Mortal Kombat 1 Dev Chief Ed Boon Teases T-1000 Fatality and ‘Future DLC’

Ed Boon, Mortal Kombat 1's creative director, recently offered a sneak peek at the T-1000 Terminator's upcoming Fatality via social media, simultaneously hinting at future downloadable content (DLC).

Coinciding with the release of the Conan the Barbarian guest character, Boon announced that Mortal Kombat 1 has surpassed five million copies sold, a significant increase from the previously reported four million. He then shared a brief video showcasing one of the T-1000's Fatalities, a clear nod to the iconic truck chase scene in Terminator 2. The clip depicts the T-1000 using a wrecked truck to dispatch its opponent.

Boon's accompanying tweet, "With Conan getting into player’s hands, we are excited to keep trucking forward with future DLC!", sparked considerable speculation within the Mortal Kombat community. While this could simply refer to the imminent arrival of the T-1000, many fans interpret it as a subtle tease of additional DLC characters beyond the current Khaos Reigns expansion.

The T-1000 is the final character in the Khaos Reigns DLC, which also includes Cyrax, Sektor, Noob Saibot, Ghostface, and Conan the Barbarian. The question of a potential third DLC pack or "Kombat Pack 3" remains unanswered, fueled by ongoing discussions surrounding the game's sales performance.

Warner Bros. Discovery, however, has reaffirmed its commitment to the Mortal Kombat franchise. CEO David Zaslav stated in November that the company intends to focus heavily on only four game titles, with Mortal Kombat being one of them. Furthermore, Boon himself confirmed in September that NetherRealm had already chosen its next project three years prior, while pledging continued support for Mortal Kombat 1 "for a long time to come."

Many anticipate NetherRealm's next title to be the third installment in the Injustice fighting game franchise. While unconfirmed by either NetherRealm or Warner Bros., this speculation is fueled by the success of Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013) and Injustice 2 (2017). The release of Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019 and the subsequent Mortal Kombat 1 soft reboot in 2023 disrupted the previously perceived alternating pattern between Mortal Kombat and Injustice releases.

In a June 2023 interview with IGN, Boon vaguely addressed this decision, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and the team's transition to the Unreal Engine 4 (as opposed to Unreal Engine 3 used in Mortal Kombat 11) as contributing factors. He explicitly confirmed, however, that the Injustice franchise is not defunct.