I agree, Aside form wanting favorites to return I’d also like to see them bring back others. Just like what they did with Skarlet and Tremor. Maybe Horn Buckle may get a chance.
They could finally develop the Belokk character that was gonna be in 4.
I still wanna see Asgaarth from the animated series made into an actual character.
Tasia and No-Face from Special Forces?
Maybe turn the Water, Fire, and Earth gods from Mythologies into actual characters. I remember concepts I had for them. Water God became Sujin, Devine archer of the waves. Earth god became Okami, a massive golem that sleeps at the earth’s core. And the Fire God became Honsubi. A hotheaded deity who helps goad Raiden down the path of darkness.
I think the fire god might be too similar to blaze so he’d have to be swapped out.
I would love to see Reptile and Onaga. But hopefully not as one being again.
Also does anyone know if the MK11 reveal event is going to be streamed. If so, where?
Maybe he WAS Blaze. It’s not like those characters have ever been seen again and they got so little development. They could probably pull off that retcon.
Not sure how they can retcon or some how throw in that theory. But that might need a good reason to make it work. But maybe if they make them different then yeah that’s possible.
Still curious about how they can pull off the story. I do hope that Reptile gets his own chapter.
This is true, but at the same time there is no guarantee that a returning fan favorite character will be any good in their newer iterations; I remember a lot of SF players got pretty angry when characters like Nash and Ibuki came back only to be completely different characters in terms of gameplay. Even I’m angry at how Tekken 7 is handling Julia, instead of the more mature and serious version from Tekken 5 they basically retconned her personality to be more like Jaycee from Tag 2 (which isn’t even canon to the main timeline).
Either way, I agree that guest characters have never truly been needed to sell a game, but acting like bringing all the old characters back is automatically a good thing is just asking for disappointment.
Honestly I never saw a problem with developers moving on in terms of roster. I remember when Capcom refused to have characters sit out a single game and it was just the worst, since SF4 ended up with a large amount of shoto clones and characters that were clearly not given any love in terms of balance (I remember a good amount of trash tiers in that game). Maybe I’m just used to years of developers turning formerly good things into trash, but if several characters sit out a game in favor of interesting newcomers I won’t complain.
And again, the newcomers don’t have to be guests, but if they want to go that route they should at least give their gameplay the respect they give the main roster when possible; I remember when Sony pretty much prevented that from happening with Kratos in MK9 with their meddling (which led to him being garbage), but thankfully the IP holders of the other guests in NRS games didn’t do the same mistake.
That’s never happening again, NRS has gone full-on Project Soul on the industry. And just like Soul Calibur we’re getting guests, like it or not.
I am fully aware. But it doesn’t change my attitude towards it.
The way I see it, as long as fans get their favorite characters in the game most would buy it, sense characters can determine whether they buy it or not. granted I do udnerstand where your comming from. Heck I hate dhow Reptile lost to stryker in MK11’s story. Nut I do still want him in MK 11 despite all those losses,
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Super Smash Bros Ultimate beg to differ.
Yeah I was really glad to see Tanya as well, and also really happy with what they did with her in terms of look (obvious issues aside) and gameplay. I thought they made her really fun to use!
I also enjoyed what they did with Bo Rai Cho, even if I wish, for the love of god, they’d stop having their Outworld martial arts master, who trained Liu Kang and Kung Lao, use farting and barfing as special moves. His Bartitsu variation with the cane was a lot of un, and I enjoyed his drunken master stance (issues notwithstanding).
I know Triborg gets flak, but I thought the Smoke variation was awesome. I’m not a huge fan of the variation system (don’t hate it, just don’t love it either), so just using Smoke this way was fun for me.
But then there were four horror characters, none of which I care about and none of whom really did much for me in terms of movelists, though Alien’s ahem Baraka stance was fun (as a Baraka fan). Still, I get that they’re going to have guests and I’ve reluctantly accepted this as the new normal in fighting games, but I reall REALLY hope they’ll stop using horror characters. I have zero desire to see Michael Myers, Pennywise, Pinhead or any other horror character they can dig up. It’s been done. They’ve done it FIVE times now.
Honestly, I like Spawn a lot, and while I’d still prefer to have zero guests, I’m just happy about the rumors of Spawn in MK 11 if, for no other reason, he’s not a horror movie character.
Well, here’s hoping that if we have more guests, and I’m sure we will, that we both at least wind up liking them more than we have in the past. It’s a shame that we can’t get more DLC characters like Tanya or Bo Rai Cho (aka overlooked 3D era characters) or fan service characters like Tremor instead, but as long as a few of those make the DLC roster, I’ll be happy.
I’d LOVE to have Tasia in MK11! Great idea there and I couldn’t agree more. If not on the main roster (which would also be great), I think she’d make a perfect fan service DLC character like Tremor and Skarlet before her. She’s a bit obscure, which is in line with the previous fan service DLC characters, and I honestly think she has a lot of potential. She’s tied to the Black Dragon, but maybe she’s a good fit with Kano’s son as either a mentor or partner or love interest. Or maybe she betrays him if he tries to leave the Black Dragon?
Either way, I dig her short swords and I’d like to see what she can do with them. I liked her in the comic, and with Kittleson working on the MK 11 writing team (if I’m not mistaken), maybe he has a chance to write her again if Ed and company decide to put her in the game?
Yeah I like having a nice number of newcomers. I think MKX had the perfect balance between new and returning characters and I’m hoping MK11 shoots for that 6 or 7 range again. My issue with how they balance the roster tends to fall on the returning character side.
See for me, NRS has kinda been on the opposite trend of what you’re talking about with devs making good things in to trash. During the 3D era, MK fans were “treated” to characters like Kira, who literally had Kano and Sonya’s moves and nothing else. They also had Sareena, who had a great story role in the past, show up with some generic special moves and had no baring on the plots in games she was sparingly used in. They came up with cool character concepts like Mavado, Drahmin, Havik etc but the execution of their fighting styles left a lot to be desired.
Well, now NRS has shown that they can make really well designed, fun new characters with Skarlet, Cassie Cage, Kotal Khan, Dvorah, Takeda, Erron Black, Kung Jin and others. But more importantly, they’ve also proven that they can take characters that were weak in the gameplay department, or the look/style department and they can make them more compelling.
I mean, they made STRYKER cool in MK9, and he was a borderline joke character in many fans estimation to that point. But they also made Tanya, Bo Rai Cho and Shinnok interesting. They made Tremor, who was essentially fan service, in to a cool character. They also found ways to make many of the long returning characters cool and unique for the thousandth time.
So for me, I see all of that, and I think… Honestly, do we really need to see Sonya, Cage, Jax, Reptile, Ermac, Kung Lao, Goro, Kitana, Liu Kang and Kano yet again? Sure, bring some of them back, but can’t we miss some of these characters for ONE game? Do we really need Sonya, Cage and Jax when we have Cassie and Jaqui (again, for one game). Can we live without Kung Lao if we have Kung Jin? If we get Kano’s son, will we need Kano to be playable?
Sure, bring back Liu Kang and Kitana because they matter to the story and bring back a few more fan favorites like Reptile who can always serve someone and have a role there (or do something new), but I’d love to see more balance in terms of reimagining some of those 3D era characters.
I’d love to see what they could do with a fully realized Mavado on a 2D plane. With those ropes he has, he could move around and attack like Omega Red in X-Men: Children of the Atom, which would be crazy awesome to me. They put Fujin, Sareena, and Li Mei in the MKX story and they all looked amazing to me. I’d love to see what fun and original ideas they could come up with from a story and gameplay perspective. I think Nitara being a vampire opens up tons of possibilities (flying, super speed, super strength, teleportation, pyromancy, telekinesis / mind control, shape shifting in to a bat, a wolf, mist, etc). I think Kira could be a great lone wolf assassin with athletic moves and the use of some of those weapons she sells.
I think the 3D era has a ton of untapped potential and I see too many people write them off as bad designs when we’ve actually seen them take some of those designs (I mean, Tremor was a boss character from the worst MK game ever made) and make them awesome.
So yeah, rather than simply move forward and leave a lot of those characters in the past, I’d love for them to strike a better balance between trilogy characters, 3D era characters, new era characters and brand new characters. If that means some of the trilogy characters have to sit out for one game so I actually have the chance to miss them (the way I miss Shang Tsung, Jade, Noob and Smoke), then I’m more than fine with that. A year from now, I’d love to be able to say “I really hope Jax is in the next game” because right now, I feel like he’s been in almost every MK game since MK2 and I’d like to see NRS use his roster spot on a character I don’t see quite so often. What do you think?
I love guest characters. I just love crossovers. I’m not even a fan of the indevidual series. Crossovers just have some sort of magic to them. I obviously don’t want them to dominate the roster, but I think 4-6 is probably a good number to expect. Assuming they do more DLC than just the first pack that comes with the premium edition. And there are plenty of M-Rated series to pick from besides Horror characters.
I think Ash Williams is the last one they need to do. Evil Dead is party of the trinity along with Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. But after that… I don’t know. I never saw the gameplay potential for Micheal Myers, even if people expect him now. I’d rather them save any other ideas they come up with for an actual Horror themed fighting game.
Spawn is a definite yes. I’ve wanted him in either this, KI, or Injustice for so long. I think Joker could be an interesting character as well. Depends on if DC is okay with it. Or hey, maybe the Joker from Persona! That’s M-Rated.
That Doomslayer tweet has put him on the list of characters I think are likely.
Sweet Tooth. A KI character. Bayonetta. Console exclusive characters. I. Want. Them. Back.
Base roster? Shang Tsing, Skarlet, Sektor, Daegon, and Frost. That’s all I need.
I was referring to mainline games, compilations don’t count since they’re advertised to have most or all existing characters.
For the longest time I’ve been saying they should retool their bad characters and make them good, but instead they either kill them off or just make them NPCs. I get that they hated how some of those characters turned out (they said so in interviews and documentaries) but I always saw potential in the lesser characters to be more interesting, and Tremor’s redesign was proof they could do that to a lot of others from the series.
Maybe they’ll surprise us and bring at least one or two of those characters back. I always did want to see a retooled version of Nitara, she always seemed to have a good amount of potential in my opinion.
Aside from possibly Sony, I doubt you will get them back. I remember in both MK9 and SFxT both companies wanted to have exclusive characters for the Xbox versions, and MS let both deals fall through (because apparently only shooters deserved that amount of attention back then). Also Nintendo doesn’t really have anything they want getting chopped to pieces in an MK game; just because the Bayo 3 teaser made it looked like Kung Lao did his hat slice fatality on her, it doesn’t mean she’s getting in.
It also doesn’t help that all games are focusing on competitive play, and since exclusive guests are auto-banned from tournaments many companies don’t want to bother anymore. Appealing to casuals with exclusives isn’t worth making a literal wasted slot for competitive play I guess.
Yeah I agree, there are plenty of series they could choose from, which is why I kinda hope they don’t go back to the horror well again. I think having Freddy and Jason in MK9 would’ve been okay (even if I’m not personally in to those characters), and then having Alien and Predator in MKX could have been cool. I wouldn’t mind the balance of two characters in each, but four still seems like a bit much to me. However, I think that’s mainly because I have no interest in those specific characters.
Had they been characters that I was in to, like say Kain and Raziel from Blood Omen / Soul Reaver, Spawn, or Sweet Tooth on PS4 and a KI character on XB1, then sure, bring em on! Of course, they’re obviously making these rosters just here to cater to me lol.
I get where you’re coming from though. Some guest characters do get me legit hyped. I thought it was really cool they put Akuma and Geese in Tekken 7. I’m not big on Negan but others are. I like Geralt in Soul Calibur VI and while I’ve never played Nier Automata, 2B is a fun and rather cool looking character.
I mean, that’s kinda the nature of guests though, right? The people that like those characters and are familiar with them will love it and buy them and bring more eyes to the game and what not, and the people that don’t like those characters but already have the game or enjoy the series or whatever will likely just shrug their shoulders and move on, even if some are a bit more bitter about it.
I think the hard part is convincing some people that guest character A isn’t keeping a series regular out of the game. Sure, as a series fan, I’d rather see most MK characters than Spawn simply because I want their story, their move list, and to see how they fit in to the lore in this new game and all that, whereas Spawn will likely have cool moves and a cool look, and no place in the lore and no real story of value within the MK universe (unless they decide to get crazy and make him a series regular).
That’s kinda the hard part about guests. They offer virtually nothing in terms of the story and lore. If you’re not here for that, then that’s no big deal at all. You might also feel that not every character has to contribute to the story or lore. Others prefer that they do though. Whatever, no big deal.
I wouldn’t mind Ash. Of the three of those series, Evil Dead / Army of Darkness is the series I like the most BY FAR and he certainly has more move list potential to me than characters like Jason, Leatherface or Michael Myers for that matter.
Spawn has a cool look and a massive amount of potential in terms of his movelist, so if there are guests, there aren’t many I’d prefer more than him. It kinda amazes me that they didn’t try to get him in Injustice 2. Maybe they wanted to hold him until MK 11? I’m not really familiar with Joker from Persona, though I know people lost their collective ■■■■ when he was announced for Smash lol.
Not really in to Doom, but if they announced him as a character, I’d be fine with that. I’d be curious what his move list might look like. Some creative gun usage, maybe some hell beasts thrown in for good measure? Could be interesting.
I like those console exclusive characters. To me, they fit perfectly. Well, Sweet Tooth and a KI character for sure. Bayonetta could too. Don’t really see why not. I didn’t really say much about her in the previous conversation, but Nintendo’s bankrolled the last two games while Sega still owns the IP, so if Sega struck a deal with WB and NRS, I’d have to assume Nintendo would at least have to give their blessing in some sort of informal fashion. Not saying they could block Sega, but I’d imagine they’d want to come to some sort of agreement.
Shang Tsung and Skarlet for sure! Love those two and really hope to see them again. I like Sektor, but I almost kinda wish we had his human version. Not sure why, but I like that one more. I guess I’m not really super in to the cyborgs. Just seemed like an odd turn when they went there after MK2 and it never quite sat right, but I liked Sektor and Cyrax as humans in MK9.
Frost is one that I wouldn’t mind, I just wonder how much they’d really do to separate her from Sub Zero given that they’re both ice powered characters. When they were both in MK:DA, they each only had about three special moves. Could they really fill up a much bigger move list for each one and have them both play differently enough? I’d assume they can.
Daegon? Interesting. I’ve seen people wanting him. I’ve never been in to Taven and Daegon much as characters. Curious to hear your thoughts on what you like about him or where you see the potential.
As for my base roster, well… My ideal roster would be:
From the Trilogy Era: Raiden, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Kitana, Jade, Noob, Shang Tsung, Shao Khan (preorder bonus)
From the 3D Era: Fujin, Sareena, Kira, Mavado, Kai, Reiko, Havik, Nitara, Li Mei
From the New Era: Skarlet, Kotal Khan, Erron Black, Cassie Cage, Jaqui Briggs, Kung Jin, Takeda, Dvorah
New for MK11: Oracle (Time lady, not sure why some are calling her that, but I’ll just use that name), Kano’s son, Tasia, new Tarkatan, new vampire, new creature.
So that’s 32 in total including Shao Khan. Given that the original MKX roster was what… 28? I don’t think that’s too much of a stretch to have three more plus the preorder bonus.
As for the trilogy characters, I wouldn’t mind seeing some of them, like Kabal, Ermac, Kung Lao and Reptile as DLC. I’m assuming they’d sell a lot better than a revamped character like Bo Rai Cho or Tanya anyways.
Maybe also add Khameleon as a sort of fan service character, or swap her in for Tasia and have Tasia be the fan service character, or Hydro perhaps, or Nimbus Terrafaux, but not with that awful name lol. Belokk would be cool, but I don’t know that Midway had any rights to that character since the company porting MK4 to the Dreamcast created him themselves.
Agree 100%. I’d also cite Bo Rai Cho and Tanya as proof that they can take some of the lesser known characters and really make them something fun and interesting. If they can do it with those three characters, why not Mavado, Fujin, Sareena, etc?
Definitely! Nitara would be awesome. I mean, she’s a vampire. Even if they gave the blood magic stuff to Skarlet, there’s still so much more they could do with Nitara to make her fun and unique.
I don’t know Persona either. I was just preemptively countering the memes. DC’s Joker is who I’d prefer.
Nitara would be cool. I’d love Kabal back.
I love the Cyborg Ninjas. Sektor is just super cool!
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Those are good choices though I’d also add Reptile in that base roster too.
My pick would be as follows
- Reptile
- Scorpion
- Sub-Zero
- Rain
- Smoke
- Ermac
- Noob Saibot
- Sektor
- Cyrax
- Kitana
- Jade
- Milleena
- Khameleon
- Goro
- Sheeva
- Raiden
- Liu Kang
- Jax
- Jhonny Case
- Fujin
- Kano
- Kabal
- Shang Tsung
- Kotal Khan
- Erron Black
- Cassie Cage
- Sonya Blade
- Nightwolf
- Takeda
- Kehnshi
- Havik
- Onaga
- Kung Lao
- Baraka
- Kung Jin
- Jaqui Brigs
- New Character from the nether realm
- New Saurian
- Jarek
- Character from a new realm
- Tanya
- Shao Khan (pre-order bounus)
Base Roster will have
the first 36 on the list and the rest could be DLC.
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Here is my list adjusted from @justathereptile. The ones in Bold being my favorites.
1. Reptile
2. Scorpion
3. Sub-Zero
4. Rain
5. Enenra (Smoke)
6. Ermac
7. Noob Saibot
8. Sektor
9. Kitana
10. Jade
11. Sheeva
12. Raiden
13. Liu Kang
14. Fujin
15. Kano
16. Kabal
17. Shang Tsung
18. Kotal Khan
19. Erron Black
20. Cassie Cage
21. Devorha
22. Nightwolf
23. Takeda
24. Kehnshi
25. Havik
26. Kung Lao
27. Kung Jin
28. Jaqui Brigs
29. Tanya
30. Shao Khan (pre-order bonus)
31. Kano’s son
32. Tremor
33. Michael Myers
34. Skarlet
[/quote]
So we’ve pretty much talked about characters. Why don’t we talk about the lore or the story. I’ve pretty much said it over and over about doing something for the saurian race so that Reptile can get some closure and continue to develop. So I won’t discuss it anymore if I can help it.
I do wonder whether or not Sub-Zero and Noob saibot will be able to resolve the tension they had in MK9, because that one of the non-death scenes that hit me the hardest. (Being a brother and having.)
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I also wouldn’t mind these kinds of dialogue again.
I’d like a new Edenia story with Sindel and her daughters
She only has one daughter. 
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