As the first game in the Mortal Kombat series came as a reply to Street Fighter II, so is Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 a reply to Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting.

Midway just announced that Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 -UMK3- will be available sometime in November. UMK3 is part of a four-release combo made up of PS2 and Xbox editions of Mortal Kombat Armageddon. These games are due to come out this week and the next. Mortal Kombat will also make its debut on the PSP with the upcoming title Mortal Kombat: Unchained.

UMK3 will feature all the players present in Mortal Kombat 3 plus some hidden characters in Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II like Jade, Smoke, Ermac and Noob Saibot. A new feature in UMK3 will be 2-on-2 combat mode present in Endurance matches in previous versions of the game. The players will have some new moves and combos, for example, Styker will have a rapid fire gun and the ability to delay the explosion of his grenades.

The storyline behind Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is basically the same as the one in Mortal Kombat 3, as the new installment is planned out to be an upgrade to MK3.