‘Mortal Kombat’ HD Remake Almost Happened, And There Are Pictures To Prove It
A Mortal Kombat HD remake almost happened. In a time when the craving for HD visuals often crossed paths with nostalgia to create remakes of classic games, not everything reached the market. However, a re-release of the original Mortal Kombat games in high definition with a new cast reached the photo phase, but ended up being just a cosplayer’s guide.
A few years ago, the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection was released on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, and it was simply the original games with online multiplayer added. That’s what was left of the original idea, which was far more ambitious.
Images have leaked online of what could have been the Mortal Kombat HD remake, with completely new people (the originals are probably old enough to star in an Expendables film by now) posing for animation frames. From a distance, they appear near identical to the original cast. We can probably credit that to the photographers who painstakingly replicated the original images, even making sure that the poses were identical. The pictures leaked show Sonya Blade, Kitana, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Curtis Stryker, and even Shao Kahn against a green screen.
If you didn’t know, green screen is a video photographer’s trick, allowing the original image to be dropped over an alternate background. The green section is cut out using advanced editing, and it appears to the untrained eye that the people are actually where the video or game makes them appear. You probably saw this a lot in the Star Wars prequels.
Instead of releasing the Mortal Kombat HD remake, it appears Midway nixed the idea and sold the franchise to NetherRealm for the reboot. Fans could still be hoping that MK is simply on the back burners and will eventually get a sequel like Killer Instinct, but for now there is no solid news of a new game being made.
It was revealed a few months ago that Kiefer Sutherland had done some voice work for a new MK, but that is all we’ve actually heard about it. It appears that NetherRealm discovered that the DC Comics superheroes brought in a better payday and have scrapped the other franchise entirely, outside cameos from DLC add-ons like Scorpion in Injustice: Gods Among Us.
It’s probably a positive that the Mortal Kombat HD remake never made it to retail anyway. The HD remakes we’ve seen in the past few years have been disappointing. Tomb Raider, the TMNT Arcade game, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater all suffered from the transition and became high definition failures at retail. Mortal Kombat probably wouldn’t have done much better.
[images via justpushstart.com]
