A new leak teases a release date and story details for the upcoming Mortal Kombat 12, but fans are doubting its validity. Players have been speculating on what NetherRealm Studios’ next project could be since it announced that it was ending support for Mortal Kombat 11 last summer, with guesses ranging from a third Injustice title to a brand-new Marvel fighting game. Recent leaks, job listings, and even vague social media posts from NetherRealm developers have all indicated that Mortal Kombat 12 will be the next big project for the famed fighting game studio.
However, there hasn’t been any official announcement that Mortal Kombat 12 is even in development, much less when the highly-anticipated sequel will be released. Fans tuned into The Game Awards 2021 livestream last December in hopes of an MK-related announcement amid the many promising video game trailers and award presentations, but Mortal Kombat 12 was nowhere to be seen. Likewise, there was speculation that MK co-creator Ed Boon would announce Mortal Kombat 12 during his Hall of Fame induction speech at this year’s DICE Awards in February – something that Boon himself joked about on social media after not making any mention of his studio’s rumored project at the event.
Now, a new leak supposedly sheds some light on Mortal Kombat 12’s plot, roster, and release date. Twitter user Gaming Updates and Countdowns recently posted this information regarding MK 12 a few days ago, claiming that the next installment of the storied fighting game franchise will be “another reboot with new characters.” This leak also hints that Mortal Kombat 12 will run on “a new game engine,” and that the game will be released sometime “in Spring 2023.” There were no further details about what this Mortal Kombat reboot could entail or exactly what new engine the game will run on, and it is worth pointing out that Gaming Updates and Countdowns’ claims might not be true at all, with many commenters doubting its validity due to a lack of citation.
These claims that Mortal Kombat 12 will be another franchise reboot in the vein of 2011’s Mortal Kombat 9 do line up somewhat with how Mortal Kombat 11 drastically altered the series’ status quo, but they conflict with previous rumors that the next MK game will essentially be a remastered collection of the previous three games with no new roster additions and the previous guest characters left out. Others have speculated that MK 12 could bring the recent live-action Mortal Kombat movie’s Cole Young into the official game canon and see the return of MK4 villain Reiko, along with some wild guest characters like WWE legends Mick Foley and Kane.
Still, there has been no official information regarding Mortal Kombat 12 so far, and even Gaming Updates and Countdowns’ recent leak claiming that the game is set to release next spring hasn’t convinced fans. Still, MK 12 could very well be built and run on a new video game engine like Unreal Engine 5, and the idea of another continuity reboot with a fresh cast of playable characters sounds interesting. Only time will tell if there is any truth to these Mortal Kombat 12 rumors though, as NetherRealm remains tight-lipped when it comes to its next big fighting game project.
