NetherRealm reveals new characters and a new "-ality"?

Last night, NeverRealm Studios ran a live stream where-in they showed off two new characters for the first time, as well as a ton of new gameplay.

I thought I'd sum things up for folks who ain't willing to sit through the 30 minutes. The stream itself can be found here. There's additional new videos on the same channel.

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Two new characters - Ermac and Reptile. Both characters seem fairly similar to their MK 9 counter-parts with a couple of noticeable changes. The first of course being the inclusion of the variation system. This seems to affect Ermac in particular, as a lot of his signature moves, such as the telekinetic grab, now are part of a single variation. The other two allowing him free flight and longer distance projectiles respectively. Overall, he seems a lot weaker than he did in MK9 with weaker attacks and less range, but considering how overpowered he was at the time, it's for the better. He's still very much a zoning/trap character.

They unfortunately didn't show off Reptile to a great extent so I'm unable to speak about his variations at any length. Overall, it seems like he's still a mix-up character, with a good balance of ranged set-ups and charge moves that allow him to close the distance quickly.

They revealed a new stage if you're into that kind of thing, which was a ruined down-town area which a jet had crashed into. It's going to create some controversy, let's leave it at that. Looked like a neat stage, though.

Finally, a couple of smaller announcements were made, such as that alternate costumes will be returning on top of the cosmetic changes stemming from the variations. The biggest annoucement of the stream was, by far, the inclusion of a brand new type of "-ality". I honestly don't know where you go after brutalities, animalities, babalities and Hara-Kiri(s), but we're going to find out next month. (I really want to see the speculation on this.) Normal-ass fatalities and stage fatalities have already been confirmed.

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If you're into the lore side of things, I gleaned a few things from the character conversations at the beginning of each match. Spoiler blocks in case someone actually cares.

And that's about it. Mortal Kombat, what a weird thing to so hyped about.

No Noob is No Sale for me. He was my main man.

I bet the new -ality is Tagalities. I would like to see Friendship make a return.

NeverRealm is a better name, you're right. :D

The new ality is probably Duality, where your character's other variant appears on screen to help you horrifically ace somebody.

@geraltitude: I knew there was something off with this. I read through the damn thing 3 times, unable to put my finger on it. God damn it. Fixed, but still. God damn it.

@do_the_manta_ray: hahaha, yeeep. But man NEVERREALM has a good ring to it.

Paytality - Fatalities that require microtransactions.

Humanimalality - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9KiaGR96LY

Gootalities where Blue Suede Goo shows up and kills them for you. "Hey, watch the hair man."

Technicality anyone? http://youtu.be/7cR1SPkyF-4?t=10m19s

Maybe it's because I am a pretty casual fighting game player, but I don't get this mentality? Surely you play the game for more then just one character? Noob was easily one of my favorite characters in MK9, but MKX is an automatic buy for me no matter if he is in the game or not.

Ermac is great. And boy that one Fatality of his....whooo.

God.

Damn.

So pumped for Ermac. Very excited to hear he's back.

its explained in the comics, that kenshi rescued scorpion from the netherealm, and made him a good guy apparently.

and we may get back noob, just probably not "bi-han" noob.

and then makes sense ermac wants the throne as well, goes along with boon saying this game is going to be about the power struggle for the outworld throne during Kotal Khan's Reign.

yes, im very interested in MK lore.

There's really nothing in the dialogue that points towards Bi-Han more than his brother. The pre-fight talk with Ermac mentions his soul being tainted, but that could apply to either one of them.

Not sure I'd say "Scorpion's a "good guy" more anti-hero/neutral fighting for the better good than evil. He hates Raiden lol for a few reasons but seems to be not about "pure vengence" for once in his life.

Sub-Zero isn't confirmed to be Bi-Han, this is speculation. I think it's Kuai Liang he shows more mercy(which Bi-Han never did), Kuai Liang also says to Quan Chi- I'm not my brother! After QC said to him "your brother succumbed to his fate"....we all know only Noob/Bi Han did such and willingly.

Ermac-Your soul is tainted...

Sub-Zero- Not tainted, freed

Exactly, Kuai Liang used to be darker himself but the difference was he left the Lin Kuei once they started automating everyone, where as Bi-Han was loyal to a fault(before he got killed by Scorpion)

Plus Kuai Liang also I had a feeling did some bidding for Quan-Chi(in the comic it appears to be Kuai Liang restored) one of the Red Dragon grunt he uses says to him" I don't want any issues with Quan Chi man!, then says something about him working for Quan Chi" and Sub says "that's in the past" or something like that...before being loyal to Raiden.

To me more clues point to Sub-Zero in MK X being Kuai Liang than Bi-Han honestly, it would have to be a stretch for Bi-Han. He'd have to be lost after the soulnado, then someone would have had to restore him to his old self, then freed from someone's control apparently...

I just hope Ermac doesn't remain confused or boarderline evil with Kahn's soul in him trying to take over I'm sure, and of course him still having good souls with King Jerrod(Kitana's father) among others, would be interesting if Ermac was a key component to people being brought back, we know Quan Chi is, probably Raiden and the Elder Gods too I'm sure at some point are involved. Originally in Deception, Kenshi freed/helped Ermac from Shao Kahn's magic/hold over him. And even Scorpion can sense Shao Kahn within Ermac, since both are spectres more or less.

There seems to be confusion around this, but Scorpion has always been pretty much Chaotic Good. The only reason he's sometime viewed as bad is due to his undeterred mission for vengeance. When that is quenched (which in the current timeline it is not because Bi Han/Noob/First Sub Zero is alive again), he actually goes full neutral good.

Hell, in MK2 he swore to protect the younger Sub Zero once discovering he wasn't Bi Han.

Not technicaly an -ality but I woukd love them to bring back Friendships.

A Reality, where you proceed to film people with no acting experience engaging in scripted drama, and edit a plot together later.

It seems we have our answer. In the latest video, in which Boon is revealing the new faction system, they show-case what seems to be faction-specific fatalities. I think that's a genuinely cool idea as it'll help differentiate these cells and make it more than an arbitrary choice you make at the beginning of the game. He goes on to mention faction based rewards which I hope will include particular alternate costumes for the characters and the like, really make your allegiance pop.

There's likely to be other returning favourites, though, MK9 had babalities, who knows what else we'll end up with this time around.

@brodehouse: I can't tell if you got up on the wrong side of bed this morning, but that line cracked me up.

I would like to see Friendships, but I think we'll be seeing Brutalities in this game.

I figured I may as well just post this here instead of making a new thread. This past stream they showed Erron Black, Shinnok and evil Liu Kang. Erron Black looks like a pretty decent zoner. Some of his variations have moves where he shoots while walking backwards, he has some good looking anti-airs and he has the ability to throw out caltrops, which stop running opponents in their tracks. One of the stand out things that I saw from Shinnok is that he has a Shang-Tsung type move where he "drains" his opponent, but instead of turning into them he gets the ability to use one of their special moves, it sounds like there is a pre-determined move that he steals for each character, the one they showed was the Sub Zero freeze which looked pretty useful. Oh and he also has a move that looks like the Shang Tsung ground skull move except it automatically does 3 (like Shang's ex) however they always move the opponent away instead of towards. Liu Kang looks pretty kombo heavy. They said that one of his punches is the fastest strike in the game. He has some solid looking fireballs, one variation basically has "bicycle punches" another one has a light mode and a dark mode which change what his projectiles do, light they are slightly faster but I believe less powerful, dark they do not trigger on impact, they kind of blow up on a timed delay.

Also they showed off a completely baller practice mode. It looks fairly easy to recreate something that you got blasted by online or against a friend and test it over and over with you trying different things to get out of it. Also you can set the practice stage to the other stages, basically it makes interactive holograms of the stage items. Oh and for those with a friend/relative who really wants to do a fatality but just can't pull it off there is apparently an "easy fatality" thing you can turn on.