The next entry in the long-running Mortal Kombat franchise has apparently been announced, as Warner Bros. quietly announced Mortal Kombat 12 during an annual earnings call.
During the call, Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav spent a moment talking about the company’s gaming division, saying, “And there’s lots more to come, including the highly-anticipated Mortal Kombat 12 and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Games also set for release this year, with ambitious launch projections.”
At the moment, there’s been no official communication about MK12 from WB’s official accounts, and NetherRealm studio head Ed Boon hasn’t tweeted about the apparent announcement either. The existence of MK12 isn’t surprising, but it is surprising to see it announced without any fanfare, and it seems likely a proper reveal is planned for E3 2023, especially if the game actually is releasing this year.
The earnings call mentioned the huge success of Hogwarts Legacy, which has sold over 12 million copies since launch. It’s likely Zaslav wanted to use the success of WB’s gaming division to help assuage any fears after the company posted huge fourth-quarter losses.
It’s been four years since the release of Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019, which quickly became the best-selling game in the entire franchise. To date, MK11 has sold over 12 million copies, which puts the franchise as a whole above 73 million copies sold.
Over the last few years, Ed Boon has teased that a new Mortal Kombat was in production, but there was also some speculation that the studio’s next game could be Injustice 3. Obviously, Mortal Kombat 12 is likely going to be the next release, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Injustice 3 isn’t also in some stage of production currently.
Mortal Kombat also has a tradition of including guest characters, with MK11 having the likes of Rambo, RoboCop, and Spawn. It’ll be interesting to see if the series decides to continue that trend.
