In the wake of the news of Mortal Kombat 1’s cancellation of it’s future content, it’s easy to be discourage as a Netherrealm Studio and Mortal Kombat fan, though there is a bit of a silver lining, at least the current Kombat Pack will finish. And in light of that Kombat Pack’s finish, there is now an early preview of Conan the Barbarian, the fifth and penultimate character in the Kombat Pack.
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There’s not too much to the 30 second preview. There’s a cute interaction between Conan and his fellow barbarian archetype, Shao Kahn. We can see that Conan has a projectile reflector as he bounced the Cyrax kameo’s energy net back at him, and he’s got some fancy swinging for his combos.
Sadly, it seems that the majority of the internet’s reaction to this snippet is not hype (many fans didn’t want Conan or the Terminator at all, actually) but criticism of how stiff Conan’s movement looks. Even worse, many fans are drawing comparisons between Conan’s animations and Tusk’s animations from Iron Galaxy’s Killer Instinct 2013 from over a decade ago, as the two are very similar archetypes and have very similar moves.
The comparison isn’t favorable, and because of NRS’ rather infamous legacy of stiff and awkward animations the internet seems to be having a bit of a laugh at NRS’ expense. In the wake of the cancellation of future DLC and Kombat Packs, this is probably pretty disheartening.
It’s too late for Mortal Kombat 1’s future now, but maybe Conan and Terminator will be fun and Mortal Kombat 1’s present can still be fun. Tournaments are still running, and people are still playing (though there does seem to be a major movement towards returning to Mortal Kombat 11). Mortal Kombat games aren’t typically long for the world, content wise, so enjoy this one while you can.