentiate him from Scorpion. So either Takeda isn't coming back for this outing (which saddens me, given all the character and plot potential they built into him) or they'll have to work harder to pull him in a different direction, possibly incorporating some use of psionics, like things that mess with the opponent's mind (Jason's button scramble, or making them hit themselves kind of like Quan Chi).

x2

I would not have been surprised if this timeline reset erased almost all MKX characters from existence. And of course, Cassie's the only one to survive because she's like the popular of the MKX newcomers

Which could mean my favorite Kombat Kid will never get her chance to shine.

(MFW when I can't put emoticons on posts anymore.)

Yeah I really don't get the hate on the "Kombat Kids". Kung Jin and Takaeda are completely unique characters with their own personality and play-style. Yeah, Cassie is a hybrid of her parents, and that alone makes her an interesting build, but her personality brings a lot of added value, and she's a blast to play. Jacqui...I REALLY wanna like her but they need to do something to really differentiate her from her father other than just making her a girl.

I could see it happening, if they're not on the roster. It's an easy way to explain away their absence.

As to the notion of "It would be a shame to kill brand new characters right after they're introduced" ... I'll let you in on a little secret: Death means absolutely nothing in this franchise, and the developers have known that for over 20 years. They're not afraid to kill these characters, because they know they're fictional, and they can resurrect them at literally any point in the future they desire. :P

I'm not positive... but I think at least one character has died in literally every chapter of this game, only to come back later. Lets run a test...

Goro died in MK1, back in MK4 (assuming his presence in Trilogy was non-canon, in which case he came back in Trilogy). Oh, also Bi-Han, come to think of it.

Mileena died in MK2 & was resurrected in UMK3/MK Trilogy. Johnny Cage too, for that matter.

Johnny Cage remained dead through the end of MK Trilogy, only to be resurrected in MK4 in a nearly identical story. I'm a little unclear on Mileena, but she either similarly stayed dead, or died a second time, to be resurrected in MK Gold. Not to mention there's that whole questionably canon plot idea that sort of got out, where Baraka got cut in half in MK3, only to be stapled together in MK Gold (I know the canon-icty of that is dubious, but... it's at least sort of a thing, and was a concept they at one point maybe planned to use, that leaked out a bit). I feel like Kahn may have theoretically died in the end of MK3 too, but then he showed up alive and well in MKDA, so... who knows. I mean he blows up at the end of MK3! But they seemed to imply later he never died and was merely defeated. In any event, ONE of these people theoretically should have died in MK3, right? The story was harder to piece together back then.

Let's see... 4... 4... I'm not sure anyone actually died in 4. Damn. Combo breaker. Shinnok got defeated I guess, but I don't think he died. Yeah I think everyone made it out of 4 unscathed... darnit. Liu Kang lived... Reiko lived... Tanya lived... Quan Chi lived... The Good Guys lived... Cage stayed alive into MKDA... I know some argue they retconned the idea he ever died in the first place, but... him being dead was totally a thing at this point, later retcons be damned. Maybe Jarek died? But I don't think Jarek was ever important enough to have a definitively confirmed fate. Did he show up in the nether realm later in Deception? Did we get answers about him in Armageddon? I have no idea. But lets presume Jarek lived and call MK4 a wash...

In Deadly Alliance of course, pretty much the entire roster of heroes died at the end and the Deadly Alliance won for about 2 minutes. Not to mention Liu Kang & Shao Kahn died in the intro. Plus a bunch of secondary characters got killed off in Konquest Mode Dialogue, like Motaro & Sheeva. Oh and Kabal. Mavado totally killed Kabal in Konquest mode too. I know he came back later in MKD and they said, "turns out he didn't die" but yeah... in MKDA Kabal was totally supposed to be dead.

In Deception... lets see. I mean... Onaga kinda? That whole Shujinko/Nightwolf/Netherealm/Reptile Possession thing makes his situation confusing. He got beat up and ended up in the Netherealm though. That's basically the entire extent of death in Mortal Kombat (for a bad guy at least, Cage ended up in The Heavens). Then he left the Netherealm in the next game fresh as a daisy. That's basically the entire extent of resurrection in Mortal Kombat. So I'm inclined to count it. Oh, ya'know what though, didn't Onaga allegedly blow up Shang Tsung & Quan-Chi in the intro? Weren't we calling them dead for a little while? I mean I know they both showed up fine later, but I feel like they were PRESUMED dead at the very least... for a while. And I think the next time we saw them was in the Netherealm during Armageddon... so yeah, maybe they blew up? *Shrug*

And then yeah, everyone in Armageddon who hadn't already been resurrected (mostly unimportant bad guys, who had yet to warrant a proper resurrection) presumably just walked out of the Netherrealm through a portal and met up at Argus' pyramid. They didn't spell that out, but it's basically the only excuse we've got. Then they all died again.

Then ya'know... MK9... time rewind... clean slate. Everyone NRS wants to play with is alive again. But then MK9 killed half the cast again.

Then in MKX the majority of them returned as revenents... Jax & Sub-Zero at a bare minimum were fully, undeniably, no questions about it resurrected, but lets face it, folks like Kitana, Liu Kang & Kung Lao maintained enough presence that their deaths were basically a non-issue anyway. Beyond that though, they killed Mileena, Baraka, Quan Chi, etc...

And we already know Baraka is back in 11... Not to mention a couple living, breathing Lius and Laos are running around. SO Yeah...

This franchise has literally been killing its cast and bringing them back for over 20 years... Since game 1.

Sometimes they bring them back with Magic. Sometimes they bring them back with time travel. Sometimes they just say, "Turns out this guy was never dead in the first place, who knew?" ... but they totally kill characters nonchalantly, and bring them back later just as nonchalantly.

If only we didn't have MK4 screwing things up... and maybe MK: Deception.

SO YES... I could absolutely see them killing off the Kombat Kids. And then Takeda coming back to life in MK12. Jacqui & Kung-Jin will probably stay dead.

In all honesty, the Kombat Kids played out more like a 11 year old's fanfiction than actual legit characters. Of the Kombat Kids, the only two that I think work are Cassie and Takeda. And to be honest, I think Takeda has even more of a stronger foundation than that of Cassie in that with his "parents" being Scorpion and Kenshi, Takeda has a pretty fascinating upbringing, connect that with the fact that he's a unique character gameplay wise and I can see Takeda growing into a strong character that can stand on his own.

As for Cassie, I like her, but I'm unsure if she's a character that can truly step out of the shadows of her parents. With Sonya and Johnny being complete badasses, it just makes me wonder what we even need Cassie for- especially if all the other Kombat Kids won't be around. I do not care to see her assisting daddy and mommy for the next several games.

I prefer Jacqui to her father and I think Kung-Jin is cool, but ultimately these are two Kombat kids that we ESPECIALLY didn't need. I knew Jacqui was doomed the moment she was shown off in the comics. Her only unique selling point is "Jax with tits". I also could've done with Kai in Kung Jin's place.

I hope the Kombat Kids are NOT gone for good- As a matter of fact, I do hope they all get another chance in the future- but with us only having a 25 base character roster and maybe only 3-4 DLC MK characters (Who knows how many guests they're going to toss in this go around) then I rather that chance not be now...So good riddance.

Ha, you are correct, death has never meant much in MK since the start. Reminds me of a quote from Raiden in the movie: "Mortal Kombat is not about death, but life".

I always thought the most egregious resurrection was Shao Kahn after Deadly Alliance. Deadly Alliance intro shows Shang Tsung and Quan Chi kill Shao Kahn. A game later... oh no, Shao Kahn is back, that was just a Shao Kahn clone who died! To me that's the funniest one.

Deception was Resurrection/Rectcon University. What I loved about Deadly Alliance, was that it took some pretty big risks with killing its characters off- they were deaths that I assumed would stick, at least for a little. But Deception immediately changed that. All the character deaths they retconned in Deception- Shao Kahn, Goro, Kabal, Liu Kang. Well technically not Liu haha. He was a zombie after all.

Goro's was the most annoying for me. Especially since I liked the noble way he died in Deadly Alliance complete with his ally Kitana having a royal funeral for him only for it to turn out to be a random shokan and Goro crawling back up Kahn's butthole with Deception. How cheap.

Honest to god, since the whole bloody story this game revolves around time travel, another option is...

All the Kombat Kids (except presumably Cassie, since we've already seen her) get killed in Act 1. The entirety of story mode plays out however it's going to play out without them. Good guys win in the final act, defeat Kronika, undo whatever timey wimey mojo she did... rewind all the bad bits, deus ex machina ending, and all the Kombat Kids are alive and ready for MK12 again.

And honestly, they'd probably throw in a bit of Drama where something good happens midway through the game too, like Johnny & Sonya get back together, or Kitana gets ressurected and brings peace to Edenia, so in the final act someone can say to Cassie, "Of course you realize that by undoing what Kronika did, you'll also undo the happy bits too! Kitana will die again! Your parents will be jerks again!" but then Cassie looks in her wallet at a selfie of her and the Kombat kids smiling, and she PUNCHES Kronika in the jaw and says, "Do it!"

lol

ANYWAY...

This allows 3/4 of them to sit the entire game out without raising questions, stirs up a little drama early in the game, gives Cassie motivation, but then ends on a happy "good guys win" note, and keeps their absence, death & resurrection brief & self contained within MK11's timey-wimey narrative... so NRS doesn't have to deal with the hassle of resurrecting them later in MK12 four years from now, after everyone has already forgotten wth happened in this game.

I hate the Kombat kids with a passion, but if redoing the timeline means getting rid of Kotal Kahn, D’vorah, Ferra/Torr, and Erron Black...I’d rather just suffer through them.

Not really. Those characters exist with or without time travel f*ckery. Besides I think the only valuable character out of that new batch was D'Vorah. All the others were a big pile of meh. Especially Torr and Erron. I will never understand where any of you are coming from with your adoration for that limp character. He doesn't even have a cool design to redeem him. (To be fair hardly anyone had a good design in MKX.)

Ferra/Torr and Erron Black are shit on a lot but I believe it’s unjustified. F/T were one of MKX’ most interesting creations. Super fun to play, with a fun bit of lore behind their race, thanks in part to the interesting twist in the dynamic of the symbiotic relationship provided by their ending.

Erron Black was an instant classic whether anyone’s happy about it or not. As soon as he was revealed in the comic, people naturally flocked to him, say what you will of his aesthetics. I personally agree with you on that front. The character’s like an onion, not much to look at, but when you start peeling back the layers he’s infinitely more interesting despite his veneer. He’s an Earthrealmer who happily sells out his own kind to work for the other side. He’s been imbued with magic by Shang Tsung that’s extended his life. Who the hell knows how long he’s been around or how he’s potentially affected the lore. He’s not your typical henchmen/assassin archetype. The old west gunslinger gimmick really helps him stand out in a world of ninjas and monsters.

Plus...he sounds like the Duke.