- Acting for Two:
- English version:
- Steve Blum voices both Sub-Zero and Baraka.
- Sean Chiplock voices both Noob Saibot and Kharon.
- Ike Amadi voices both Shao Kahn and Cyrax.
- Dave B. Mitchell voices both Geras and Sektor.
- For the third time, Richard Epcar voices both Raiden and The Joker.
- Troy Baker voices both Erron Black and Shinnok for the second time.
- Matthew Yang King voices both Liu Kang and Fujin.
- Kari Wahlgren voices both Kitana and Mileena. Appropriate, considering the latter is a clone of the former.
- Latin American Spanish version:
- Toni Rodríguez voices both Kitana and Mileena.
- Idzi Dutkiewicz pulls a triple duty as Erron Black, Fujin and Shinnok.
- Carla Castañeda voices both Frost and Sindel.
- Víctor Hugo Aguilar voices both Spawn and John Rambo.
- Alicia Barragán voices both Jade and one of Johnny Cage's film crew members.
- Edson Matus voices both Kollector and a Special Forces computer system voiceover.
- English version:
- Actor-Shared Background: Like Jax, his voice actor, William Stephens, served in the United States Army.
- All-Star Cast: As with previous titles done by NetherRealm Studios, Mortal Kombat 11 includes a handful of A-list voice actors such as Ronda Rousey, Richard Epcar, Dave B. Mitchell, JB Blanc, Steve Blum, Keith David, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Kelly Hu, Troy Baker, Erica Lindbeck, Phil LaMarr, Sean Chiplock, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Kari Wahlgren, Chris Cox, Peter Weller, Mela Lee, Vanessa Marshall, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Sylvester Stallone, Christopher Lambert, Linden Ashby and for good measure, Jennifer Hale as its Big Bad.
- Approval of God:
- NetherRealm gave a shout out to TheThiny on their official MK11 Twitter when they discovered an intro swap of Shang Tsung and Cassie, and found it hilarious.
- Although Arnold Schwarzenegger does not voice the T-800 Terminator in-game, it is said that he personally had a hand in casting Chris Cox for the role, and was used as the facial model.
- Banned in China:
- The game was banned in Japan for gory violence.note
- It was banned in Ukraine and Indonesia due to the blatant Soviet reference in Skarlet's Kold War outfit.
- It was also banned in Indonesia, although not publicly, for over-the-top gory violence and communist references. Most likely the latter, as the previous and next Mortal Kombat games and the mobile game isn't banned.
- Blooper: In Raiden's chapter of the first story, after his fight with Present Jax and before his fight with Geras, you can see Scorpion fighting with Cyber Lin Kuei in the background. Or rather, you see him with the Hanzo Hasashi outfit from the story mode, when Hanzo had died the previous chapter. Scorpion should be wearing his revenant outfit.
- Celebrity Voice Actor:
- Ronda Rousey as Sonya Blade.
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa reprises his role from the film and Mortal Kombat: Legacy as Shang Tsung.
- Keith David and Peter Weller reprise their famous roles as Spawn and RoboCop, respectively.
- Sylvester Stallone reprises his role as John Rambo.
- Christopher Lambert, Linden Ashby and Bridgette Wilson reprise their movie roles as Raiden, Johnny Cage and Sonya as part of the Movie Costume Pack.
- Christmas Rushed: An interesting case in that MK11's release was due to rushing to meet a marketing deadline internally known as "MK Day" rather than any major shopping holiday. Various NetherRealm employees also allege that crunch time and hiring inexperienced college grads from their local DeVry University contributed to the game's quality being lower at launch than it should have been.
- Content Leak:
- A lot of what was revealed at the Mortal Kombat 11 Reveal Event on January 17, 2019 was leaked thanks to an email that got sent to a random software engineer outside of NetherRealm Studios.
- A leaked image ended up confirming several characters before NetherRealm had a chance to reveal them, which was affirmed by the Story trailer dropping the same week, particularly Jacqui Briggs and Erron Black. This goes in tandem with a list of Steam achievements that also made the same allusions.
- One week before release, physical copies of the game leaked early, naturally bringing attention to many then-unrevealed elements, like unlockable character Frost and the Mercy mechanic.
- Voice files discovered from early copies of the game being datamined revealed the then-unannounced DLC character lineup: Nightwolf, Sindel, Sheeva, Fujin, and Guest Fighters the Joker, Spawn, Ash Williams, and the Terminator. Sure enough, the majority of these characters were eventually officially revealed and released as DLC, though Ash is absent by the end of the DLC's development for unknown reasons. note
- A dataminer was able to find Rain, Mileena, and Rambo in the game's code a few days before the official reveal of Kombat Pack 2.
- Creator Backlash: For what was ironically intended to be an Author's Saving Throw to improve the character, it's become clear by Mortal Kombat 1 that NRS came to agree with the backlash against retconning Sindel's lore and making her Evil All Along, with the sheer amount of Take That, Scrappy! hurled at this game's incarnation of the character fully displaying their agreement as having been a mistake.
- Creator Couple: Steve Blum, who voices both Sub-Zero and Baraka, and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, who voices Cetrion, are married in real life.
- Creator's Favorite: Lampshaded this time with one of Scorpion's variations, which is simply called Boon's Main.
- Development Gag:
- An intro dialogue for a Johnny Cage Mirror Match has the two Johnnys think about making a movie about twin cops taking on the Triads. This Shout-Out to Double Impact also pokes fun at how Johnny was conceptualized as a Jean-Claude Van Damme Expy after Midway's original plans to make a video game adaptation of Bloodsport fell through.
- One of Frost's intros when fighting Shao Kahn has her comment that he's shorter than she imagined. This is a reference to the fact that Brian Glynn, the body actor for Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat 3, was actually shorter than most of the cast members, with Midway upscaling his photos to create Shao Kahn's sprite.
- A Shang Tsung mirror match intro has one Shang identify himself as Shang Lao, which was the original name he had during the development of the first game.
- Directed by Cast Member: In the Latin American Spanish dub, both Óscar Flores (Liu Kang) and Alan Fernando Velázquez (Kung Lao) are among the dubbing direction crew composed by Mario Heras, Betzabe Jara, Miguel Ángel Ruiz and Miguel Ángel Leal.
- Dueling Games: To Dead or Alive 6. See Fandom Rivalry in the YMMV page for more details.
- Fake Nationality:
- Jewish American Steve Blum as Chinese-American Kuai Liang. Same is true for the DLC skin, whose likeness is modeled after Belgian Greek Dimitri Vegas.
- South Asian-American Sunil Malhotra as Chinese Kung Lao.
- Chinese-American Ron Yuan as Japanese Hanzo Hasashi.
- Conversely, Japanese Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Chinese sorcerer Shang Tsung.
- White American Sean Chiplock as Chinese Bi-Han/Noob Saibot. Though since Noob is a wraith now, with an inhuman guttural voice, you can't really tell.
- American Mela Lee voices Jade with an English accent.
- Anglo-French JB Blanc replaces American Michael McConnohie as Australian Kano.
- Fandom Nod: Mileena has a pre-fight interaction where she tells Erron Black "A million souls cried out for my return", acknowledging the legions of fans who begged NetherRealm to bring her back.
- Left It In: In Kotal Kahn Reveal Trailer, while most reveal trailers has the title character defeating and finishing off the opponent, Kotal Kahn was curbstomped by Jacqui, hit with a Fatal Blow, and executed with a Fatality, complete with Jacqui's finishing pose. Ed Boon has stated that this was an error that slipped by.
- Lying Creator:
- After the backlash over the unplayable fighters in MKX's story, Boon stated multiple times that there would be no unplayable fighters in story mode apart from Kronika. Sure enough, Cyrax and Sektor, with their moveset from Triborg's variations in MKX, are featured in story mode in chapter 4, with the latter also appearing as an opponent in chapter 6. They were never made playable, either, with the closest thing being a pair of skins for Robocop that cause him to look like them.
- When initially asked about possibly voicing Shang Tsung, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa said he wasn't. Lo and behold...
- Ed Boon said multiple times that Mileena would not be added to the game. She eventually made it into Kombat Pack 2. After the Kombat Pack 2 trailer was released, Boon sent a tweet that sarcastically quoted himself stating Mileena won't be in the game. (at NYCC 2020, Boon said that in spite of not putting Mileena in the core game, the studio always planned for her eventual inclusion, but given the huge outcry requesting for Mileena following MK11's release, he felt the announcement would get some value if it was preceded with some teasing that she wouldn't return)
- Meme Acknowledgment: Austin Aries was aware of the comparisons of this game's incarnation of Kano, and promised a T-shirt.
- No Dub for You: For some reason, and unlike previous games from the franchise since Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, this game lacks and European Spanish dub.
- The Original Darrin: Outside of Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials, for the first time since RoboCop 2, RoboCop is played by Peter Weller.
- The Other Darrin: Many of the returning characters were recast in this game:
- Brazilian version:
- Christopher Lambert as Raiden is dubbed by Glauco Marques instead of either Carlos Campanile (who dubbed Raiden in the Álamo dub of the first movie) or Dário de Castro (who dubbed Raiden in the Herbert Richers dub of the first movie). Carlos instead voiced the Shokan that's in the Dead Pool.
- Bridgette Wilson as Sonya is dubbed by Angélica Santos instead of either Cecília Lemes (Sonya in the Álamo dub) or Isis Koschdoski (Sonya in the Herbert Richers dub).
- Linden Ashby as Johnny Cage is dubbed by Marcelo Salsicha instead of either Francisco Brêtas (Johnny in the Álamo dub) or Marcus Jardym (Johhny in the Herbert Richers dub).
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung is dubbed by Armando Tiraboschi instead of either Luiz Carlos de Moraes (Shang in the Álamo dub) or Élcio Romar (Shang in the Herbert Richers dub). Luiz had been cast as Shinnok instead.
- English version:
- Patrick Seitz revealed on Twitter that he's not voicing Scorpion this time. Ron Yuan took over his role.
- Sonya Blade went from Tricia Helfer to Ronda Rousey.
- Cassie Cage went from Ashly Burch to Erica Lindbeck.
- Steve Blum replaces Greg Eagles as Baraka. The voice he used initially sounded very similar to his portrayal of Reptile. It was later altered to sound deeper/more guttural.
- Beata Pozniak replaces Dana Lyn Baron as Skarlet.
- Sunil Malhotra replaces Will Yun Lee as Kung Lao.
- Jonathan Cahill takes over for David Lodge as Kabal.
- Linda Lee has been replaced as Jade here by Mela Lee (no relation).
- Kano isn't voiced by Michael McConnohie this time, but by JB Blanc.
- Megalyn Echikunwoke replaces Danielle Nicolet as Jacqui Briggs.
- Noob Saibot went from Jamieson Price to Sean Chiplock, despite the former reprising his role as the announcer.
- Jax isn't being voiced by Greg Eagles again, the role being taken over by William Stephens.
- Matthew Yang King replaces Tom Choi as Liu Kang. The same later happens for Fujin despite Troy Baker present.
- Karen Strassman indicated she wouldn't voice Kitana again prior to release. The role instead went to Kari Wahlgren, along with Mileena.
- Shao Kahn isn't voiced by Bob Carter, but by Ike Amadi instead. He also took over as Cyrax, replacing Rhasaan Orange.
- Frost is now voiced by Sara Cravens, despite Kelly Hu returning as D’Vorah.
- Vanessa Marshall takes over Sheeva from Lani Minella.
- Dave B. Mitchell now voices Sektor, replacing Andrew Kishino and Vic Chao.
- Daniel Lujan replaces Larry Omaha as Nightwolf.
- Mara Junot replaces both Lani Minella and Kelly Hu as Sindel.
- The T-800 is not voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger here, but his replacement, Chris Cox, was personally chosen by Schwarzenegger, according to the developers.
- Rain is now played by Dempsey Pappion, despite Andrew Bowen returning as Johnny Cage.
- Latin American Spanish version:
- Prior to the official announcement, Eduardo Garza revealed that the studio responsible for the localization of MKX, Pink Noise México, decided to go in a different direction, meaning that he wouldn't reprise his roles as Kung Lao, Rain and Reptile. Alan Fernando Velázquez replaces him as Kung Lao, Dave Ramos takes over as Rain, while Reptile makes a non-speaking cameo in the Krypt.
- Sergio Bonilla replaces Mario Castañeda as Johnny Cage. According to Mario himself, he was intended to reprise his role as Johnny, even recording most of his lines, but he accidentally broke a non-disclosure agreement, which led to the studio removing him from the role and casting Sergio Bonilla instead. Weirdly enough, when the game was released, there were still some lines with Mario Castañeda's voice, and a patch was eventually released to replace those lines with Sergio's voice.
- Gerardo Vásquez didn't come back to voice neither Jax nor Baraka, which are now voiced by Héctor Estrada and Carlos del Campo, respectively.
- Kitana and Mileena aren't being voiced by Mireya Mendoza, the roles being taken over by Toni Rodríguez.
- Ricardo Tejedo is replaced by Luis Leonardo Suarez as Kano.
- Sektor went from Carlos Hernández to Carlo Vázquez.
- A specific example happens with Rambo, actor-wise: Traditionally, both the character and his actor, Sylvester Stallone, are voiced by Blas García since Rambo III, but since the latter already voices the T-800, Rambo is voiced by Víctor Hugo Aguilar instead. Curiously enough, Aguilar's voice is very similar to Garcia's, to the point he also voices roles played by Stallone or Schwarzenegger when Blas García is not available to voice either of them.
- Due to Katalina Múzquiz's passing, the role of Skarlet starting with Aftermath was recast with Carola Vázquez.
- Brazilian version:
- Playing Against Type:
- Sean Chiplock is primarily known for his young, heroic protagonists in various anime and video game works alike, so it's a big surprise for fans who are familiar with his voice work that he voices Noob Saibot, who happens to be the Evil Counterpart to Sub-Zero and sporting a guttural voice to match that.
- Even more with Latin American Spanish dub for everyone's surprise: Tommy Rojas, known for voicing the Pretty Boy Chat Noir in Miraculous Ladybug, but in this game he voices Noob Saibot, who is supposed to have a deeper and raspy growl, and is the evil older brother to Sub-Zero (whose voice of Sebastián Llapur clearly had more deeper voice than his older brother). This fact can be compared with Héctor Emmanuel Gómez, the younger dubber voicing the "Evil" older Uchiha brother Itachi to Víctor Ugarte, the older dubber voicing the anti-heroic younger Uchiha brother Sasuke in the Latin American Spanish dub of Naruto.
- Promoted Fanboy: Ronda Rousey has been a fan of Mortal Kombat since childhood, and Sonya Blade was her first memory of an Action Girl, who she "admittedly kind of emulated in [her] own way" in her UFC and WWE careers. Now she's in MK11 providing the voice of Sonya. During Elimination Chamber 2019, Rousey sported a ring gear based of Sonya's vest and leather pants outfit in MK9 with the military hat from MKX and MK11 as an entrance gear.
- Recycled Script:
- The story takes a few cues from Injustice: Gods Among Us, by having main characters from a "status quo" universe (the "Prime" universe in Injustice and the MK2 portion of Mortal Kombat 9) be brought into the main story setting (the proper "Injustice" universe and the present day here), with heroes having to face off against their evil selves, and most characters having a Mirror Match in their respective chapters.
- A literal case is invoked in the climax - when Shinnok's amulet begins to corrupt the past version of Raiden, he and the past version of Liu Kang have the exact same conversation that they had immediately before Liu Kang's death on the city rooftop in Mortal Kombat 9. It doubles as a Wham Line and triggers The Reveal that Kronika has already restarted the timeline countless times.
- Refitted for Sequel: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
- Role Reprise:
- English version:
- Richard Epcar returns to provide the voice of Raiden. MK11 makes Epcar the longest-serving voice actor within the modern Mortal Kombat games, having played Raiden since Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe in 2008. He also reprises his role as The Joker from MK vs. DC, the Injustice series, and Infinite Crisis.
- Steve Blum returns as Sub-Zero.
- Andrew Bowen returns as Johnny Cage.
- Phil LaMarr reprises his role as Kotal Kahn.
- Troy Baker returns as Erron Black and Shinnok.
- Jamieson Price returns as the announcer.
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who played Shang Tsung in the 1995 film and Legacy, provides his voice and likeness for the character.
- Kelly Hu returns as D'Vorah.
- Keith David reprises his role as Spawn from the HBO Spawn animated series for the first time in twenty years.
- Peter Weller reprises his role as RoboCop from the first two films... and a 2019 KFC commercial.
- In an interesting example, Ron Yuan previously played Scorpion in the filmed but never released live-action webseries Mortal Kombat X: Generations, making MK11 both a role reprise and his first time publicly playing the character.
- Sylvester Stallone reprises his role as Rambo from all of the movies in the franchise.
- Christopher Lambert, Linden Ashby and Bridgette Wilson, the trio who played Raiden, Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade in the 1995 film, also return, providing their voices and likenesses for the Klassic MK Movie Skin Pack for those very characters.
- Latin American Spanish version:
- Octavio Rojas returns as Scorpion/Hanzo Hasashi.
- Sebastián Llapur returns as Sub-Zero II/Kuai Liang.
- Gerardo Reyero is back again as Raiden after being temporally replaced by Santos Alberto in Injustice 2.
- Óscar Flores is back again as Liu Kang.
- Gabriela Guzmán returns as Cassie Cage.
- Rebeca Patiño returns as Sonya Blade.
- Xóchitl Ugarte returns as Jacqui Briggs.
- Carla Castañeda returns as Frost and Sindel.
- Humberto Solórzano is back again as Kotal Kahn.
- Magda Giner is back again as D'Vorah.
- Idzi Dutkiewicz is back again as both Erron Black, Fujin and Shinnok.
- Blas García, the regular dub voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Latin American Spanish, returns as the T-800.
- José Antonio Macías returns to his signature role of The Joker.
- Víctor Hugo Aguilar reprises as Spawn after voicing the character in the HBO animated series of the same name.
- English version:
- Same Voice Their Entire Life: With the Time Crash, several of the present-time characters meet their older selves, without their voices changing (even though they're voiced by different actors in their original game and 11), such as Johnny Cagenote , Scorpionnote and Kanonote . Raiden never gets to meet his future self because the rule doesn't really work with Gods while Sonya's present self died before the Time Crash.
- Stunt Casting: Ronda Rousey voices Sonya Blade in this installment.
- Teasing Creator: NetherRealm's at it again. To wit:
- Prior to the Reveal Event, Ed Boon posted a screenshot on his Twitter account of a lizard, fueling speculation that Reptile, Chameleon or Khameleon would be announced for the roster. Come the Reveal Event, and the lizard ends up being stabbed in Baraka's fight introduction.
- At the Reveal Event, during Tyler Lansdowne's discussion of the Kombat Kast, a character zoomed past the onscreen logo. Despite the character clearly being Kabal, Lansdowne refused to speak further about it, leaving fans to wait until the Kombat Kast on February 5 to find out more.note
- How did we knew about Liu Kang? With a clue given to us by NRS's own Daanish Syed:"Reading all the MK11 reactions have been incredible. Even some of the criticisms have been totally welcome and may inform how the game shapes up. I am a little shocked nobody asked about a very subtle tease we put in the demo. People will lose their minds when we reveal it."
- In the wake of the "Ultra Instinct Shaggy" meme, fans posted a petition to have Shaggy in this game. Ed Boon would join in on the fun when he posted fan art of "Ultra Instinct Shaggy" on his Twitter account. However, during a Kombat Kast live stream, it was confirmed that Shaggy wouldn't appear in the game.
- Troubled Production: Like many a major Western release, this game had an ugly development cycle which was leaked post-launch. One account spoke of how after MK9 and Injustice, the workload worsen for the staff, as they were frequently expected to pull in 80-100 hour work weeks. The same account alleged that female employees were mistreated. A second account spoke of how uncomfortable it was to research all the blood and gore in the game, so much so that one developer was diagnosed with PTSD!
- What Could Have Been:
- As noted in Content Leak above and Word of Saint Paul below, Ash from Evil Dead was intended to be a DLC Guest Fighter but plans for him fell through.
- Koncept Art in the Kollection reveals that Shang Tsung, Noob Saibot◊, Kitana◊ and The Terminator's Fatal Blows were originally very different from what they have in the final release.
- Geras was going to be called Terminas, and is still referred to as such in the game's coding and internal files. The name change was possibly to avoid confusion with the Terminator who would show up as a guest character.
- Like the previous game, NRS considered Michael Myers as a guest character, only for the rights holders to say no.
- Word of Saint Paul:
- According to Todd McFarlane, the highly requested Spawn was "on his way" to MK11. Sure enough, the Official Shang Tsung Gameplay Trailer reveals his prediction to be correct.
- Bruce Campbell posted on his Facebook page that Ash Williams will not be a DLC character, but people weren't buying it, especially after the aforementioned leaks promised his appearance in the game. It could mean that he wasn't asked to voice the character, similar to Ash's appearance in Poker Night 2, and thus isn't in any informed state to actually confirm or deny it. There's also the fact that earlier, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa had made a similar announcement about not reprising his role as Shang Tsung which quickly turned out to be false, so some fans speculated that Campbell is pulling the same act. The post's oddly specific wording note led to further speculation.note When the Kombat Pack was originally announced, Ash was listed as being one of the fighters, but when the roster was revealed, he had been replaced by the Joker. Copyright information for Ash and Army of Darkness also briefly existed at the bottom of the official Mortal Kombat email newsletter until it was quietly removed. This has led to some theorizing that Ash may have been planned for the game at one point, but was cut for unknown reasonsnote (and his spot on the final roster potentially being refilled by RoboCop)..
- When asked directly about it later on, Campbell admitted that he was unsure about the current situation regarding Ash in MK, and talked about how legal issues regarding a franchise can sometimes prevent crossovers, most likely confirming the rights dispute theory.
- During an Instagram stream, Richard Epcar said that Ash would be coming "in the next pack", likely referring to the then-unrevealed Kombat Pack 2. While the Pack did not end up including Ash, many believe that Epcar was assuming based on work NRS had already done on Ash before legal disputes either prevented or delayed his inclusion. Ultimately, Ash did not make the cut by the time NetherRealm ended development of the DLC.
- You Look Familiar:
- Jennifer Hale voiced Sonya in Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins and Tanya in MKX. Here she voices Kronika.
- Kari Wahlgren voiced Starfire in Injustice 2, here she voices both Kitana and Mileena.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/MortalKombat11
FollowingTrivia / Mortal Kombat 11
Go To