it seems like being dead gives you a better chance to be in this game though .
Shao Kahn is the prime sorcerer of Outworld -- he cannot "die". He's kind of analogous to the character "Orochimaru", in the Naruto franchise (who takes on different bodies / vessels and, as such, is effectively immortal) -- Kahn was locked in limbo, until the story realigned to incorporate him again
(*he was actually slated to be playable in MK9, only to be dropped to "unplayable, half-baked boss", near the end of the game's development).
On a purely real world front: Kahn is one of the most iconic bad guy / bosses in fighting games -- there its literally no way they would put him out to pasture. Indeed, the character is largely untapped in the playable realm and, thus, has a lot to work with (
i.e., should be relatively easy to develop for).
As much as I do not mind the Rains (a tad Raiden derivative) and Fujins (the wind element has plenty design wriggle room), these such characters are rather obscure. Meaning, unless they're integrated into the games' narrative frameworks, they could only ever be conceivable as DLC / add-ons. Having said that, when garbage like Meat, Bo' Rai Cho, the kombat kids
et al. can make the cut, it is genuinely mind-boggling how the former exampled characters so often miss out.
If NRS want to gauge what chars. people, they should to conduct minutely sampled focus groups, or dumb surveys that kiddies spam into irrelevancy
(*Sakura!!! was voted the best Street Fighter character, not that long ago); rather, they should simply Google search
"M.U.G.E.N. Mortal Kombat characters" and then use the results frequency as a barometer for what people want. For no one is going to the trouble to code fighting game characters in M.U.G.E.N., unless they really,
really like them... And the more people who undertake such an endeavour, means the more fans a given combatant has.
