So rumors have been circulating for months about the prospect of a remaster of the first three Mortal Kombat games. Ever since speculation began late last year, gamers and fans have been on edge waiting for more news. There were some rumblings that Blind Squirrel Games, the same team behind other AAA remasters, was working on a project to publish for Warner Bros.
It now turns out that those rumors were true, but we’ve got some bad news. The game collection that would have been a full remaster of the first three mainline games in the franchise. And it even included some new game modes that completely changed the way the original titles could be played.
According to an anonymous source provided to DSOGaming, the project was indeed in the works, and it was called Mortal Kombat Kollection Online. This early prototype was a full remaster of the first three mainline MK games, and fans would have loved to get their hands on it. And even though Ed Boon at many people who saw the project loved it, it was eventually dumpstered by WB as a publisher.
Here’s the original statement that led to all the speculation:
“At the end of August we were once again in front of Ed Boon, this time presenting a playable version of Mortal Kombat Returns. Ed loved it and not soon after he advocated to WB executives that they should talk to us about partnering to release the game.
After several pitches later to the highest level of WB’s production, finance and sales teams, the team received a call saying, “Your project is heading toward a green light.”
After about a week another phone call, “Sorry we’ve decided to go in a different direction and we won’t be needing your group. We can’t trust development of such an important project to a team without any completed game titles.” This occurred around mid January 2018.”
Danny Huynh, Concept Artist and UI Artist at Blind Squirrel Games, has shared the first screenshots from this remaster. Huynh confirms that the project is over and done with, although some interesting details have been revealed. For one thing, the UI and UX design of the final titles would have been a direct homage to the early games in the fighting game series.
So while it’s disappointing to see these things happen, it’s by no means the end of the Mortal Kombat franchise. Nor is it the end for Blind Squirrel. The company has worked on multiple remasters before for game franchises like Borderlands and BioShock, and is now working on their first self-published title after securing $5 million in direct funding.
And with the impending release of Mortal Kombat 11 at the end of April in North America, fighting games are about to get a lot bloodier for a bit.
