With Midway and the MK Team looking to rejuvenate the Mortal Kombat franchise, one thing we know for sure is that the next-generation Mortal Kombat fighting game will be utilizing Unreal Engine 3 as their technology platform. Another high-profile game which uses Unreal Engine 3 and has sold over 3 million copies may have an effect on what the art direction of the next Mortal Kombat will resemble. Gears of War's dirty, gritty art style caught the eye of Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon. At the recent Winter Midway Gamers' Day 07, Game Informer got a chance to chat about Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Nintendo Wii and got a few choice responses regarding work being done on the next-generation Mortal Kombat.

Our goal, graphically, with this game is to be as gritty and—I don’t like to use the word “dirty,” because I don’t want to imply not-cool graphics—but a very dark, serious Mortal Kombat. Not vibrant, saturated colors, but more of a really down and dirty Mortal Kombat game. To me, when I saw Gears of War, I was like, “Holy s___! That’s the look that we’ve been talking about.” Visually, that’s what we want to do.

Gameplay-wise, I kind of attribute it to what we did with Deadly Alliance, where everything is thrown out. We’re not going to have three fighting styles, we’re not going to have the same punches and kicks and the same kind of control scheme. Everything is getting trashed. We’re reinventing everything from the ground up. We really think that’s needed—you know, we’re on Mortal Kombat 8, in a sense—to kind of wipe the slate clean every once in a while, and I kind of feel that now is the time. Our visual presentation and our game presentation and our thing that you’ll hear about very soon are all going to be new to this game. It’s going to be nothing like you’ve ever seen before.

Read the rest of the interview at Game Informer. If the MK Team can come up with anywhere near the visual fidelity that Gears of War delivered, then we could be in for an amazingly gritty and gruesome fighter. You can start penciling in the next-generation Mortal Kombat for next holiday season (late-November) 2008. Thanks Sub-Zero957 for the news submission.

Wow, this is a big deal simply 'cause we can imagine the graphic style...which can only be awesome! I've told many ppl that if you've played/seen GoW then you'll know what Unreal Tournament 3 will look like (though UT3 will certainly have weirder/varied weapons). A new graphical look will definitely raise interest in the game. I also wonder if special moves will return or be trashed for good as well. I know the fighting engine and special moves are tied together but they have been linked in past versions (chain combos and combo setups).

Yea combo setups...but I don't think MK would be MK without specials. It's been the main gameplay mechanic since MK1. It's the only thing that made each character different in MKs 1-trilogy. I'd for one be sad.