What’s in a name? That’s the question that Mortal Kombat studio CCO Ed Boon is asking, as he recently set up a few polls asking for opinions on what the next Mortal Kombat game should be called. According to Boon, three possible names were on the table: Mortal Kombat 12, Mortal Kombat 13, or Mortal Kombat 2.
“Footnote: Some people are assuming the title with the most votes will determine where we take the story,” Boon wrote online. “That’s not the case. We’ve just had difficulty kounting lately.”
The current naming convention for Mortal Kombat doesn’t make much sense if you’ve taken a break from the franchise. The series made a successful comeback in 2011 with Mortal Kombat, the ninth installment in the franchise. This was followed by Mortal Kombat X in 2015 and Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019, which brought the original storyline that began in 1992’s Mortal Kombat to a close. This was followed by a soft reboot in 2023 with Mortal Kombat 1, which remixed established story beats and put familiar characters in new roles.
To make things even more confusing, Mortal Kombat 1 heavily references multiple timelines toward the end of its campaign, drawing in characters from across a Mortal Kombat multiverse for a final showdown against Shang Tsung from the previous timeline. The Khaos Reigns expansion would also touch on these ideas, as the Titan version of Havik sought to merge all timelines into one.
Currently, “Mortal Kombat 2” is leading the votes with 45.2% of people polled by Boon favoring that title, at the time of writing. If this becomes the title of the next Mortal Kombat game, it will be the second Mortal Kombat 2, which will probably confuse anyone who hasn’t been following along. While it hasn’t been officially revealed yet, Boon did confirm that Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm Studios is “pursuing another Mortal Kombat game,” and he added that “other forms of media and whatnot” for the Mortal Kombat franchise are in development.
That was back in May, and since then, Mortal Kombat’s parent company, Warner Bros. Interactive, has seen some big changes. Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery eventually went through, leading to the merger between Warner Bros. Interactive and Paramount Games Studio. That new entity puts Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, Batman, and a treasure trove of IP under the same roof as Avatar: The Last Airbender, South Park, and Star Trek. Tony Driscoll, president of games and experiences at Skydance, will oversee the new division.
