Boon Says Mortal Kombat Rosters Are Decided by Stories and Timelines

While Mortal Kombat 11 has a large cast, with 34 characters available for those who purchase the expansion and all DLC, there are still some notable characters missing. (For example, people have looked for Mileena, whose most recent appearance was in Kitana’s Friendship.) In a Daily Star Gaming interview, NetherRealm Studios Creative Director Ed Boon talked about how a Mortal Kombat roster is picked and his joking about Mortal Kombat 11 Mileena appearances. Basically, it comes down to how long it has been since someone showed up and if they are a good fit story-wise.

First, with regard to Mileena appearing again in a Mortal Kombat game, he described his comments on her appearances as his way of joking with the community. For example, on April Fools’ Day 2020, he made the following tweet:

You will never see Mileena in one of our games ever again.

ever. https://t.co/aVstCcC50z

— Ed Boon (@noobde) April 1, 2020

When talking about her in the interview, he said, “Actually, I’ve never seriously said that I don’t want to see Mileena come back to MortalKombat . Most of the time I am just teasing the fanatics who demand she be added 100 times a day.” He lampooned those sorts of tweets back in January 2020.

As for determining Mortal Kombat 11 rosters, here is what Boon had to say:

Mortal Kombat has about 80 characters in its roster now. So, we tend to look back and occasionally revive a character who hasn’t been seen in a long time, like we did with Fujin in Aftermath .

We do take into account the story because some characters existed in different parts of the timeline so we need to stay somewhat consistent with the narrative that we are telling.

But move sets and “cool factor” also play a big part in which character we decide to bring back.

Mortal Kombat 11 is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Its Aftermath expansion, which adds Robocop, Sheeva, and Fujin, debuted in May 2020.