Read our MC vs DCU Review Here
SPOnG: With Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe being announced a while back, I think the main question on everyone’s minds was ‘Why?’ ‘Where’s the next Mortal Kombat?’
Hans Lo: I remember raised eyebrows when we first announced it, and we kinda knew that was going to happen… to be honest we were sort of surprised at how vocal people were. But we knew they were going to say stuff and raise questions and concerns – the amount of feedback we got was a little overwhelming. But we knew what we wanted to do, and in the end we knew that once we got builds out and people would start playing it at Comic Con and places like that, people would know where we were going with it.
The idea for Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe actually started a while back, even before this game was a reality. Ed (Boon, Mortal Kombat co-creator) had thought about this for years – at times he’d randomly say things like, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do a mashup game? What kind of mashup could we do? MK versus… who?” and he had different ideas all the time about that. But you know how it is, there’s always a more important project going on so we kept thinking, “Now’s not the time to think about it”, and then… the timing was just right.
We had just finished off (Mortal Kombat) Armageddon, and there was a quiet lull about the place. We hadn’t even thought about what our next big game would be, it was just like breathing a sigh of relief. At that point, I remember our marketing and licensing group came up to us and saying “Just throwing it out there, would you guys be interested in maybe doing a Mortal Kombat, DC fighting game?” And it was a case of “Funny that you mention it, we’ve been thinking about an idea like that for a while now”
So, the guys went to DC about the idea, they were really excited about the concept and from there everything just kinda happened really fast. Next thing you know, we’re working on a new MK game, only this time it’s MK vs DC, and it also tied in with Ed’s idea at the time about rebooting the series. Starting over with a clean slate, and if anything this is a perfect example of a clean slate because it’s nothing like you’ve seen before. So we went into it thinking ‘this is something brand new’.
SPOnG: Looks like people are starting to warm up to it now as well which is pretty good news. You say your licensing guys suggested DC, what was it about that universe that seemed to click with the Mortal Kombat world? How would you say the two are similar?
Hans Lo: Well, they’re both similar in the sense that they both have their heroes and their villains. But I think the fact was that DC has this long history and they have this huge roster of characters. Some of the characters, as you’re playing the game, you can kind of see how they match up with the Mortal Kombat universe. But the two have a dark style that can easily reflect each other as well, and that was one of things that made us think ‘Yeah, we can do this’.
Going back to the initial response, there were people who were saying, “How are you going to beat Superman? There’s no way anyone can beat Superman!” and that was the kind of thing that we were running up against, but the thing is we have guys on the team that are big comic book fans. They love comic books, they know the lore and all about the characters, and the fact is that Superman does have weaknesses. He’s not perfect. The one that almost everybody knows is Kryptonite, but there is another one if you’re big on comics, and that is magic and sorcery.
Now the thing about the MK universe is that a lot of it is based off of sorcery and magic. So, we have magic over here and the DC Universe, which doesn’t react well to magic... You know, you combine those things and you end up levelling the playing field on both sides.
So, you have Superman who is weakened – he’s not completely weak, but he is weakened by the magic – while at the same time you’ll find characters like The Joker who’ll find himself a bit stronger from the worlds merging. The Joker’s the kinda guy who hides, gets other people to do his work, sets up traps and so on. But when you play through the Story Mode he realises that he can kick ass. So we found ways to move characters up and down on the scale of strengths and weaknesses to balance them out.
Hans Lo: I remember raised eyebrows when we first announced it, and we kinda knew that was going to happen… to be honest we were sort of surprised at how vocal people were. But we knew they were going to say stuff and raise questions and concerns – the amount of feedback we got was a little overwhelming. But we knew what we wanted to do, and in the end we knew that once we got builds out and people would start playing it at Comic Con and places like that, people would know where we were going with it.
The idea for Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe actually started a while back, even before this game was a reality. Ed (Boon, Mortal Kombat co-creator) had thought about this for years – at times he’d randomly say things like, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do a mashup game? What kind of mashup could we do? MK versus… who?” and he had different ideas all the time about that. But you know how it is, there’s always a more important project going on so we kept thinking, “Now’s not the time to think about it”, and then… the timing was just right.
So, the guys went to DC about the idea, they were really excited about the concept and from there everything just kinda happened really fast. Next thing you know, we’re working on a new MK game, only this time it’s MK vs DC, and it also tied in with Ed’s idea at the time about rebooting the series. Starting over with a clean slate, and if anything this is a perfect example of a clean slate because it’s nothing like you’ve seen before. So we went into it thinking ‘this is something brand new’.
SPOnG: Looks like people are starting to warm up to it now as well which is pretty good news. You say your licensing guys suggested DC, what was it about that universe that seemed to click with the Mortal Kombat world? How would you say the two are similar?
Going back to the initial response, there were people who were saying, “How are you going to beat Superman? There’s no way anyone can beat Superman!” and that was the kind of thing that we were running up against, but the thing is we have guys on the team that are big comic book fans. They love comic books, they know the lore and all about the characters, and the fact is that Superman does have weaknesses. He’s not perfect. The one that almost everybody knows is Kryptonite, but there is another one if you’re big on comics, and that is magic and sorcery.
So, you have Superman who is weakened – he’s not completely weak, but he is weakened by the magic – while at the same time you’ll find characters like The Joker who’ll find himself a bit stronger from the worlds merging. The Joker’s the kinda guy who hides, gets other people to do his work, sets up traps and so on. But when you play through the Story Mode he realises that he can kick ass. So we found ways to move characters up and down on the scale of strengths and weaknesses to balance them out.