Mortal Kombat X, the next and tenth installment in the brutal fighting series, was announced by Warner Bros. Interactive and co-creator Ed Boon on his Twitter account.
The announcement comes a week before the Electronics Entertainment Expo 2014, with Boon, NetherRealm Studios creative director, sharing the announcement trailer on his account after revealing the title of the game.
NetherRealm Studios, which is credited with the successful rebooting of the fighting game franchise in 2011, will be developing Mortal Kombat X. The company's trailer for the game showcases much of what made Mortal Kombat 2011 successful, with early looks of the game showing great promise.
"Mortal Kombat has always been about over-the-top, visceral fighting and with Mortal Kombat X we wanted to utilize the power of new-gen consoles to give players our most intense game yet," Boon said. "The team has worked hard to make sure Mortal Kombat X delivers everything fans expect along with new characters, new game modes and an all-new graphics engine."
The two-minute trailer showed Mortal Kombat characters Scorpion and Sub-Zero locked in an intense battle in a dark forest, with icicles and fireballs being thrown at each other. Interactions between the fighters and their environment can be seen, including swinging from a limb of a tree and using a tree branch as a weapon.
"Fueled by next-gen technology, Mortal Kombat X combines unparalleled, cinematic presentation with dynamic gameplay to create an unprecedented Kombat experience," said the description of the trailer's YouTube video.
Mortal Kombat X will look to build on the success of Mortal Kombat 2011, which was overflowing with content, highlighted by the game's Challenge Tower and Story Mode. The game was included in PCMag's The Most Violent Video Games of All Time.
The fighting series, which was first released on arcade machines in 1992 before arriving on consoles in 1993, has been the subject of much controversy since the beginning. The violence of Mortal Kombat played a role in the establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which looked to regulate video games. One of the first motions of the ESRB was to stamp Mortal Kombat with a "mature" rating, which meant that minors are not allowed to buy the game.
The game has an indefinite launch date for 2015 and will be available for the PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles. NetherRealm Studios will be announcing more details regarding the upcoming game at next week's E3.
