E3 2014: Mortal Kombat X - Ed Boon Interview with new B-roll - "More new characters than ever"

We caught up with the creative director of Mortal Kombat X - Ed Boon - to discuss the character variations, online, new-gen consoles and more. "We did a game called Injustice and that did really well so we were happy about that, but now that we have the next generation of consoles and we're kind of jumping back in with new enthusiasm for Mortal Kombat," says Ed Boon. "The main thing that we want to do is introduce new things, new features, new gameplay elements to the mix," says Boon. "This Mortal Kombat we're introducing more new characters than we have before. And introducing more features like the character variations - every character in the game has three versions that have different moves and different kind of strategies involved with them. So the process of selecting a character and going up against another character is completely different in this game, because of the three versions of every character." Following up on the character variations Boon confirmed that all versions of a character will share basic and signature moves, while for instance the Cryomancer version of Sub-Zero being the only one able to create ice weapons for use in combat. Boon referred to it as giving players offensive and defensive versions of the various characters. Speaking off the first characters revealed, Boon was proud of the fact that out of the six revealed characters, four are brand new. "They're some of the wildest characters that we've introduced into the mix since the beginning." "One of our characters is called Ferra/Torr and he is this big, hulking character with kind of a little lady that's on his back. And she's giving him orders, he's throwing her at the opponent kind of like as a projectile, she's stabbing him and getting all mad. So it's a really crazy brawling character." The X-Ray move makes a return in Mortal Kombat X - taking true pleasure in the violence perpetrated on screen. "The X-Ray move was something that players really embraced in the last Mortal Kombat game. So we really wanted to start with the foundation of Mortal Kombat 9, which was 2011's Mortal Kombat, and add on top of there the three variations of characters and on top of that there is the backgrounds and being able to jump, and propel yourself, leverage yourself on the environments." One area that NetherRealm Studios weren't talking too much about during E3 was online, but Boon gave us the general idea of how they're looking to innovate this space: "It is basically a persistent online game that everybody participates in," says Boon. "So we'll give you more details later, but it's something where we really want people getting online all playing this big meta game." Speaking of grand game modes, Boon had this to say about a potential return of the Challenge Tower. "We're leaning towards trying new things. I think the Challenge Tower and all that was great in Mortal Kombat 9, and so there are certain things that we really like that worked out well. But we don't just want to bring everything and just reskin the game, you know, with next-gen graphics. We really want to introduce new features as well." Mortal Kombat X is scheduled to arrive on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One sometime next year. Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=gamereactorTV http://www.gamereactor.tv Join us @ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Gamereactor