Mortal Kombat isn't in stores for a few more weeks, but Netherrealm has already revealed the first two characters you'll be able to add to the game's already impressive roster as download content. The blind swordsman Kenshi will be available along with an interesting piece of Mortal Kombat history, Scarlet.
As confirmed in an CVG interview with Netherrealm producer Hans Lo, Scarlet will only appear for the first time in this new Mortal Kombat game but originates out of a glitch in the arcade version of Mortal Kombat II. As many of the characters were simply palette-swaps of other characters, occasionally the game would cause these characters to appear in red despite there being no red version. While the male ninja model would inspire the character Ermac (his name a reference to an error counter), the female ninja was left to fan speculation, who named her "Skarlett."
Netherrealm also offers some reassurance for fans who might remember those palette-swaps and be afraid that they won't be getting their money's worth out of DLC characters. "They won't be copy and pasted from characters already in the game - they're going to have their own unique fighting styles, moves, fatalities and x-rays - all the good stuff," says Lo.
All great news, far as I'm concerned. I rarely get excited about fighting games, having no particular talent for them. But the more I see of Mortal Kombat and the more times I play through the demo on my PS3, I can't help but be interested. It feels like the logical progression of the original arcade trilogy into the modern era and the raw brutality makes me feel giddy in the way it did to a twelve year-old Conrad illicitly playing in the way back of a pizza parlor.
Mortal Kombat DLC characters revealed [CVG]
Contest:
8:00 PM on 03.27.2011 | 
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Also, the full character select screen is up on Shoryuken.com, for those who are interested.
Also, since they're adding Kenshi, I'm crossing my fingers for Havik and Hotaru. Those two are my favorite newer fighters from the last trilogy, and they're also to me to most interesting because of the whole Chaos vs. Order dynamic.
"Hey! We could've put this on the disk, but we're going to make you pay more, win-win!"
Welcome to 2011...where have you been?
@Blahblahblah - This really is a despicable trend. No amount of justification can really make this okay; it's commonplace and to-be-expected, but that doesn't mean it's okay.
@Blahblahblah - This really is a despicable trend. No amount of justification can really make this okay; it's commonplace and to-be-expected, but that doesn't mean it's okay.
Actually Boon himself said that he isn't doing that. When they say downloadable character, they really means downloadable characters. Like virtually. FROM THE INTERNET!
Course doesn't matter either way, I'm so getting this and I can't wait to finally play it.
I mean, they're stealing combo breakers, least they could do is put in a Killer Instinct character.
Either way, I'm getting this on 360. Kratos seems slow and bulky, not like is SoulCalibur version.
I remember when I used to think of DLC as a good thing, now I look at it as a cheap attempt to make me pay more for the whole game.
Thats a month of working on content. That is why games release with DLC. That is also why there are sometimes patches on the first day, because there is an extra month to test for bugs. However most of you think the whole, game to 1 million disks takes about 45 seconds so these characters are already there when they aren't.
you realize that if it takes only a month to create these characters and get them fine tuned for play, that they could have easily thrown them on to the disc. Instead, we have to pay on top of what we are paying for them. This also doesn't include the fact that if I wanted to take this game and play it on any other 360, these three (or more depending on how far they go with this) characters wouldn't be there.
@Nobunaga Oda
Kenshi and frost where some of the best new characters added, I defiantly agree.
Serious question hehe
Clearly Sony has made some deal to make Mortal Kombat best on playstation, or advertise it that way anyway. (Glad I'm a PS3 gamer :D )
So yah, no 360 exclusive character!
No he's not, Lo confirmed it on twitter. Kitaro will already be in the game.
Are you aware of the fact that before the current generation of consoles, all this so called DLC used to be released by devs all the time, on PC, for free.
@brod : And you are aware that a squeal to a game or an expansion pack is just larger DLC that cost more. Names are names, I can call a rose a turd but at the end of the day I can still sell it. Most companies, in order to stay a company, make more product and all that, need to make a profit to pay for everything. Not everything can be free sadly, however....free things are always nice.
because I have two consoles and friends who also own consoles that may want to play Mortal Kombat with me. I'm not saying they have to delay the process a month, if it isn't a money grab, then it is inefficiency that they can't get characters in to a game by the time it goes gold. If you believe that the day this game went gold was the day they started modeling these characters then you are one heck of an optimist. I understand DLC post launch, but not at launch. I once again go to nickel and diming people because they want to maximize profits.
That might be cool with you, but I don't want to buy a new fighting game and then have to head home to buy the rest of the cast. It's bullshit. They could have spent that time rendering all the other useless stuff that you had piled on in your earlier post and given us a complete roster at launch. They didn't.
I don't like this concept and it is bullshit that we have to put up with DLCharacters for fighting games. Costumes I'm fine with. Extra modes, I understand. Fighters for a fighting game? no. Not at launch.
So are you saying that you believe this latest MK incarnation was already complete and being printed on disc BEFORE the ideas of including Skarlett and Kenshin were even thought up, much less enacted upon? I just don't believe that for a nanosecond!
If someone can show me an article on a website in which Netherrealm posted the entire list of on-disc fighters, and yet the community screamed for the additions of the DLC fighters, I would stfu. But this reeks of more "drawing board" content that was conceived and put aside specifically to add later at an additional cost.
If fan-service was what they were aiming for, they could've offered up this DLC as a preorder bonus instead of what they are currently offering. They could've appeased the hardcore fans by giving them a REAL bonus (perhaps making it a timed exclusive) and still sold it later as DLC to those that didn't preorder. It's a common enough practice (even though people would bitch about that, too)
I really feel for the dedicated who have preordered the Tourney stick edition. If you're paying in excess of $100 for any goddamned game you should be getting ALL the content that game has to offer. At least, that's my opinion.
Besides, if you don't want those characters, you don't pay for them. Shocker, I know, but you don't need to buy up every bit of available content.
Yeah man I really hate that;
''Hey mortal kombat fans, we know you like the game, we have practically all the characters in Mortal kombat 9, but we decided to take a few out....for the sake of money. enjoy!''
GG SHAREHOLDERS, GOOD FUCKING GAME. YOU'VE CONVINCED THE COMPANIES, AND NOW YOU'VE COMVINCED THE DUMBASS CONSUMERS.
Also,
@kindaaloser
You live up to your name, you absorb everything without question.
5$ bet that they're on the disc.
That is why DLC exists... Developers want to have tons of content and they don't have the time to get it all in by the release date. However, they can make it afterwards and release it to help complete their game. And a sequel to a fighting game just to add characters would be like re-releasing Madden because a team traded a few people.
Also - Remember the expansion for Diablo 2? Half of that shit was on the original disks.... But no one complains about that now do they =P
Perhaps Mortal Kombat was not the best example for me to go on my "DLC rant". With the sheer number of characters, moves and fatalities that have shown up in past iterations, having DLC was a no-brainer as surely someone/something was going to get left out that a hardcore MK fan somewhere wanted to see.
I am just curious to see how they proceed from here. If they price their DLC packs fairly, I think they could be on to something.
I still don't agree with how most DLC is conceived/marketed these days, but in MK's case there is certainly a plethora of existing material to work with that likely cannot be expected to be put all together in one package without ending up in a multi-year development stage. I admit I sure as heck don't want to wait that long.