Why Mortal Kombat 1 and not 12
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If you haven’t played the previous games, you might wonder why this one is called Mortal Kombat 1 and not Mortal Kombat 12. The reasoning is pretty simple, but not what you’d expect. It does get slightly complicated but we present things as clearly as possible.
If you are interested in playing Mortal Kombat 1, make sure you have the right gaming laptop for it. Also, make sure you’re ready for when the release date arrives.
So for those of you who have never played Mortal Kombat 11 and are wondering why things went back to MK1, take a look below. Just a fair warning, we do spoil the ending to Mortal Kombat 11 as well as parts of 9 and 10. Mortal Kombat 1 will also spoil things, so decide where you want it spoiled if you don’t want to play Mortal Kombat 9, Mortal Kombat 10, or Mortal Kombat 11.
Why did this get named Mortal Kombat 1 and not Mortal Kombat 12?
The name is Mortal Kombat 1 is because the timeline was reset to the same time that the original Mortal Kombat took place. Liu Kang receives God status and shapes the realms in the way he wants them. He went back pretty far and had to wait things out, but the game starts at the same time Mortal Kombat did.
So yes it would make a lot of sense to name the game Mortal Kombat 12. However, it’s starting another series of events, even if those events were directly influenced by the events of the previous games.
Technically, Mortal Kombat 9 has a similar reasoning, but they kept it as 9 because it literally continues the story of Raiden and Liu Kang. The reasoning for Mortal Kombat 9 was that the series had ended with Mortal Kombat Armageddon and then Raiden sent a message to his past self to change things. The players don’t find out that this happens often until Mortal Kombat 11.
Mortal Kombat 11 explains that the characters’ stories have been rebooted multiple times so that Liu Kang could always fight Raiden and Raiden would ultimately fail to stop a bigger antagonist. Raiden realized that he could never stop things from repeating so he gave his powers to Liu Kang who succeeded at ending the cycle.
With Liu Kang as a God, a true reset could be made that favored peace. Therefore, a truly new beginning needs a name that signifies a renewal of the story, which is Mortal Kombat 1.
