Outside of some references and a few returning voice actors in Scorpion’s Revenge, Mortal Kombat 11 broke down the wall that previously separated the games and movies in the franchise. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa reprising his role as Shang Tsung from the 1995 film was only the first step as three other cast members were also added in through a DLC skin pack in November 2020. This opens the door for the actors from the 2021 film to be given the same treatment. And, according to those actors, being MK11 DLC would be some sort of a flawless victory, except for one actor who had just a single stipulation.
Josh Lawson and Jessica McNamee, who play Kano and Sonya Blade, respectively, both approved of the idea of being digitally recreated in Mortal Kombat 11 during a recent cast interview with Game Revolution. Lawson even went one step further.
“I can obviously do Kano, but I would be happy to do Sonya Blade as well,” he said. “I am available so don’t worry about it.”
Mehcad Brooks, the mustachioed Jax, had a different reaction and said that one of those steps to getting in the game was already done.
“Well, we’ve already been scanned so the next step is being put in the game,” said Brooks. “I just hope the film does really well so this can expand and I can be at home yelling ‘Finish Him!’ while I am playing with myself. Wait… that came out wrong. I am going to be at home saying ‘Finish Him!’ to myself. That also came out wrong.”
Lawson, McNamee, and Brooks all have the luxury of being placed directly into Mortal Kombat 11 since they all play fighters that are already in the game: Kano, Sonya, and Jax. Lewis Tan plays Cole Young, the protagonist made just for the film, meaning NetherRealm would have to make an entirely new fighter to include Tan. This didn’t seem to deter him as he stated that he’d still like to be in the game, but under one condition.
“I would be really happy with having myself be in the video game, but I would like to do my own mocap,” said Tan. “I used to be a stuntman a long time ago in my earlier days. But yeah, if I could to the mocap for it, I’d be very into it. I don’t know how many times that has happened before.”
It hasn’t been confirmed if this DLC is in the works. NetherRealm has not announced any new content for the game — be it characters, a much-anticipated balance patch, skins, or an Aftermath-like story expansion. And, upon further questioning, Warner Bros. said that “for most films/costume fitting, they do body scans” of the actors, which means that Brooks’ statement about being scanned was likely just relegated to the movie.
It’s not clear how easy it would be to transfer that existing data to the game for a potential DLC pack. But some games do use scans of real-life people for more believable faces and performances. Coincidentally, most of Mortal Kombat 11’s characters use a real-life face model.
Scanning is also just one part of the process. If the actors from the 2021 film are given the same in-game treatment as the three actors from the 1995 film in the DLC pack, then they will have to go in to re-record all of the intros and taunts that are currently in the game. That will undoubtedly take some time if that is in the cards.
Mortal Kombat 11 is just celebrating its second anniversary right near the release of the film so it makes sense that the two would have some sort of synergy. It’s also been over five months since Kombat Pack 2 and the title has been criticized for its dearth of updates since Ultimate dropped. Selling movie-focused content would be one way to end the drought, especially if Ed Boon’s vague tweets about Reptile amount to nothing.
