Mortal Kombat 1 development chief Ed Boon has taken to social media to reveal a glimpse at upcoming guest character T-1000 Terminator’s Fatality, and tease “future DLC.”
To mark the release of guest character Conan the Barbarian, Boon tweeted to say Mortal Kombat 1 has now sold over five million copies, up from the four million previously reported. Boon then tweeted a short clip showing one of the T-1000’s Fatalities, which Terminator 2 fans are sure to get a kick out of.
We see the T-1000 drive a smashed up truck straight into his hapless opponent, rekindling memories of the iconic chase scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000 drives the same truck in pursuit of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator and Edward Furlong’s John Connor.
(5 of 7) With Conan getting into player’s hands, we are excited to keep trucking forward with future DLC ! pic.twitter.com/eC3Aqj5KDc
— Ed Boon (@noobde) January 21, 2025
But it’s Boon’s comment accompanying the clip that set tongues wagging within the Mortal Kombat community: “With Conan getting into player’s hands, we are excited to keep trucking forward with future DLC!”
While the line “keep trucking forward with future DLC” may relate to the upcoming release of the T-1000, some are hoping it’s a tease that more DLC characters are set to hit the game once the current set is rounded out.
T-1000 Terminator is the final DLC character set to be added to the gory fighting game as part of the Khaos Reigns expansion, and follows playable fighters Cyrax, Sektor, Noob Saibot, Ghostface, and Conan the Barbarian. Fans have wondered for some time now whether developer NetherRealm plans a third set of DLC characters, or a Kombat Pack 3, amid questions about Mortal Kombat 1’s sales success.
Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has indicated, however, that it still believes in the Mortal Kombat franchise. In November, CEO David Zaslav said that on the games side of things, the company plans to double down on just four titles, one of which is Mortal Kombat.
In September, Boon said NetherRealm had decided on its next game three years prior, but promised to support Mortal Kombat 1 “for a long time to come.”
Most fans of the studio’s work expect it to release a third game in its DC fighting game franchise, Injustice, although neither NetherRealm nor Warner Bros. has yet to confirm that. The first game in the series, Injustice: Gods Among Us, launched in 2013, with its sequel, Injustice 2, coming out in 2017. NetherRealm released Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019 and for a time it seemed like the studio would alternate between Mortal Kombat and Injustice games, but it went on to release another Mortal Kombat, the soft reboot that is Mortal Kombat 1, in 2023 instead.
In an interview with IGN in June 2023, Boon spoke in vague terms about this decision. “There were a number of factors, some of which I can talk about, some of which I probably shouldn’t,” Boon said.
Two reasons Boon was willing to discuss were the unfortunate onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the team’s choice to switch to a newer version of the Unreal game engine (Mortal Kombat 11 runs on Unreal Engine 3, whereas Mortal Kombat 1 runs on Unreal Engine 4).
“But we did go to a new graphics engine, Unreal,” Boon said. “We really wanted to be careful with COVID and all that stuff and everybody staying safe. So there were a bunch of variables involved that eventually we realized, ‘Okay, let’s do another Mortal Kombat game and hopefully we’ll get back to the Injustice games.’ “
Just to be sure, we wanted to confirm with him directly that the door was not closed on the Injustice franchise.
“Not at all,” Boon answered.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
