Could a New Mortal Kombat Remaster Be in the Works?

I can’t believe I’m writing another entire article based solely on something I saw trending on Twitter. I haven’t done this since the day trending topics on that website brought to my attention the fact that Neil Peart had passed away early last year. At least that was a concrete fact and not just a hypothetical idea like the topic I’m about to discuss, but I digress.

Anyway, the subject that’s managed to catch my eye is the idea that a new remaster of an older game in the Mortal Kombat franchise could potentially be in the works or, at the least, could soon be pitched to the decision-makers on that front. Mortal Kombat’s co-creator, Ed Boon, recently posted a Twitter poll asking fans of the series to choose one of four games they’d like to see remastered.

At least, I think that’s what he was doing. The text above the poll simply reads, “Remaster…?”, which could just be a tease of some description. Nevertheless, present within that poll were the following choices: Mortal Kombat: Deception, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, Mortal Kombat 9 (the eponymous 2011 reboot of the franchise), and Mortal Kombat II.

Despite my use of screenshots from Deception’s predecessor, Deadly Alliance, throughout this article (they’re all I have on hand at the moment), I participated in that poll by voting for Shaolin Monks. In fact, seeing the phrase “Shaolin Monks” trending was how I discovered this topic in the first place. I voted for that title in particular because, even though I greatly enjoy Deception and its “Konquest” mode, the expansive story told in Shaolin Monks is by far my favorite among those four games.

I don’t want to turn this article into a fully-fledged review of Shaolin Monks or any of the other MK titles in question. I’ll save those for future installments of my “Retro Rewind” series. For now, suffice it to say that I think Mortal Kombat II doesn’t really need a remaster, strictly speaking. Neither, I would argue, does Mortal Kombat 9.

In my opinion, a remaster of MKII would ruin at least some portion of its nostalgic appeal. When it comes to Mortal Kombat 9, I would say it’s still too new to be worth considering for the remaster treatment. Of these two, however, I would absolutely love to see NetherRealm do some serious (and in my opinion, quite necessary) repair work on the latter’s PC port. Preferably I’d want to see it as a free update, piece of free DLC, or something like that. I certainly wouldn’t qualify something along those lines as a full remaster, though.

For those of you who might be unaware, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks isn’t your traditional one-on-one arcade fighter like virtually any other title in the series is. Rather, Shaolin Monks is an action-adventure title which centers around the franchise’s two most prominent titular Shaolin monks, Liu Kang and Kung Lao.

You can pick either, or both, if you have a co-op partner, of these two monks, then proceed go forth and kick some serious butt within what I would argue is the most expansive world the franchise has seen yet. As you experience the story the game seeks to tell, you’ll fight series staples such as Reptile as “bosses” of sorts. You will also encounter various other things that I sadly can’t seem to remember at the moment. You can also unlock another famous duo of MK characters, Scorpion and Sub-Zero, and play through the story as either or both of them.

Of course, Shaolin Monks has quite a bit more to offer than just what I consider to be its heavily underrated story mode. Most of its other content is tucked away in the game’s multiplayer mode, where you and a friend can duke it out as many of the most popular MK “kombatants” once you’ve unlocked them by playing through the story campaign. Virtually everything I’ve said about Shaolin Monks thus far are reasons I would so greatly like to see the game receive a remaster.

Furthermore, since the PC gaming scene continues to become increasingly friendly to fighting games (as NetherRealm Studios undoubtedly knows quite well by now), I think a remastered version of Shaolin Monks would sell extraordinarily well on Steam. Features like online co-op and Steam Remote Play Together would be wonderful additions to a game such as this as far as I’m concerned. I just sincerely hope Mr. Boon wasn’t merely teasing us when he tweeted that fateful poll.