ImperatrixSindel
Too bad YOU... will DIE!
Hi everyone!
There's been a lot of discussion about the various 'leaks' that have sprung up over the last year or so regarding MK11. Many people seem to be taking them as gospel, which I think is premature. In any case, 'the leaks say XYZ' is already being used to shut down speculation and discussion, which is aggravating, so I thought I'd sit down and tackle the subject.
Obviously NRS titles have had leaks in the past, including MKX -- most recently, Injustice 2's whole base roster leaked quite a while before the game came out, apparently via someone working on the mobile game. It's very possible one of these leaks is legit, but it's also very possible that all of them are nonsense.
Generally speaking, a fake 'leak' works like a psychic cold reading. A professional psychic uses educated guesses about their subject to aim for a few likely details. If these guesses turn out to be correct -- called a 'hit' in cold reading -- it makes it easier for the subject (or an audience) to buy into the psychic's overall message, even if the rest of what the psychic says does not hit. Usually a cold reading is mostly misses, with a few strong hits that leave the subject believing the psychic does have some sort of power.
A few of these ostensible MK11 leaks have had a couple hits, which makes them on the surface look more credible to the subject (in this case, the fans). Others seem to have been clearly debunked. All of them contradict each other in various ways -- and I've seen people conflating details from different 'leaks', which is a problem when those leaks cannot logically coexist.
In this thread I'll analyze the four prominent alleged leaks we've seen, in chronological order, and break down the likelihood any one of them is legit.
There have been a few other alleged leaks I'm not including here. One was the 'MK11: Timelines' leak, which featured a supposed user interface screen and was quickly debunked as a fake. The other was an alleged leak posted this past July with details from "a musician working on MK11" who supposedly told the poster's cousin all these details while "blackout drunk". That one just does not seem remotely credible to me; at least make up a good story for how you got the intel!
If I've missed another alleged leak that's gotten widespread coverage, please let me know in the replies.
In my transcription of each alleged leak, I'll be using green text to highlight things that appear to be true about MK11 based on what we've seen, yellow text to highlight things seem like they might be true based on what we've seen, and red text to highlight things that have been debunked by official information about the game.
I'm giving each of the leaks a name, for discussion clarity. I'll be updating this post (in particular with more green/yellow/red text) as more information on MK11 rolls in from now until April.
This was the first supposed leak to get a lot of coverage, over a year ago back in September 2017. A user named Righteoushall04 posted a series of Twitter DMs to Reddit, with the following post title: "TLDR Don't care who believes this or not, dropping it here anyway. From credible friend on Twitter DM's that knows NRS people. Leaked the roster for MKX back in Feb of '15 on his personal website. Have at it, folks."
The 'credible friend' he is referring to is James Fink (@jamessmk), who successfully leaked the MKX base roster. But Fink claims these DMs are fake, an impersonator using his Twitter avatar.
Here is the initial text of the supposed leak:
Righteoushall04 then made another post called "More", where he alleges Fink provided further details and clarifications:
Okay, first off, let me clarify some things that you seem to be taking the wrong way. The plot, as far as I understand it, is borrowing certain elements only from Deception and Armageddon. Not retelling them fully. Second, the characters I mentioned were from early concept stages before they had ironed out the final roster. Last I heard, the final roster had been fully decided and the entire team is now at work on the game as of three months ago, with previous early conceptual work being done by a small team since the beginning of the year.
As far as the roster goes: 6 new characters, 17 returning from MKX and 7 returning from previous games. To answer another one of your questions, only 6 characters are on the roster from the PS2 era games: Kenshi, Bo' Rai Cho, Frost, Li Mei, Daegon, and Onaga. The others I mentioned before are all going to be used, but will unfortunately be Story Mode only, so NPCs or cameos.
And all I can tell you about new characters is that I've only seen art for two of them; Dominic and Salina. Salina is a dream goddess that apparently has psychic abilities and can create things out of thin air and use them as weapons. Dominic is Kano's son and is part of the Red Dragon with Daegon. Supposedly he hates his father.
ANALYSIS: On its face, this one looks reasonable. The leaker cleverly goes into detail about supposed steps of the development process, to stress his alleged connection to a source in the NRS team. Establishing authority is an important part of cold reading for an audience. (It's worth noting that the writing style here does not read anything like the way James Fink writes.)
But most of the hits and potential hits here are pretty obvious:
There are, also, some big misses:
This supposed leak comes from a Reddit post by KensKorner on March 8th, 2018, called ""Potential" MK 11 info". He says he found this in other discussions and credits someone named 'spoilerninja', but I can't find that source for this, whatever it may be.
Here is the text of the leak, which is unfortunately one great big block of text. While I'm otherwise trying to transcribe these exactly as-is, I'm going to break this one up for better readability:
(NOT ACTUALLY MY COMMENT, I SAW ANOTHER PERSON POST THIS IN ANOTHER DISCUSSION AND FIGURED I SPREAD IT AROUND!!!) Believe me or don't, really does not matter. I am dumping this info I got here and will await the majority of it to be confirmed as true by the end of the year. Got this from a source that has had ties to NRS since the days of Injustice 1 and got in touch with them through tourneys. What hes told me over the years has always turned out accurate so I believe it. You guys however can take it or leave it with as many grains of salt as you want. And yes, I made a new Reddit name as to not get either of us into trouble as we both frequent a few MK Reddits.
Now onto the info; Loot boxes are coming to Mortal Kombat but with a twist. They will contain shaders for characters, easy Fatality tokens and rare classic fatalities. Wont be as shoe-horned and necessary as with Injustice 2. Each character has ten shaders and one classic finisher to unlock bit the finishers are going to be extremely rare drops.
Story contains minor elements borrowed from Deception and Armageddon but is its own unique tale. Main plot is sort've like Mortal Kombat's take on Crisis on Infinite Earths that involves a cool gimmick. The cool gimmick is the return of an all new variation system. For the newer characters, it works the same as MKX with 2 to choose from instead of 3. For the pre-MKX characters, you get to choose between their new timeline versions or the old timeline versions. Both come with different attires and tweaked specials.
Brutalities and Stage Fatalities are returning, as well as Hara-Kiri's. Towers from MK9 and MKX return. No fightable Story Mode NPCs like as seen in MKX, though it will have cutscene cameos.
Some of the characters I have been told that are in the starting roster; Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Shang Tsung, Noob Saibot, Cassie Cage, Takeda and Frost. Ive been told the characters that died in MKX will not be playable so no Baraka, Mileena, Quan Chi or Shinnok. Base roster is planned to be 31 fighters (including an extra pre-order bonus character; Shao Kahn). Only half of the 8 MKX newbies are returning and the game will feature only 4 brand new characters.
Post launch content will be split into two seasons, each containing five characters, two costume packs and a classic arena. There will again be four guest characters. There will be 10 base arenas total, not including DLC arenas, and 4 of them are returning classics: The Living Forest, Wastelands, The Pit and The Dead Pool.
The boss of the game is a series first; a female antagonist.
Mortal Kombat 9 will be made backwards compatible on the XBox One around the time of MK11's release. There will be a mobile game and a comic to coincide with MK11's release in Spring 2019. The comic will feature the Red Dragons as the main villains. Mobile game will take cues from Injustice 2 Mobile, replacing unlocking cards through challenges with collecting a certain number of character shards to unlock characters. Quest Mode and Relic Hunt will return as well as a Faction Wars / Arena style mode and an Injustice 2 Mobile styled Story Mode released chapter by chapter. -Credit to spoilerninja/ figured ide help spread the word
ANALYSIS: This one's a mixed bag. On the one hand, this one has the highest number of significant hits. On the other hand, there are some misses here, including one huge one.
The hits:
And the misses:
A more extensive version of this supposed leak (perhaps the original text the video was describing) was posted (or reposted) to Reddit on Friday, November 30th, by a throwaway account, with the title "Mortal Kombat 11 FULL Roster Leak! Gameplay & Story Details."
It has since been deleted, but here is the full text of the supposed leak (which is long; my apologies):
I have source with Intel on Mortal Kombat 11 including the full roster, gameplay notes & story elements. I don't know everything about the game and such I do not know too much about MK11 in regards to when things get revealed except for one you'll see down below. Quick Warning! spoilers are in here & A few things may have changed since I received this info. This is absolutely everything I have to show.
Gameplay Details:
Details for New Characters:
I only have a name for one character & that character is Jade's Mystery Woman who is a new character in MK11, Her Name is Oracle and she can see both the old and new timeline & want's to erase the current timeline. She has a major part of the story.
Kano's Son. I don't have much info on him other than he is a part of the Red Dragon. Developers are keeping his info tight to their chest for His Reveal down the road.
Kotal Kahn has gotten a new First Minister since D'vorah's Betrayal in MKX. The description I was given for her mentions that she is a Brutal Fighter who was selected after she won a tournament put on by Kotal to find his new Ally. She is a young human woman who uses a handful of weapons primarily a bo staff that can turn into two mini staff's or sticks. She wears similar clothing to Kotal.
The last new character that's in MK11 is a New Mystic based Character. He wears a Black robe covering his entire body besides his mouth, feed & hands. All the parts of his body shown are decomposing showing bone. He was an old acquaintance of Quan Chi From years ago & assists Dark Emperor Liu Kang & Dark Empress Kitana.
Story Details:
Onaga is the main boss of the game & is an Unlockable Character. Reptile is a host of Onaga. In the Story Mode, Onaga has two forms. His first form is with Reptile and he looks kinda like a more Humanoid version of Onaga. In the story Reptile's body fails on him and Goro ends up being the second and final host for Onaga in which he resembles more of the traditional looking Onaga but with a Revamped Design. Onaga/Reptile is the version of Onaga that's playable & Onaga/Goro is the version of Onaga strictly just fightable. In ladder mode You fight Onaga/Reptile first and once you beat him he turns into Onaga/Goro very similar to how Shinnok worked in MKX.
ANALYSIS: Well. Nobody can say this person didn't put in the effort, at the very least! If this is fake, it's a very comprehensive and thought-out fake, so points for that.
On the surface there are a few strong hits, but again they are reasonably easy to guess:
Personally I think this roster is a little too good to be true (though not for me, admittedly, as while I'm happy to see Jade, my personal favorites -- Sindel, Tanya, and Mileena -- aren't on it). It features a lot of strongly fan-requested characters. In particular, Frost, Li Mei, and Sareena all being in feels like a pipe dream to me, given how stingy NRS tends to be with both female characters and characters from the PS2 Era. Those ladies are two for two.
I'm also somewhat skeptical that they want to go back to the Onaga well, especially with him possessing Reptile again, as he was never very well-received as an antagonist and fans hated that his resurrection took the very popular Reptile off the board. There's no hint of Onaga in the Announce Trailer, either, which instead suggests the woman with the hourglass as our new primary antagonist. Still, since MKX tackled Shinnok, it's not unreasonable to think MK11 might tackle Onaga.
A simple question, though: how is it that you could have so many details on game modes, mechanics, and the entire roster, but be unable to list a name for any of the new characters besides 'Oracle'?
Finally, the extent to which variations are described as differing from one another here seems to me like an outrageous level of balancing to do for 30+ characters. They've already said balancing the variations in MKX was a challenge.
That's all gut feeling stuff on my part, though. Here are the actual misses:
But listing gameplay mechanics without listing the main new gameplay mechanic feels like a huge miss to me -- and the plot this leak describes doesn't feel like the Crisis On Infinite Earths type story with alternate realities that the Announce Trailer seems to be suggesting.
This supposed leak was posted on 4chan on December 1st, 2018, shortly before the reveal at the VGA. The poster claimed to be a QA tester for MK11.
The post has since been deleted, but here is the text of the leak:
Reveal in VGA
It will have 4 years of dev cycle (1 year concept 3 year full development) longest to date. Concepting actually even started while making MK X. They were always thought back to back games in terms of story
It has proper adventure mode , new version of Shaolin Monks type of gameplay. pretty big deal , you can play and customize your character in this mode,lots of items for customize weapons etc shit too. Also boxes (daily, buyable etc..)
Adventure mode is 2 player co-op , online or single. drop in drop out
Story mode and adventure are different both are included. story mode is normal NRS game style.
Story evolve about 3 main character
Punishing raiden ; hes now punishing anyone trying to even dare to attack earthrealm
Emperor liu kang and empress kitana ; preparing army and trying to find something of stone left from ages of those deity gods in MK universe(cant remember names elder god or something)
Shang Tsung and Reiko they made deal with Kotal Kahn to protect and rule outworld security , reiko has it’s own agenda though gets killed middle of it.
Uses UE4 instead of UE3 like all other games of NRS
Animation cancel its actually not a.cancel but something of pseudo of it. Much as you can expect from a western company i guess looks infinitely better than MKX in terms of animations. Something similar to UMK.
Fujin is playable character
Johnny cage,goro,sonya,kano,baraka,mileena,ferratorr %100 not playable
In comments on the post, the OP claimed that among the new characters would be a female Tarkatan replacing Baraka. They also said Hsu Hao, Quan Chi, and Sheeva were not playable, and that Stryker would be an NPC. Most notably, they said in a reply that there would be "No variations".
ANALYSIS: This one is the most obviously fake, in my view.
Here are the hits:
All four of these alleged leaks have significant flaws.
In particular, the fact that none of them mention the Custom Variations system, which is being presented as the most important new gameplay mechanic, is pretty damning across the board in my opinion. Anyone who had the level of closeness these leaks claim would presumably have heard about the new primary hook.
For the purposes of discussion, if we are to accept that major flaw, I'd say the two that seem most plausible are the Oracle Leak and the Female Antagonist Leak. The Salina/Dominic Leak is too flimsy to really have a strong opinion on, but I'm leaning towards fake because of how much prevarication it does. The 4chan Leak appears to be debunked, in my view.
Some important points of contradiction, for reference, between the four alleged leaks:
In general, I'm not convinced any of these are real, but I'll be updating this post with hits and misses as the lead-up to the game's release continues.
UPDATE 1/10/19: With the apparent confirmation of the email leak, all of these now appear to be officially debunked. The Female Antagonist Leak remains the most compelling, but claiming a new comic book was coming is a significant miss.
UPDATE 1/17/19: With the reveal of Baraka, the Female Antagonist Leak is also now debunked.
There's been a lot of discussion about the various 'leaks' that have sprung up over the last year or so regarding MK11. Many people seem to be taking them as gospel, which I think is premature. In any case, 'the leaks say XYZ' is already being used to shut down speculation and discussion, which is aggravating, so I thought I'd sit down and tackle the subject.
Obviously NRS titles have had leaks in the past, including MKX -- most recently, Injustice 2's whole base roster leaked quite a while before the game came out, apparently via someone working on the mobile game. It's very possible one of these leaks is legit, but it's also very possible that all of them are nonsense.
Generally speaking, a fake 'leak' works like a psychic cold reading. A professional psychic uses educated guesses about their subject to aim for a few likely details. If these guesses turn out to be correct -- called a 'hit' in cold reading -- it makes it easier for the subject (or an audience) to buy into the psychic's overall message, even if the rest of what the psychic says does not hit. Usually a cold reading is mostly misses, with a few strong hits that leave the subject believing the psychic does have some sort of power.
A few of these ostensible MK11 leaks have had a couple hits, which makes them on the surface look more credible to the subject (in this case, the fans). Others seem to have been clearly debunked. All of them contradict each other in various ways -- and I've seen people conflating details from different 'leaks', which is a problem when those leaks cannot logically coexist.
In this thread I'll analyze the four prominent alleged leaks we've seen, in chronological order, and break down the likelihood any one of them is legit.
There have been a few other alleged leaks I'm not including here. One was the 'MK11: Timelines' leak, which featured a supposed user interface screen and was quickly debunked as a fake. The other was an alleged leak posted this past July with details from "a musician working on MK11" who supposedly told the poster's cousin all these details while "blackout drunk". That one just does not seem remotely credible to me; at least make up a good story for how you got the intel!
If I've missed another alleged leak that's gotten widespread coverage, please let me know in the replies.
In my transcription of each alleged leak, I'll be using green text to highlight things that appear to be true about MK11 based on what we've seen, yellow text to highlight things seem like they might be true based on what we've seen, and red text to highlight things that have been debunked by official information about the game.
I'm giving each of the leaks a name, for discussion clarity. I'll be updating this post (in particular with more green/yellow/red text) as more information on MK11 rolls in from now until April.
The Salina/Dominic Leak
This was the first supposed leak to get a lot of coverage, over a year ago back in September 2017. A user named Righteoushall04 posted a series of Twitter DMs to Reddit, with the following post title: "TLDR Don't care who believes this or not, dropping it here anyway. From credible friend on Twitter DM's that knows NRS people. Leaked the roster for MKX back in Feb of '15 on his personal website. Have at it, folks."
The 'credible friend' he is referring to is James Fink (@jamessmk), who successfully leaked the MKX base roster. But Fink claims these DMs are fake, an impersonator using his Twitter avatar.
Here is the initial text of the supposed leak:
Raiden's the main antagonist. Base roster planned to be around 30 characters with 10 as DLC. Plot borrows elements from Deception and Armageddon. Characters I've seen lots of artwork and rendering for include Kano, Li Mei, Noob Saibot, Nitara, Bo' Rai Cho, Johnny Cage, Shang Tsung, Jade, Taven, Daegon, Cassie Cage, Jacqui Briggs, Frost, Kenshi, Kotal Kahn, Jax, and Onaga.
Characters that died in MKX are not coming back for 11. NPC's in story mode are returning. Story mode will again be chapter based but longer than any previous ones. Theyre bringing back variations and brutalities too. Game should be out by Spring 2019.
That
is all I know at the moment.
Hope that helps, bro.
Now get off my dick about it.
Characters that died in MKX are not coming back for 11. NPC's in story mode are returning. Story mode will again be chapter based but longer than any previous ones. Theyre bringing back variations and brutalities too. Game should be out by Spring 2019.
That
is all I know at the moment.
Hope that helps, bro.
Now get off my dick about it.
Okay, first off, let me clarify some things that you seem to be taking the wrong way. The plot, as far as I understand it, is borrowing certain elements only from Deception and Armageddon. Not retelling them fully. Second, the characters I mentioned were from early concept stages before they had ironed out the final roster. Last I heard, the final roster had been fully decided and the entire team is now at work on the game as of three months ago, with previous early conceptual work being done by a small team since the beginning of the year.
As far as the roster goes: 6 new characters, 17 returning from MKX and 7 returning from previous games. To answer another one of your questions, only 6 characters are on the roster from the PS2 era games: Kenshi, Bo' Rai Cho, Frost, Li Mei, Daegon, and Onaga. The others I mentioned before are all going to be used, but will unfortunately be Story Mode only, so NPCs or cameos.
And all I can tell you about new characters is that I've only seen art for two of them; Dominic and Salina. Salina is a dream goddess that apparently has psychic abilities and can create things out of thin air and use them as weapons. Dominic is Kano's son and is part of the Red Dragon with Daegon. Supposedly he hates his father.
But most of the hits and potential hits here are pretty obvious:
- Spring 2019 fits NRS's regular two year production schedule.
- Most everyone expected the variation system to return in some form.
- Raiden as the main antagonist (possibly true, possibly false) was implied by the post-credits teaser in MKX.
- The 'Dream Realm woman' (who might be the woman in the MK11 trailer, but we don't know that for sure yet) is a character most lore nerds have been expecting for over seven years now, based on teases in the MK9 and MKX ladder endings.
There are, also, some big misses:
- No mention of Custom Variations, which are being promoted as the new primary game mechanic.
- No mention of Shao Kahn, whose role as the pre-order character is already a big part of the promotional campaign.
- No mention of time travel, which was suggested in the Announce Trailer and has since been confirmed as a major plot element in official sources ("an epic, time bending story").
- The claim of 10 DLC characters conflicts with the actual leak this week from Italian GameStop, which lists 6 DLC characters in the Kombat Pack. Now, 6 total would be strange given that we got 8 in MKX and 9 in IJ2, so it's possible Italian GameStop is talking about a Kombat Pack 1 of sorts, and there will be a second. Even so, that would still imply 12 total DLC characters by the end of the game, rather than 10. (UPDATE 12/11: As @Alec points out, the '6 characters' figure may be including Shao Kahn, in which case this point might not be a miss. I'll keep an eye on that and update if necessary.)
- UPDATE 12/14: An alleged email leak from NRS notes the hourglass woman's name as Kronika, not Salina. UPDATE 1/10/19: This email leak now appears to be genuine, as it featured the genuine MK11 cover art. We can therefore consider the Salina/Dominic Leak debunked.
The Female Antagonist Leak
This supposed leak comes from a Reddit post by KensKorner on March 8th, 2018, called ""Potential" MK 11 info". He says he found this in other discussions and credits someone named 'spoilerninja', but I can't find that source for this, whatever it may be.
Here is the text of the leak, which is unfortunately one great big block of text. While I'm otherwise trying to transcribe these exactly as-is, I'm going to break this one up for better readability:
(NOT ACTUALLY MY COMMENT, I SAW ANOTHER PERSON POST THIS IN ANOTHER DISCUSSION AND FIGURED I SPREAD IT AROUND!!!) Believe me or don't, really does not matter. I am dumping this info I got here and will await the majority of it to be confirmed as true by the end of the year. Got this from a source that has had ties to NRS since the days of Injustice 1 and got in touch with them through tourneys. What hes told me over the years has always turned out accurate so I believe it. You guys however can take it or leave it with as many grains of salt as you want. And yes, I made a new Reddit name as to not get either of us into trouble as we both frequent a few MK Reddits.
Now onto the info; Loot boxes are coming to Mortal Kombat but with a twist. They will contain shaders for characters, easy Fatality tokens and rare classic fatalities. Wont be as shoe-horned and necessary as with Injustice 2. Each character has ten shaders and one classic finisher to unlock bit the finishers are going to be extremely rare drops.
Story contains minor elements borrowed from Deception and Armageddon but is its own unique tale. Main plot is sort've like Mortal Kombat's take on Crisis on Infinite Earths that involves a cool gimmick. The cool gimmick is the return of an all new variation system. For the newer characters, it works the same as MKX with 2 to choose from instead of 3. For the pre-MKX characters, you get to choose between their new timeline versions or the old timeline versions. Both come with different attires and tweaked specials.
Brutalities and Stage Fatalities are returning, as well as Hara-Kiri's. Towers from MK9 and MKX return. No fightable Story Mode NPCs like as seen in MKX, though it will have cutscene cameos.
Some of the characters I have been told that are in the starting roster; Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Shang Tsung, Noob Saibot, Cassie Cage, Takeda and Frost. Ive been told the characters that died in MKX will not be playable so no Baraka, Mileena, Quan Chi or Shinnok. Base roster is planned to be 31 fighters (including an extra pre-order bonus character; Shao Kahn). Only half of the 8 MKX newbies are returning and the game will feature only 4 brand new characters.
Post launch content will be split into two seasons, each containing five characters, two costume packs and a classic arena. There will again be four guest characters. There will be 10 base arenas total, not including DLC arenas, and 4 of them are returning classics: The Living Forest, Wastelands, The Pit and The Dead Pool.
The boss of the game is a series first; a female antagonist.
Mortal Kombat 9 will be made backwards compatible on the XBox One around the time of MK11's release. There will be a mobile game and a comic to coincide with MK11's release in Spring 2019. The comic will feature the Red Dragons as the main villains. Mobile game will take cues from Injustice 2 Mobile, replacing unlocking cards through challenges with collecting a certain number of character shards to unlock characters. Quest Mode and Relic Hunt will return as well as a Faction Wars / Arena style mode and an Injustice 2 Mobile styled Story Mode released chapter by chapter. -Credit to spoilerninja/ figured ide help spread the word
ANALYSIS: This one's a mixed bag. On the one hand, this one has the highest number of significant hits. On the other hand, there are some misses here, including one huge one.
The hits:
- This is the only leak to describe a Crisis On Infinite Earths style plot with the timelines clashing together, which is exactly what the Announce Trailer implies.
- While it doesn't mention a Custom Variation system, the suggestion that there are 'old timeline' and 'new timeline' versions of each character selectable is also a reasonable reading of the two Scorpions in the Announce Trailer.
- This is the only leak of the four that claims a new female character is the primary antagonist of the game, which is also implied by the Announce Trailer.
- Shao Kahn as the pre-order character is a strong hit, but this has been a popular guess since Goro was the pre-order character for MKX, especially after people saw the revenant Shao Kahn easter egg stuff in the background of Quan Chi's MKX stage. Darkseid being the IJ2 pre-order character just made people clamor for this more, given that Darkseid and Shao Kahn were presented as parallel characters in MK vs. DC.
And the misses:
- Shawn Kittelsen announced on December 8th that there is no MK11 komic coming at all, which shoots a big hole in this one.
- Like the Salina/Dominic Leak above, this leak makes no mention of Custom Variations, which are apparently the primary new game mechanic in MK11.
- The DLC plan outlined here, with DLC packs of 5 characters apiece, does not line up with the Italian GameStop listing claiming there are 6 DLC characters in the Kombat Pack. (But see above, as it's possible Italian GameStop is including Shao Kahn when it says there are 6 characters.)
- While the klassic arenas listed here may also return, this leak says there are 4 klassic arenas returning total in the base game, and does not list Shang Tsung's Island -- the first stage revealed for MK11 in the Announce Trailer.
The Oracle Leak
The first version of this alleged leak that I can find popped up here on TYM on June 13th, 2018, posted by user @NothingPersonal, who said it came from a video he had seen which described a since-deleted Reddit post.
A more extensive version of this supposed leak (perhaps the original text the video was describing) was posted (or reposted) to Reddit on Friday, November 30th, by a throwaway account, with the title "Mortal Kombat 11 FULL Roster Leak! Gameplay & Story Details."
It has since been deleted, but here is the full text of the supposed leak (which is long; my apologies):
I have source with Intel on Mortal Kombat 11 including the full roster, gameplay notes & story elements. I don't know everything about the game and such I do not know too much about MK11 in regards to when things get revealed except for one you'll see down below. Quick Warning! spoilers are in here & A few things may have changed since I received this info. This is absolutely everything I have to show.
Gameplay Details:
- Variations Return but fixed the problem in MKX where most of the time only one variation was used the most while the other two weren't really that touched. In MK11 it's fixed and every variation now has a complete unique identity with each having completely different specials, x-rays, stances & visual differences, all 3 offer new exciting ways to play a character.
- Tag Team Mode Returns
- Harakiri's replace Quitalities.
- Ranked Sets & The Option to pick 2 Characters in one chapter carry over from Injustice 2.
- Scorpion
- Sub-Zero
- Raiden
- Liu Kang
- Kitana
- Jade
- Rain
- Noob Saibot
- Smoke
- Reptile
- Shang Tsung
- Kung Lao
- Fujin
- Bo Rai Cho
- Li Mei
- Frost
- Sareena
- Kenshi
- Kotal Kahn
- D'vorah
- Erron Black
- Cassie Cage
- Jacqui Briggs
- Takeda
- Kung Jin
- Onaga
- "NEW"
- "NEW"
- "NEW"
- "NEW"
- "Pre Order Character"
Details for New Characters:
I only have a name for one character & that character is Jade's Mystery Woman who is a new character in MK11, Her Name is Oracle and she can see both the old and new timeline & want's to erase the current timeline. She has a major part of the story.
Kano's Son. I don't have much info on him other than he is a part of the Red Dragon. Developers are keeping his info tight to their chest for His Reveal down the road.
Kotal Kahn has gotten a new First Minister since D'vorah's Betrayal in MKX. The description I was given for her mentions that she is a Brutal Fighter who was selected after she won a tournament put on by Kotal to find his new Ally. She is a young human woman who uses a handful of weapons primarily a bo staff that can turn into two mini staff's or sticks. She wears similar clothing to Kotal.
The last new character that's in MK11 is a New Mystic based Character. He wears a Black robe covering his entire body besides his mouth, feed & hands. All the parts of his body shown are decomposing showing bone. He was an old acquaintance of Quan Chi From years ago & assists Dark Emperor Liu Kang & Dark Empress Kitana.
Story Details:
- MK11 takes place 2 or 3 years after MKX.
- The story of MK11 is mostly focused on the New Earthrealm/Outworld Tournament, Dark Raiden who is also the sub boss, And the big Main Threat of the game which is Onaga. All 3 of these Storylines are secretly intertwined.
- Kotal Kahn resurrects The Dragon King Army which awakens Onaga.
- All Parent Characters besides Kenshi are in the story mode but aren't playable.
- To my knowledge My Source has said there is concept art for Taven & Daegon but is unknown of their role in the game.
- We get to see D'vorah's Origin.
- The Realm of Seido gets name dropped.
Onaga is the main boss of the game & is an Unlockable Character. Reptile is a host of Onaga. In the Story Mode, Onaga has two forms. His first form is with Reptile and he looks kinda like a more Humanoid version of Onaga. In the story Reptile's body fails on him and Goro ends up being the second and final host for Onaga in which he resembles more of the traditional looking Onaga but with a Revamped Design. Onaga/Reptile is the version of Onaga that's playable & Onaga/Goro is the version of Onaga strictly just fightable. In ladder mode You fight Onaga/Reptile first and once you beat him he turns into Onaga/Goro very similar to how Shinnok worked in MKX.
On the surface there are a few strong hits, but again they are reasonably easy to guess:
- Shao Kahn as the pre-order character is the strongest hit, but as I noted above in discussing the Female Antagonist Leak, this was a fairly widespread guess.
- We again see mention of the Dream Realm woman from Jade's MK9 ending as a new character, apparently important to the story. As I said above, this character has been the subject of massive speculation since 2011, and things were only inflamed when former NRS writer Brian Chard confirmed on Twitter that the apparition of 'Jade' in Kitana's MKX ending was the same woman.
- There is a new female character -- the woman with the hourglass -- who looks powerful and mysterious, and she has been confirmed to play a major role in the story. Whether or not this is the Dream Realm woman, however, is still unknown. She certainly does not look like the woman who appeared in Jade's ending in MK9.
Personally I think this roster is a little too good to be true (though not for me, admittedly, as while I'm happy to see Jade, my personal favorites -- Sindel, Tanya, and Mileena -- aren't on it). It features a lot of strongly fan-requested characters. In particular, Frost, Li Mei, and Sareena all being in feels like a pipe dream to me, given how stingy NRS tends to be with both female characters and characters from the PS2 Era. Those ladies are two for two.
I'm also somewhat skeptical that they want to go back to the Onaga well, especially with him possessing Reptile again, as he was never very well-received as an antagonist and fans hated that his resurrection took the very popular Reptile off the board. There's no hint of Onaga in the Announce Trailer, either, which instead suggests the woman with the hourglass as our new primary antagonist. Still, since MKX tackled Shinnok, it's not unreasonable to think MK11 might tackle Onaga.
A simple question, though: how is it that you could have so many details on game modes, mechanics, and the entire roster, but be unable to list a name for any of the new characters besides 'Oracle'?
Finally, the extent to which variations are described as differing from one another here seems to me like an outrageous level of balancing to do for 30+ characters. They've already said balancing the variations in MKX was a challenge.
That's all gut feeling stuff on my part, though. Here are the actual misses:
- While it goes in-depth on new gameplay mechanics, there is again absolutely no mention of Custom Variations, which are being promoted as the new primary game mechanic.
- No mention of time travel, which was suggested in the Announce Trailer and has since been confirmed as a major plot element in official sources ("an epic, time bending story"). This leak does say 'Oracle' has "a major part of the story", but also says the plot is "mostly focused on the New Earthrealm/Outworld Tournament, Dark Raiden who is also the sub boss, And the big Main Threat of the game which is Onaga."
- UPDATE 12/14: An alleged email leak from NRS, which may or may not be bullshit, claims that Sonya Blade will be voiced by Ronda Rousey -- and presumably therefore playable. The same alleged email leak notes the hourglass woman's name as Kronika, not Oracle. UPDATE 1/10/19: This email leak now appears to be genuine, as it features the genuine MK11 cover art. We can therefore consider the Oracle Leak debunked.
But listing gameplay mechanics without listing the main new gameplay mechanic feels like a huge miss to me -- and the plot this leak describes doesn't feel like the Crisis On Infinite Earths type story with alternate realities that the Announce Trailer seems to be suggesting.
The 4chan Leak
This supposed leak was posted on 4chan on December 1st, 2018, shortly before the reveal at the VGA. The poster claimed to be a QA tester for MK11.
The post has since been deleted, but here is the text of the leak:
Reveal in VGA
It will have 4 years of dev cycle (1 year concept 3 year full development) longest to date. Concepting actually even started while making MK X. They were always thought back to back games in terms of story
It has proper adventure mode , new version of Shaolin Monks type of gameplay. pretty big deal , you can play and customize your character in this mode,lots of items for customize weapons etc shit too. Also boxes (daily, buyable etc..)
Adventure mode is 2 player co-op , online or single. drop in drop out
Story mode and adventure are different both are included. story mode is normal NRS game style.
Story evolve about 3 main character
Punishing raiden ; hes now punishing anyone trying to even dare to attack earthrealm
Emperor liu kang and empress kitana ; preparing army and trying to find something of stone left from ages of those deity gods in MK universe(cant remember names elder god or something)
Shang Tsung and Reiko they made deal with Kotal Kahn to protect and rule outworld security , reiko has it’s own agenda though gets killed middle of it.
Uses UE4 instead of UE3 like all other games of NRS
Animation cancel its actually not a.cancel but something of pseudo of it. Much as you can expect from a western company i guess looks infinitely better than MKX in terms of animations. Something similar to UMK.
Fujin is playable character
Johnny cage,goro,sonya,kano,baraka,mileena,ferratorr %100 not playable
In comments on the post, the OP claimed that among the new characters would be a female Tarkatan replacing Baraka. They also said Hsu Hao, Quan Chi, and Sheeva were not playable, and that Stryker would be an NPC. Most notably, they said in a reply that there would be "No variations".
ANALYSIS: This one is the most obviously fake, in my view.
Here are the hits:
- Guessing that the game would be revealed at VGA -- the only upcoming event where such a thing might happen -- is a very easy 'hit'.
- UE3 to UE4 is also a pretty safe bet.
- The idea that you will be able to customize your character is another safe bet after the positive response to aesthetic customization in IJ2.
- With the recent news that Shawn Kittelsen was on the story team for MK11, I'd be surprised to see Reiko, whom Kittelsen already killed off in his MKX komic.
- Absolutely no mention of an important new female character, or of a time travel storyline.
- The fact that this person said the game will not have variations at all pretty much debunks this one, since Custom Variations are the new core game mechanic.
OVERALL ANALYSIS
All four of these alleged leaks have significant flaws.
In particular, the fact that none of them mention the Custom Variations system, which is being presented as the most important new gameplay mechanic, is pretty damning across the board in my opinion. Anyone who had the level of closeness these leaks claim would presumably have heard about the new primary hook.
For the purposes of discussion, if we are to accept that major flaw, I'd say the two that seem most plausible are the Oracle Leak and the Female Antagonist Leak. The Salina/Dominic Leak is too flimsy to really have a strong opinion on, but I'm leaning towards fake because of how much prevarication it does. The 4chan Leak appears to be debunked, in my view.
Some important points of contradiction, for reference, between the four alleged leaks:
- The Salina/Dominic Leak claims that Daegon is a playable character, and that only 6 characters from the PS2 Era games will be playable: Kenshi, Bo' Rai Cho, Frost, Li Mei, Daegon, and Onaga. The Oracle Leak roster also features only 6 characters from the PS2 Era, but lists Sareena in place of Daegon.
- The Female Antagonist Leak says that Johnny Cage is playable, and claims only 4 of the 8 MKX newbies are returning (Cassie, Takeda, and two others). The Oracle Leak says that Johnny Cage is not playable and that 7 of the 8 MKX newbies are returning (all save Ferra/Torr).
- The Female Antagonist Leak and the Oracle Leak both claim there are 4 new characters in MK11. The Salina/Dominic Leak claims there are 6 new characters. The 4chan Leak does not specify how many new characters there are.
- The Female Antagonist Leak describes only 1 of its alleged 4 new characters: a female antagonist who serves as the final boss. The Oracle Leak describes all 4 of its alleged new characters: Oracle, Kano's son, the First Minister, and a Mystic. The Salina/Dominic Leak describes only 2 of its alleged 6 new characters: Salina and Dominic. The 4chan Leak describes only 1 alleged new character: a female Tarkatan, replacing Baraka.
- The Female Antagonist Leak claims each character will have two variations. The Oracle Leak says each character will have three variations. The Salina/Dominic Leak does not specify how many variations each character will have. The 4chan Leak claims variations are not in the game at all.
- The Salina/Dominic Leak and the Oracle Leak both claim the Dream Realm mystery woman from Jade's MK9 ending is a playable character, but call her by different names (Salina and Oracle, respectively). The Female Antagonist Leak does not claim the new female antagonist is the mystery woman from the Dream Realm.
- Only the Salina/Dominic Leak provides a name (Dominic) for Kano's son, a character also reported in the Oracle Leak -- but also, if we're being honest, just a character strongly implied by Kano's ending in MKX.
- The Female Antagonist Leak claims the final boss of the game is a new female character (hence my name for it). The Oracle Leak claims that the final boss of the game is Onaga. The Salina/Dominic Leak also claims Onaga is in the game, but says Raiden is the main antagonist (whether this means he is the final boss is unclear). The 4chan Leak does not describe the final boss at all.
In general, I'm not convinced any of these are real, but I'll be updating this post with hits and misses as the lead-up to the game's release continues.
UPDATE 1/10/19: With the apparent confirmation of the email leak, all of these now appear to be officially debunked. The Female Antagonist Leak remains the most compelling, but claiming a new comic book was coming is a significant miss.
UPDATE 1/17/19: With the reveal of Baraka, the Female Antagonist Leak is also now debunked.
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