Ed Boon Reveals How Mortal Kombat’s Devs Choose Guest Characters

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon took a breath during First We Feast’s latest episode of Hot Ones to talk about how developer NetherRealm chooses the DLC guest characters for games like Mortal Kombat 1. The games industry legend shared the studio’s secret sauce in between bites of wings, but his explanation might be a bit surprising. Some fans might expect NetherRealm’s process to be very complicated and detailed. However, Boon says this is not the case. Instead, the reality is much simpler.

“It’s not technical, it’s just childish,” Boon said. “We all grew up watching movies from the ’70, ‘80s, and ‘90s. From our standpoint, it is, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to see Terminator fighting Scorpion? Wouldn’t it be cool to see RoboCop fighting Sub-Zero?’ It’s as basic and simple as that. There’s no science to it.”

Of course, as Boon clarifies, things do get slightly complicated: At some point, there’s legalities. Can we get the license to it, can we do this…but in terms of where the idea comes from, it’s a bunch of adults who want to see who will win in a fight.”

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Some previous Mortal Kombat guest fighters include the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, Peter Weller’s RoboCop, Spawn, Freddy Kruger, Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface, and more. Most recently, players learned that Mortal Kombat 1 DLC will feature superpowered characters such as Homelander from The Boys, Peacemaker from The Suicide Squad, and Omni-Man from Invincible. NetherRealm also hasn’t completely closed the door on even more DLC down the line, as previous entries in the fighting game series have had added characters in more than one Kombat Pack.

Boon is a die-hard pop-culture fan, so if Mortal Kombat 1 does indeed receive more DLC down the line, you can probably expect it to include some iconic faces. You can look forward to actually playing Mortal Kombat 1 when the base game launches on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S come September 19. Until then, you can watch Ed Boon on Hot Ones below.