Series co-creator Ed Boon says if Injustice: Gods Among Us performs well, NetherRealm's "next step" could be making a game in a different genre.
Mortal Kombat studio NetherRealm Studios has made a name for itself by creating fighting games, but the company wants to branch out. In an interview with the PlayStation Blog, Mortal Kombat co-creator and NetherRealm creative director Ed Boon said if upcoming brawler Injustice: Gods Among Us performs well, the studio could work on a non-fighting game next.
"We feel like [Injustice: Gods Among Us] is kind of our first step towards that," he said. "If it does well, we would like to see our next step be a non-fighting game, maybe something unique in its own right. This is our first step in that direction."
Boon has made non-fighting games before, including 2005's action adventure Xbox and PlayStation 2 game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, as well as 2001's third-person arcade shooter The Grid.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
I'd rather see them work on a follow up to the last MK. We know its coming. Why try to sell us something that we don't want. If I want a game in another genre, it sure wouldn't be a NetherRealm Studio's title. Lets not forget what junk was pumped out during the PS1 era. NR should stick to what they do best.
And its just my opinion. Gods Amoung Us is too soon. Also it looks like a MK clone. Plus most demos you watch show the characters entire moves set including supermoves and finals. Feels like I already played this game.
I get it, yrs and yrs of MK and you wanna try something else again, but dont take too long please. a 2 yr gap between MK's is ok, to preserve the quality of the franchise; i hope i dont have to wait 3-5 yrs before mk2.
Somehow, I hear the death knell of both a series and a company. When I hear "diversify", I hear people trying to get away from something. Most diversifications usually end up in a half-assed attempt at new technology (which they're hiring for, so the article says), which ends up in a major flop with no decent gameplay, and the company dies horribly. Remember New World Computing's "Might and Magic 9", anyone? It wasn't diversification, but it ended the same, anyway.
What they could do is an MK-RPG instead, and advance the universal storyline. That would pave the way for new MK fighter games by adding more people to the story (and "retiring" some characters - do that sparingly, please). Hell, you could have a Dragon Age-like multi-character RPG game from different worlds (Earth, Outworld, Netherrealm, Edenia, etc). And yes, I know they attempted this previously...trouble is, they made it way too small. Look at the scale of Dragon's Dogma, and then multiply that times however many realms, and stick it into one game. They're just not thinking big enough.
Street Fighter : The Legend of Chun Li (I know it's a movie, but still!)
Let's just leave Mortal Kombat where it worths before we end up wih a HORRIBLE Mortal Kombat RPG or racing game. Or even worse... KM Baseball 2014. *shudder*
My advice is to not do something outside the realm of your expertise. So Netherrealm is great at fighting games, perhaps then create a deep brawler (like Final Fight, Double Dragon style, etc.), and not a genre that's too out of scope like an RPG or a first person shooter.
I know this will never happen (which is very sad cuz it would sell), but they should make an Ultimate Alliance type of game but use the DC Vs. Marvel story & add on to it cuz the story was only 4 comics long.
@Henninger I would LOVE a DC and Marvel crossover. That would be EPIC beyond words.
However, I don't want Netherrealms touching a single bit of it. I don't even want Netherrealms to even THINK of considering it. The last thing I want is the DC and Marvel universes being portrayed in a shoddy Mortal Kombat graphics style that has a very toned down, monochromatic color palette, just as what's being done with Injustice -- which merely looks like a Mortal Kombat sequel with DC costumes slapped on the MK characters.
The developer I would like to work on such a huge undertaking is Rocksteady of the Arkham games or Beenox of the Spider-man games.
Ed Boon still can't make a fighting game where the characters don't act and move like animated action figures. Can any character in this game even flex their spine?MK9 was a great revival for MK, but Jesus Christ, hire some new animators and game designers and pay them well. There's gotta be tons of unemployed SNK people who can do that shit in their sleep.
Every character interacts with the enviroment differently... yeah right. There's like 3 character archetypes, they behave the same way and use the exact same animations while doing so. Also I can't be hyped with stuff like Superman punching someone into space because I've seen more draw dropping, cut scene super moves in DBZ and Naruto games. I was blowing up entire planets with fireballs 10 years ago while Boon acts like he just invented the wheel or something with all these gimmicky features.
@vegeta2002 Yeah I don't get it with the stiff animations in Mortal Kombat games. They really do seem like action figure stop-animation type animations mixed with some mo-cap... or rather stiff mo-cap.
My assumption is that Netherrealm does not want to hire outside talent to do the animations, most likely not by anyone from Japan. But since they're connected with Warner Bros., they can at least ask them to broker talent from Rocksteady, who did a stellar job at animating the Arkham games.
That would be awesome if Netherrealm brings back my other favorite Midway IP... Gauntlet. The last good ones were Legends for N64 and it's add-on, Dark Legacy for PS2.
No new intellectual properties please. Do something cool with your already rich Mortal Kombat universe. Like MK Mythologies, but like good...or konquest mode or w/e from deadly alliance, but more polished. Something like that would be amazing for me.
Since when is it news not a game launch, not a game development, not a game port, but an intention by someone to make a game?OK, I'm planning on playing Persona 4 after posting this. You've got yourself a good headline now.
I am mainly for this to delay the next Mortal Kombat game. The current Mortal Kombat is so perfect, that we don't need a sequel til at least a year in to the next gen of consoles.
@ItchyIsVegeta Agreed. It's refreshing to see a developer create a game and give it the chance to grow some legs. When it is time to refresh the franchise, they'll have a larger pool of ideas to add.
NetherRealm seems to be making a lot of really good moves. I'm looking forward to Injustice and anything else they put out.
I am somewhat reminded of Squaresoft's situation many years ago. They were very good at on genre (rpgs). Then shortly before FF7 they rolled out Tobal No. 1 and Bushido Blade that were not from genres that they usually worked with. Then at release of PS2 what did they give us? Driving Emotion Type S, a substandard racing game. The point I'm getting at is sometimes when your good at something you should stick with it. They may be very good at creating games for other genres, but don't forget what you do best.
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