Capcom Reveals Why Mortal Kombat x Street Fighter Never Happened

Mortal Kombat players won’t be seeing a Street Fighter character in NetherRealm’s series, an idea that was shot down by Capcom even though Mortal Kombat‘s director Ed Boon was open to the idea. Though it was ultimately Capcom who decided that such a crossover wouldn’t happen, the reasoning behind the decision made sense. The two worlds simply didn’t mix enough for the crossover to work, Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono said.

Ono, a producer at Capcom who’s known for the Street Fighter series, spoke to Eurogamer recently about the state of Street Fighter 5 and what’s planned for the game in the future. While talking about Street Fighter and Capcom, comparisons to other fighting games came up which naturally meant that Mortal Kombat was brought into the discussion. Eurogamer mentioned that Boon had said previously that a Street Fighter character in Mortal Kombat was something he was open to and even wanted, but Capcom wouldn’t allow it.

The Street Fighter producer confirmed that the crossover had been blocked but said the decision ultimately wasn’t his to make.

“It’s true that a proposal for a Street Fighter character in Mortal Kombat was rejected by Capcom,” Ono told Eurogamer. “But it wasn’t me personally! There were many people at the company that felt that it wasn’t a good fit for our characters. I actually met Ed at the Brazil game show and spoke to him personally about it. So it’s true – but I didn’t make the decision.”

Ono continued to say that a “major concern” of Capcom’s licensing for its characters was that the two worlds simply didn’t mix well enough.

Considering how different the two series are, it’s not an evaluation of the potential crossover that’s easy to disagree with. Mortal Kombat is quite the violent series which means that whatever guest character is in it has to be already with being dismantled in brutal Fatalities. Though some crossovers may sound like they’d be fun to see, that would probably be a deal-breaker for many properties.

On the sub jects of guest characters, Ono said Capcom is still open to having another fighter join their game from a different series.

“We don’t necessarily rule anything out,” Ono said. “We’ve had our share of crossovers over the years – Marvel vs. Capcom, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. From Ed Boon’s side they had Injustice that had various universes colliding. It didn’t work out this time, but Capcom is interested in doing that kind of thing. If we can get something we feel good about, we could move quite quickly to make that happen.”