If MK really wanted to set itself apart in general terms of brilliance, I would think the best thing they could do is continue a strong sequential storytelling path with linear consequences.
I'm not sure drunkenly staggering toward a plot that willfully throws everything out the window is anything we haven't seen before from a fighting game, or one that's very admirable. It doesn't do much for the positive argument for the medium as a storytelling artform and runs the risk of taking a lot away from what has arguably always been MK's greatest strength.

We're doing a lot of thinking about the First and Second Act twists that will play with things we know and change our perceptions of them. That's obviously the tactile fun of these sorts of stories, but I'll be very interested to see how the ending unfolds. What is the goal we're trying to achieve?

On the one hand, a story like this has a conventional way of coming back to it's beginning, effecting the monkey paw clause of time travel that prompts a Third Act race to prevent the "original" change. A structure that could be all about reaffirming our appreciation of the universe we've got. On the other hand, they'd really have to produce something significant circa-Armageddon to justify a game [MK 2011] that would essentially have been for naught. A little hangover in the story modes that makes use of models (Taven, Daegon, etc) to give us a linear ending might be nice, particularly if it's for more than an enlightened Raiden's sacrifice.

In a lot of ways it seems as if they've got themselves between a rock and a hard place. I wonder if we should expect any kind of hint at a conclusive ending to this game, or if the standard questions will remain with a series of possible endings and a desire only to reintroduce the characters, rather than tell any specific plot. Is this about reinventing the world under new owners, or simply reestablishing the brand of each character?

Its just a video game?

Your favorite movie is JUST a movie.

Your favorite book is JUST a book.

You and your closest loved ones are each just one insignificant person on a planet of over 6 billion.

See that? You can do "It's just a..." with ANYTHING. Does that mean we should never care about anything? Never have hobbies? Never have stories that we love? Never ever get passionate about anything in the entire world?

"It's just a game" is the most meaningless argument you could possibly make.

Well, MKvsDCU was a waste of a lot of people's time, now we're here and things (gameplay wise) are looking much, much better. Give it time, other people had to. No one's ever going to like EVERY game that gets put out with MK stamped on the front. Different opinions, different tastes, can't please everybody.

I can see why that would be of great comfort to people posting in a thread titled The Story. As if there's any likelihood of front and back modes turning the ship around back to the future of 2002.

My POINT being is if they can fix one thing they've mucked up several times, they can fix another. The MK team isn't one to fix everything in one go, so again, my point is wait it out. If people don't want to, that's their choice and their loss, but atleast they are attempting something with this reboot instead of continuing on with their post-Deception storyline pile-up of epic proportions.

I was hoping for something a little more 'Crisis' than 'Back to the Future', but I'm not unhappy. At least there's an explanation of a sort.

Which might be part of that Third Act conversation someone mentioned earlier.

So what you're saying is, if they ruin the story in this game, we should just relax and wait for ANOTHER retelling of MK1 thru 3 so they can correct the mistakes?
Exactly how many times do you expect them to make remakes of the same time period?

I'm disappointed with the story direction, though it was to be expected, going to the old days since it's the first game after MKvsDC which attracted many new fans, so now they (the MK team) want these new fans to learn from the start.

I'd much rather see Kenshi, Ashrah, Nitara, Fujin, Reiko and others than Johnny Cage. He died like what, 15 times already?! Jesus...

Shao Kahn again, with the helmet, YAY... Can't wait to see Liu, YAY, Sonya and Kano too, YAY... 'cause they're all such THRILLING characters...

Sorry if anyone's insulted, I'm just a bit too much disappointed that I'll have to wait another 20 years before I see something done with Fujin. Oh wait, they might just totally erase him this time and let Liu take Raiden's place as Earth's protector... Turkeys originate from Earth after all, unlike Fujin who originates from Heavens...

Business as usual, eh?

You know it'd get the kids excited all over again. It usually does!

My mistake, you are correct.

If they ruin the story this time around, that's their damn fault as was it the first time around they ruined it. I'm happy they're atleast attempting SOMETHING to un-do what's been done and make it better. If they muck it up again, oh well, I got the fighting mechanics to keep me interested and the old storyline.

I do have to agree with Xai, Mick, Razor, and others though. That's why I laughed like a crazed lunatic when I first heard the ol' "Back to the Future"..."Raiden shoots his ealier self an Instant message" line...

It is pretty pointless to care about the story progressing, because the inference at least, denies whatever progress that could have been made. Progressively doubling-back does nothing but solidify the paradox. So....

Why care about the story in MK9? Or rather, wait to see if it's worse this time, than the last time...?

...

I also hold out some faith though. I'm interested to see what a new writer(s)' direction will be. I'm interested to see what they pay attention to, what portions of the story they utilize, discard, and how they fill in alot of these blanks. How deep could the rabbit hole go with these new guys....if there are new people there writing the thing.

Will they finally break all these characters down in great detail like I've been wanting since....MK1? Bios, Profiles, Background Stories, Sub-plots, and the like? Will they cure all the retcons, ridiculous deaths by multiple characters on multiple occasions, and other inconsistencies?

What will they do?

The game looks really good in more than a few ways (which is also something very important that we all wanted for the game) so, they have my attention for the time being at least.

Prove it with the Story Element, NR Studios... Wutcha got?

I do very much like the idea that Armageddon, the game we all thought would wipe the slate clean, did, in fact, kill everyone off. And it was terrible. Bloody. Depressing. Tragic. And Raiden realizes all hope is lost. The only solution is a gamble to change history itself.

Time travel, if done right, can be awesome. If not? Terrible. We'll see.

New twists on things we all know by heart. Butterfly effects that spiral things we expect into different directions.

And only Raiden knows the truth. Maybe he makes things better. Maybe he makes things a whole lot worse. It would be nice to see how it spirals out of control.

No, you're right. It IS just a book, movie, or video game.

passion for entertainment is one thing, but you can't compare it to passion for...well, damn near anything else. Especially not family.

Anyway...

This story isn't bad at all. Following up the clusterfuck that was Armageddon would've been retarded. Konquest was what really happened, Taven killed Blaze and made everybody stronger. So they keep on fighting.

Remember that was the ENDING to last gen's final MK game. That's just fucked up.

So as far as a revamp goes, unless the writers can't do their jobs, going backwards to tweak old story elements, especially big ones, isn't gonna ruin anything. Besides, at least they gave a decent way to justify going backwards...enlightened Raiden manipulating events to make sure Armageddon doesn't happen.

I think the assumption that Armageddon was ever any kind of "wipe the slate clean" ending was always just that -- an assumption. One that was particularly only of retroactive value when Boon came out and suggested the next game would only bring back a handful of characters and be a radical departure for the series -- which it was -- in MKvsDC.

There was nothing about Armageddon that couldn't have been acted upon in a linear fashion. The obstacles it presented were nothing that hasn't been worked through in fiction before a hundred times over. There was every opportunity to use the ending to tweak and line things up without reentering a race of redundancy by going backward.

I'll go back to the point about thinking about [MK 2011] in terms of a Three Act structure, because we're all focusing very much on the first two parts. We aren't at all considering the potential for the story to double-back on itself (as is a convention of it's type), or to create a more obviously linear reference for moving forward from Armageddon. Those are still distinct possibilities.

However, I find it hard to believe that this isn't more of the MK team's tail wagging the dog. A lot of what we've seen seems to be part of the same conversation that was in MKvsDC. It's hard to imagine any approach that wasn't a bunch of the usual nostalgic character and level designs taking precedent, while the concept and narrative behind them was left to be tacked on afterward.

They're listening to the fans and the fans, in the vocal majority, have always wanted to go home again. They've been peddling that out ever since MKDA became past-tense and after a lot of grumbling, now they're literally doing it, by taking the fiction back to that time. What they're doing is arguably better than a hard-and-unjustified reboot, so they deserve that much credit.

I hope everyone else is dead when Raiden sends his tele-message. That would make the most sense and close the book on Post Armageddon MK games forever.


Unless Raiden is a bitch. Yep everyone else is fine. They took out their opponent and are sipping on a margarita. 'Cept for Raiden, hes like I dont care if the world is fine, IMMA BOUT TA DIE!! Then WHAM, reset button.


lol, sorry.

But yeah, I'm not looking for Legacy of Kain greatness with this time tomfoolery, just a nice, clean, ONCE MORE, With FEELING GUYS!

They pretty much making the story like the Terminator saga, which gonna make us fuck with our heads...Although Raiden doesn't travel back in time, sending messages to his younger self will create predestination paradoxes...they won't only change the story, but they gonna make it very complicated...

1)Terminator: After judgement day, John Connor sends a terminator back in time to protect his younger self by another terminator who is going to kill him and maybe to prevent judgement day, thus altering that timeline.

2)Mortal kombat 9: Sometime during the events of MKA, Raiden is about to be killed by Shao Kahn so he sends a message back in time to his younger self to prevent armageddon from ever happening and propably change the events of MK1,2,3,thus altering that timeline.

Big similarities huh? Well in my opinion, the mk team is inspired by the Terminator saga thus making the story like this.Does anyone remember in shaolin monks when Scorpion collapses in the lava and gives thumbs up just like the terminator in the end of T2?Just thinkin'......

I didn't expect a twist like this and I like it. I'm not really into the story, I've played MK till MKDA (and little bit MKD) but after that I lost interest in the story..for me..this suddenly makes the story more apealling in someway.

Nearly any example you could give me was the result of months of careful storyline advancement and development, in mediums where story takes priority over literally everything else.

On the other hand, Armageddon as a whole was a rushed product to fit deadlines for a dying company.

That doesn't change the fact that it was ultimately a basic 'universe in peril' storyline that had nothing but an open path to continue. The only reason unimaginative players would think it needed a complete reboot is because the vast open-ending meant it didn't point toward anything specific. Moving forward was of infinite possibility!

Regardless of how long it took the team to write their story, it offered up the same familiar obstacles that any story of it's type usually knocks down. They gave themselves all the rope they needed to hang, and at least on initial impressions of MK [2011], they've done a nice job of that.

I wouldn't want to indict them without taking into account that big ol' Third Act nobody wants to mention, but on the fundamentals, it's a rock and a hard place. Moving forward would've been as easy as they wanted it to be.

I'm honestly still nervous and worried about this whole "time travel" thing. It sounds to me like they could potentially ruin the official canon original storyline that we all love (and debate) so much. It could be the stupidust thing ever...or a surprisingly great and fresh idea.

Strangely, though, as worried as I am, I feel extremely interested to see what's going to happen, because (apparently) this really is a dream come true for many:

A retelling of the first 3 games with cut scenes, cinematic moments, dialogue, in depth character development, etc etc etc. The "longest story mode of any fighting game".

I simply cannot wait.

I'm not sure how this will work out, but, as long as they don't screw things up by making radical stupid and idiotic changes like Liu Kang NOT being the champion of the first game, or Sonya being turned into a Cyborg...all is good.

I'm going to be positive about this. It really might be the best story (MKDA is still my top favorite).

I, too, have concerns for the story and hope that they don't mess with it too much. Event-wise, I wouldn't mind if there were some minor but noticable changes. As long as it doesn't detract too far from what we know of MK.

And basically, I also just want the characters to be consistent with what they were before. I don't want any drastic changes with the characters. I can handle any improvements or developments these characters can go through because of the altered storyline (i.e. lesser characters being better developed) but overall, I hope that the storyline doesn't drastically change the characters that I want to play as.

So yeah, hopefully this changed story of MK is not too drastic and that the characters stay true to what we know of them. It is going to be awhile before the game actually comes out so hopefully this whole retelling of MK1-MK3 would be good.