Incoming 2011 - Mortal Kombat

What we know

Mortal Kombat is set to make its return later this year with a full-pledged reboot, dubbed simply Mortal Kombat, which aims at erasing some of the previous, lackluster iterations, and focus on delivering the proper fighting game experience that made the first games in the series so popular.

The new game will keep most the franchise's trademarks, including its 2D arenas, but spruce them up with 3D elements and character models, brand new fighting moves and, as always, brutal Fatality executions.

This is going to be augmented by the fact that the creators at NetherRealm don't have to worry about making the title safe for kids, because it's going to have a Mature rating, so they said on multiple occasions that we're going to see some pretty gruesome fights, just like the first few games released on arcade machines.

The new Mortal Kombat will have a wide array of characters, ranging from fan favorites like Sub-Zero or Scorpion to brand new ones, including God of War's Kratos, exclusive to the PlayStation 3 edition of the game.

So far, these are the fighters confirmed to appear in the game: Baraka, Cyrax, Ermac, Jade, Jax, Johnny Cage, Kano, Kitana, Kung Lao, Liu Kang, Mileena, Nightwolf, Noob Saibot, Raiden, Reptile, Scorpion, Sektor, Shang Tsung, Sindel,Sonya, Stryker and Sub-Zero, while boss characters like Goro or Shao Kahn are also set to appear.

Why it matters

The fighting-game genre has seen a revival in recent times, partly due to Capcom, who's released titles like Street Fighter IV, as well as its Super edition, or Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of the Two World, so a new, back to basics Mortal Kombat makes a huge amount of sense.

The franchise has been in disarray in recent times and fans have been disappointed by the last few releases, but, this time, it seems that they'll finally get what they wished for: a proper next-generation Mortal Kombat.

The new fighting game will be out on April 18, in Europe, and April 19, in North America, for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.