The way NRS sets up the story chapter wise is fine to me. Since it's the first thing I do, it allows me to learn a character over a few matches, gives us a chance to fight against or as newcomers and such. With the addition of Aftermath it also finally put you in the shoes of 'evil' or bad characters for once. It's always going to be viewed pre-dominantly from the side of earth realm, special forces and their allies.
However Boon admitting they revolve the story around certain fight matchups is an issue and probably has more of an effect on the overall story than we might assume. It is probably the reason Noob feels forced into the story for example, but even more so might be the reason we got another time travel story. It's the easiest way to get the match-ups you want, like Kotal vs. Shao Kahn, Kitana vs. Shao, Sindel vs. Kitana, Noob vs. Sub-Zero, Raiden vs. Shang Tsung, Liu vs. Shang Tsung. These are all classic battles or battles that are of great significance and I'm sure everyone wanted to see if NRS had asked who you want to see fight in the next MK, since we either hadn't seen them before or just not recently.
The easiest way to do this is time travel since a few have to brought back to life or out of their revenant state. Even just revolving the story around certain characters and not necessarily the fights to me is a bit cheap, since it stifles creativity and I cannot totally fault the writers for the story when the boss wants certain things. I rather writers get total creative freedom to come up with a plot outline and then look at which characters are significant. I'm sure it would not have been a time travel story if a person was asked to come up with a story with X in particular in mind.
That being said, it worked for me this time. It brought back some of my favourites and story wise they found a way for it to make sense. Baraka is a great example of this and he has become a significant character and as Nickolaidas pointed out, he's much more than a jobber even without really winning a fight. I don't care for their reasoning behind it, it's obvious he is relevant and not just a dumb monster anymore. Same for Sheeva who is now the leader of the Shokan and greatly respected.
It did relegate others like an Erron Black & Skarlet to just filler status, but not everyone can be relevant. Still with regards to characters just used for fights, even someone like Kotal, is just poor writing. In Kotal's case probably simply because the team loves Shao and decided it would be awesome for his glorious return to be that he's stronger than Kotal. In MKX it didn't work at all for me as the spawn of veteran characters' seed were pushed into every part of the story along with their parents. It felt like Shinnok's part was only used to set-up in the inevitable death of Quan Chi at Scorpion's hands and somehow after the Trilogy reboot using parts of MK4 just naturally followed.
The ending of X set up Dark Raiden - Deception - story and the teaser did seem to have a bigger role for him and Shinnok to play, but that was left out or left unfinished, which is really the biggest problem I have with MK11. In general it's funny though how convoluted they made everything with the titans, changed status of gods and elder gods, turning everything into a simplistic familial relationship. Then there's a great concept like Geras turned into an irrelevant man who can be beaten and thrown into a bottomless sea. The Greek mythology in general is just very poor, feels forced and there was no need for it.
Writing in MKX and MK11 in general is really paradoxical, at least partially work of a writer who has only followed a Hollywood Script 101 and Greek mythology 101 course and watched time travel movies like Avengers to help him. Dominic actually admitted doing the latter. With Boon's claim that MK's story mode are on the level of Hollywood movies I'm sure it's again not just the writers fault. He or they want certain fights, want the chapter based setup, seen from the protagonists POV, maybe even forced them to use time travel and then expect a great story as well. That's just not going to happen.
Both games had strong parts, but at this point I feel like Dominic and the new writing team are just trying to put their own stamp on the MK franchise.. And not in a good way. I do not see a Tobias or Chard doubling down this hard on time travel and one part of established characters' characteristics. Johnny is now a perv, Sindel a soulless witch, Shao Kahn a dumb brute, Sonya a cool military female cliche, Kano a disgusting pig, Kung Lao oozing pure arrogance (in an American way), Nightwolf the token 'I brought shame to my family honour' character etc. It's simplistic and quite silly.
But then you have these beautiful moments in both games, from Kung Jin's backstory to Fujin's struggle with connecting to humans as a god. There's also great writing by Kittelsen in the comics, so I really wonder who's responsible for some of the major flaws in characters and the overall story. In general I'd prefer a more loose style - like most people - that focuses less on individual characters, but have the fights serve the story so go nuts with it and have good guys get into it over ego, have evil characters fight each other for dominance. I would've loved to see a throwback scene where you need to fight Kintaro as Sheeva for the rule of the Shokan. Or Skarlet and Kollector battle it out over who's really Shao's second in command.
Now, with regards to another story, I'd welcome it with open arms IF it takes on a new twist to one of the two endings. Not just ow they had the wrong crown, which makes no sense given the two endings. Now given the first ending makes most sense for MK12, going back to the beginning, Shang's ending with chaos and order realm would make the most sense for another expansion. This would involve Havik, Hotaru and could just set up a crazy story that just ends in Raiden and or Fujin breaking loose of the spell and defeating Shang. However, I am 100% convinced another story expansion is just not going to happen.
