Warner Bros. Games has released a new trailer for Mortal Kombat 1 that reveals a brief first look at upcoming guest character T-1000 Terminator and a Conan the Barbarian’s Brutality.
While the trailer is focused on Mortal Kombat eSports, it showcases Conan the Barbarian gameplay that sees the warrior cut his hapless opponent in half during a particularly stabby Brutality.
We also get a brief first look at T-1000 Terminator, showing its hand returning to human form from liquid metal form in a scene that rekindles memories of blockbuster action movie Terminator 2. It very much looks like Mortal Kombat 1’s T-1000 is based on Robert Patrick, who played the character in the film, and we understand Patrick voices T-1000, too.
Conan the Barbarian, due out January 21 as part of the standard DLC early access period for Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns Expansion owners before wide availability a week later, features the likeness of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who famously played Conan in the cult classic 1982 film, but does not feature his voice. The official Conan the Barbarian gameplay trailer will be debuted on tomorrow’s Kombat Kast, giving fans a deeper dive on this powerful fighter. Release timing and availability for T-1000 Terminator will be announced at a later date, Warner Bros. said.
T-1000 Terminator is the final DLC character added to the gory fighting game as part of the Khaos Reigns expansion, and follows playable fighters Cyrax, Sektor, Noob Saibot, Ghostface, and, later this month, Conan the Barbarian. Fans have been wondering for some time now whether developer NetherRealm plans a third set of DLC characters amid questions about Mortal Kombat 1’s sales success.
For its part, Warner Bros. Games has announced Mortal Kombat 1 has sold more than four million copies, and in November Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said that on the games side of things, the company plans to double down on just four titles, including Mortal Kombat.
Most fans of the studio’s work expect it to release a third game in its DC fighting game franchise, although neither NetherRealm nor owner and publisher Warner Bros. has yet to confirm that. The first game in the series, Injustice: Gods Among Us, launched in 2013, with its sequel, Injustice 2, coming out in 2017. NetherRealm released Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019 and for a time it seemed like the studio would alternate between Mortal Kombat and Injustice games, but it went on to release another Mortal Kombat, the soft reboot that is Mortal Kombat 1, in 2023 instead.
In an interview with IGN in June 2023, Boon spoke in vague terms about this decision. “There were a number of factors, some of which I can talk about, some of which I probably shouldn’t,” Boon said.
Two reasons Boon was willing to discuss were the unfortunate onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the team’s choice to switch to a newer version of the Unreal game engine (Mortal Kombat 11 runs on Unreal Engine 3, whereas Mortal Kombat 1 runs on Unreal Engine 4).
“But we did go to a new graphics engine, Unreal,” Boon said. “We really wanted to be careful with COVID and all that stuff and everybody staying safe. So there were a bunch of variables involved that eventually we realized, ‘Okay, let’s do another Mortal Kombat game and hopefully we’ll get back to the Injustice games.’ “
Just to be sure, we wanted to confirm with him directly that the door was not closed on the Injustice franchise.
“Not at all,” Boon answered.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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