Well, for better or worse... it would seem that MK9 has made changes that are intended to be permanent going forward. So I suppose MK9 is the new canon. i could be wrong, but that's what I understood from what went down. I mean MK1-MK2 in MK9 went through with minor changes.. but the problem is Sindel's insane bitch attack in the MK3 portion of the story. The way that went down, MK4 thru MKA can't possibly happen the same way they did and will be drastically changed. I don't know.. it's a bit confusing.


One thing I don't get about that other guy's post:

" I would consider Liu Kang turning in a dragon non-canon since he was never stated to have this as a ability and has never shown to do it canon-wise, canon-wise the only ability Liu Kang has shown is to manipulate fire to a certain degree."

How is Kang's Dragon Morph not canon? He's done it in several games (MK9 included) and one of the movies. I think it's pretty much a part of his character and has been since MK2.

I don't think so. Some version of MK1-MKA had to have happened as we knew them in the first place - retcons included - to even arrive at the point where 2011 could have occurred. So while 2011 is the current version of events in the timeline, MK1-MKA are still part of what led up to this point. They "happened" so MK2011 could "happen" and are henceforth still canon - they are just not the current version of events.

Thinking on it that way... I'd go with what Shadaloo said, asmodeus. Sounds more like it.

Its not the only canon game, the storyline is pretty simple really. Interestingly you could look at MK4-MKA is a big flash forward though.

It's a paradox!

If there wasn't MK1-MKA, then Raiden wouldn't have warned his past self.

But if his past self changed the timeline, Armageddon couldn't have happened which would've prevented Raiden from warning his past self

NRS, stop screwing around with time! You'll break the universe.

The main games are cannon. SM isn't exactly cannon, but some things are. MK9 is the 9th installment of the story. MK10 will be a continuation of the series. The main installments(MK,MK2,MK3/UMK3,MK4,MK:DA,MK:D,MK:A, then MK9) are cannon..in that order.9 isnt a reboot, its a retelling, there is a difference.
But when it comes down to it...all characters should be dead....you know because of all the fatalities and all....

Are we talking about cannons or the Canon printers now? Decide already!
Every Mortal Kombat game is canon to itself but there are multiple parallel universes created by multiple developers. Consider MK9 canon to its previous seven installations but with retcons. The intro shows some MK7.

Hmm I kinda agree that MK1-MKA had to happen for MK9 to happen, so therefore all are canon, with MK9 being the current state.

But, my interpretation of things is that for MK9, I like to think of it as somewhat of an alternate timeline. You know, like they do in some of the sci-fi shows and in comic universes.

Basically, Kahn won out in Armageddon and it basically brought the MK storyline to an end. So rather than just have it end there, and create a new story arc, the writers etc decided to go and have a play around with it through the alternate events. Personally, I think that was kind of lazy of them, Id rather have not had it end after MKA, theres so much they could have done, and the retelling just complicated and ruined the excellent story they had previously created.

This is an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE timeline. See this is what happend, Raiden lost to Kahn after Taven defeated Blaze and became a full god, Taven winning caused all other combatants to become overpowered just like it said in Taven's MK:A ending, so Shao Kahn is finishing off Raiden who then says his little spell into the amulet to send Himself a message from the future but he FUCKED IT UP, he accedently sent the message to an alternate universe where Mileena was created during the Outworld tournament, not being raised with Kitana as her twin sister and so on. How did I come up with this, easy, NRS said that everything that happened in the Old storyline STILL HAPPEND, therefore MK9 has to be an Alternate Universe Timeline, because otherwise Mileena would have been raised as Kitana's "Twin" sister and various other things wouldn't have been changed from pre-MK1. So to answer the question, Yes MK9 is the only canon game........ in this alternate universe.

Please put an official source by NRS where it states that this MK takes place in an alternative universe.

just my personal opinion based on what was changed from the original timeline, as NRS said everything that happened in the original timeline did happen, e.g. if MK9 was in the same universe as the original timeline Mileena would've been raised with Kitana as her "Twin" sister, it's as simple as that for me personally.

Actually, Vogel confirmed on Twitter that Shao Kahn is the one who defeated Blaze and claimed The Prize.

To be honest, I don't think he needed to confirm it anyway, you can already tell Kahn has The Prize: he starts glowing yellow right before he kills Raiden. That yellow energy came from Blaze. If it were Kahn's own power, it'd have been green (like it is the second time he gives that speech, at the end of story mode).

There were some quite radical changes (retcons) in the original timeline too so Mileena's new birthday doesn't solely make this a new continuity.
MK9 has more retcons than any earlier installation of the seven other games but maybe the plethora of retcons work also as an indication that now it is Netherrealm Studios making the game. It is radical but so is time travel, for the story, in the first place. Blame the storytellers' ability to commemorate. Out of the nine core MK fighting installations only MK/DC can be dropped out loosely when talking about the story continuity.

InFo has got a point. Only fandom and time can overcome paradoxes that the story itself isn't "aware" of. An explanation for this is The One Being.
Let me think... Another logical explanation for that is that Raiden turned the clock backwards seven hours or so (figuratively) and in MK9 it went forth again by three hours, wiping out the original three hours. This makes one wonder: why does NeRdS still say that MK9 is canon to the previous continuity? Yeah, that's oxymoronic mind you. It's their game (my copy).
In a way it is canon to the previous installations because it's "aware" of the earlier seven games as the MK9 intro shows. Ungh, what a monologue.

Let's face it, NRS meant for what we saw in MK9 to be what happened in MK1 thru 3 (except for the Raiden time changes of course) and for all the games to be canon to one another. Vogel claims they did their homework, which means he actually believed they were getting things right and that the retcons were actually fleshing out empty spaces, they didn't research well enough or remember that those spaces weren't actually empty and that they were in fact contradicting things like Mileena's MK2 bio. (Though how they forgot Quan can't steal souls when it was the whole plot of MKDA, I'll never understand...) So while they made giant mistakes/plotholes, they themselves either don't realize it or do but don't care because it's too late now, might as well just say "reboot" and move on...and the only explanations we're ever going to get for the discrepancies are the ones we ourselves make up.

So here is a possible explanation I came up with that hasn't been suggested yet:

The Armageddon scene may also take place in an alternate timeline. The first scene of Story Mode is what the future of the MK9 universe, where Mileena was born during MK2 and Nightwolf, Sektor, Cyrax, and Jax were at the first tournament, would've been like if not for Raiden's time message.

It only happens to look a lot like the Armageddon game we played in the original timeline. That could also be used to excuse all the corpses being in their MK9 costumes instead of what they actually wore in MKA but the devs were too lazy or didn't have time to model. And why in the MK9verse, Raiden has a very important magic amulet front and center on all his costumes, but in MK1 thru A he never did.
If MK were a Marvel comic, this would be the part where I ask Stan Lee for my No-Prize.

Thanks for the responses. Hears something I want to throw out there...

Continuity and canon are 2 completely separate and independent things. While there may be a such thing as "story canon," it is only a subset of actual canon, and only occupy's a small fraction of the overall continuity.

Example: Subzero.

MK9's gameplay retcons/update Subzero, giving him access to a move that he presumably couldn't do during the continuity of MK1 -3, the shoulder charge (his X-ray). In MKDA, that move was said to have been developed as Sub progressed in skill sometime after MK3 and 4. At the same time though, MK9 doesn't show Subzero being able to use his ice breath ability (fatality from MK3) in the gameplay at all, and further still, he doesn't use either of those moves in the story line of any MK game let alone MK9.

Does MK9 re-write Subzero saying that he no longer has this ability to use ice breath? And since Sub never used either of those abilities in any story-line, does that make those move non-canon?

Answer: No, of course not.

Ice breath is a part of Sub's canon move set, moves that he CAN do. In the old continuity, during the time of the invasion, Subzero had access to this move, and while MK9 does retell some story bits, it only adds/ updates the existing canon and does not erase it. While MK9 is the current canon story line, the canon of MK extends beyond just the one game. The canon of MK encompasses the moves of character, properties of realms, and all other things that are independent of story-line but still considered a part of the official games and the MKU.

One more Example: as of MK9, does Shujinko exist?

While MK9 doesn't mention Shinjinko or really anything specific before or after it's story, it is a safe bet that even though many things go unmentioned in MK9, they are still a part of the overall lore and canon.

Here' something else to chew on...

Mileena and Kitana growing up together isn't actual game canon. In none of the bio's from any game does it talk about how old Mileena is. In fact, the only person from outworld we know the age of is Kitana, 10,000 years old. In the games Mileena is reference as being created by Tsung, but it never says when until MK9.

A few thing to back me up...

In the MK conquest TV show, Mileena is shown being in the timeline before MK2, but that show shows many character who couldn't exist in that timeline (scorpion, Noob, etc). MKD's Konquest mode also shows her before MK2, but a lot of things are fuzzy about the canon and story of that mode too. Go back and reread the old bio's with the updated knowledge of MK9. All in all, you can see that it is not so far fetched that Mileena awoke some time around MK2 and that Kitana could have been made to believe Mileena was her sister. While largely seen as non-canonical, MKSM shows that Kitana was under a mind manipulation spell presumably around the time during MK2, and the Malibu comics do the same. Mileena being made in MK2 is just a big shock because of what everyone has believed, or been led to believe through other media, since MK2.

Since I brought up MKSM, I'll say that MK9 supports MKSM's story...as far a Kung Lao goes that is. Raiden's flash before Kung Lao's fight in MK9 shows him revealing himself and fighting baraka, just like in MKSM. While it is only a slight nod, and an unwelcome one at that, it is still a nod and shouldn't be ignored.

...

Also, RazorsEdge701 said that it was a retcon that Quan chi was able to steal souls. MK9 never showed Quan stealing a soul, it showed him doing what he's always done, manipulating the dead.

MKD showed Quan needing Shang's help to extract the souls of the living and implant them into the dead. Quan Chi has always had the ability to manipulate the souls of the dead, shown when he "created" Scorpion and then Noob Siabot. In MK9 he resurrects Sindel, basically calling her dead soul back from where ever it was, and then "creating"/resuscitating a body for her.

To go along with that train of thought, Mileena's MKT ending states something about Shinnok allowing Mileena's soul to return to Outworld from the Netherrealm. Quan Chi could, and most likely did, have "help" from Shinnok to bring Sindel back.