The Developers of Mortal Kombat Almost Made a Star Wars Game

NetherRealm Studios -- the makers of Mortal Kombat -- once almost made a Star Wars game. During a new episode of Mortal PodKast, co-creator of the series John Tobias provided a deep dive into the history of the series and the team that made it at the time, which was a part of Midway, and which would go on to make up NetherRealm Studios. Unlike fellow co-creator Ed Boon, Tobias doesn't work on the series anymore, but he obviously cherishes the mega franchise he help create. However, at the time of its creation, Tobias and co. weren't expecting to make a sequel. In fact, there were plans to take a stab at a Star Wars game.

Of course, the first Mortal Kombat game wind up being huge, and so the team was quickly tasked with making a sequel, but before the game became a smash hit, the team was actually pushing management to let it make a Star Wars game.

"I remember having a loose idea of where the story would go if there would be a sequel," said Tobias talking about a potential Mortal Kombat II. "We didn't think that there would be a sequel. In fact, when we finished the first game Ed Boon and I thought 'Oh what do we want to do next?' And we really wanted to do a Star Wars game, we were pushing our management to let us do a Star Wars product. But of course, the game hit big and they wanted us to do a sequel."

Unfortunately, Tobias didn't provide any further details on the Star Wars game the studio wanted to make, but he did reveal that Star Wars had an impact on the creation of the Mortal Kombat series. According to Tobias, he and the team knew they wanted the first game to tease that there was a bigger world to Mortal Kombat than just what was playable, which was a design concept that was inspired by Star Wars.

"One thing that I thought, specifically with Mortal Kombat... We spoke about Shang Tsung having an emperor in the first game," said Tobias. "We mentioned these things without getting into any details and the strength of doing that is we insinuate plots. Players read that stuff and in their mind, they start to formulate 'Wow there's this other thing here that exist that we don't know anything about.'"

The Mortal Kombat co-creator continued:

"I remember being conscious of this on the first and second game, was when I saw Star Wars when I was a kid, they alluded to an emperor and empire, all this stuff that they really didn't get into the weeds with. It wasn't until Empire Strike Back that you really learn that there really is an Emperor. As that stuff was revealed to me as a kid, it was mind-blowing. So I remember being conscious between the first and second Mortal Kombat of wanting players to have that sense of 'Oh there's a bigger world' that has been alluded to and give them the sense that this is larger than we thought."

Unfortunately, we will probably never get to see the core Mortal Kombat team take a go at Star Wars, but hopefully the Chicago-based developer gets to spread its wings soon.

H/T, Respawn First.