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Kingdom Hearts Fans Changing Twitter Bios En Masse to Organization XIII Members After ‘X’ Rebrand

Elon Musk’s affinity for the letter ‘X’ is shared by least one Kingdom Hearts character: Master Xehanort, the overarching villain of Square Enix’s popular trilogy and the leader of the Real Organization XIII.

The connection has led to Kingdom Hearts fans changing their profile pics en masse to those of the hooded Nobodies of Organization XIII. It’s just one in the massive wave of memes as fandoms across the board poke fun at Musk’s strange decision to do away with one of the world’s iconic brands.

It seemingly began with a user named Letryx who urged Kingdom Hearts fans to change their bio pic, writing, “KH fans, it’s time to rise up.”

The trend quickly caught on among Kingdom Hearts fans on the platform, many of whom posted scenes from the game as well.

Others came up with their own spin on the familiar cloaked figure.

Some fans opted to reference other games entirely.

The trend is partly born out of the fandom’s ongoing passion for the Kingdom Hearts series, which famously melds Disney iconics like Donald Duck (who is no longer the most powerful mage ever) with familiar faces from Final Fantasy and other franchises. Kingdom Hearts’ twisting lore is a bit too complicated to recap here, but suffice it to say that it has managed to capture a large and dedicated fandom.

The last major Kingdom Hearts release was 2019’s Kingdom Hearts III, which wrapped a large chunk of the main arc. Development on Kingdom Hearts IV, which starts in a city resembling Tokyo, is currently underway.

In the meantime, the chaos continues amid Musk’s sudden and shocking Twitter rebrand. No doubt we’ll be seeing plenty more fandom’s getting in on the act very soon.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Ubisoft Clarifies That It Won’t Delete Game Libraries Due to Game Inactivity After Fan Panic

Over the weekend, fans of Ubisoft games underwent a minor panic as a rumor spread that Ubisoft might be spontaneously deleting inactive Ubisoft accounts, permanently destroying digital game libraries if users aren’t logging on often enough. However, Ubisoft has now clarified that this is false, and users’ digital game libraries are safe, even if their accounts are inactive.

The rumors were kicked off when a tweet circulated showing an email entitled “Ubisoft Account Closure Due to Inactivity.” The email instructed that the recipient’s Ubisoft account had been temporarily suspended, and would be closed permanently in 30 days unless the closure was canceled by the account owner.

The email was then confirmed to be legitimate by the official Ubisoft Support Twitter account, which reiterated the given instructions for canceling the pending account closure.

While all of this is legitimate, what caused people to panic was the context offered by the original poster, who claimed that “You will lose all your games purchased forever.”

In an email to IGN, Ubisoft clarified its stance on account deletions. The publisher confirmed it has “for many years now” deleted inactive accounts in accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on how long companies are permitted to store individual personal information. The company claims its policies are “aligned with legal requirements and with the standards of the industry” and that they also serve as fraud prevention.

However, Ubisoft also clarified its criteria for account deletion, noting that it absolutely does not include accounts that have purchased games attached to them. The publisher it takes the following into account:

  • The gaming activity of the account since its creation
  • The account’s libraries: accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion [emphasis Ubisoft’s]
  • The duration of inactivity of the account, meaning the last login to our ecosystem (including from Ubisoft games on Steam and other platforms)
    • In practice, as of today, we have never deleted accounts that have been inactive for less than 4 years
  • The existence of an active subscription tied to the account.

Ubisoft added that emails such as the one circulated are sent to users 30 days prior to account deletion, and if a user tries to log in during that window, they will receive a notice and a link to reactivate the account upon login. You can read more about its policy on its official website.

So no, if you haven’t logged into your Ubisoft account in years, you’re not on the verge of losing your game library. Of course, there’s still plenty more to worry about regarding digital ownership of games or other media and the risk of losing those libraries at any time, especially at a time when digital game releases seem poised to push out physical any day now, but you can rest assured that at least in this situation, Ubisoft isn’t just obliterating accounts willy-nilly.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Starfield Fan Thinks They’ve Worked Out the Entire Skill Tree

One dedicated Starfield fan thinks they’ve uncovered the upcoming Bethesda RPG’s entire skill tree after spending 200 hours piecing together different gameplay clips, trailers, and other game snippets.

As reported by GamesRadar, asd8dhd on Reddit has listed each individual skill that’s identifiable by different elements of gameplay or developer commentary and put them together to create what they believe is the complete skill tree.

This includes things like the Equilibrium skill, which can be upgraded twice, pulled from zero gravity gameplay and a developer talking about how firing weapons in zero gravity will have different effects. Then there’s the martial arts skill, evidenced by gameplay showing the player locked in hand-to-hand combat.

These are all backed up and cross referenced with different elements too, like skills appearing in the background of other gameplay or when Bethesda has shown some parts of the overall skill tree. There’s also some easy hits for the Starfield sleuth like when the developer has blatantly shown the skills.

Thousands of minds are better than one, of course, so after sharing their work with the internet, asd8dhd got some feedback that’s helped them amend certain skills they’d originally got a tad wrong. And while the skill tree effort will likely continue between now and Starfield’s launch, the fan has said they also have “other projects” in the works.

Time is ticking on that front though, assuming Bethesda doesn’t delay Starfield again, as the game is due to launch in less than two months on September 6.

It’s perhaps the most anticipated video game release in recent memory and has therefore captured the attention of fans in some wild and wonderful ways. Virtual sandwiches got people talking about it being locked at 30 frames per second, for example, while an ESRB rating revealed drugs, in-game purchases, and jetpack sex.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Amnesia Developer Frictional Games Cutting Back on Horror

Amnesia: The Bunker developer Frictional Games is looking to cut back on horror games “to give greater focus on other emotional qualities”.

Speaking to 80.lv, Frictional creative director Thomas Grip echoed the sentiments of fellow horror studio Bloober Team, which also recently said it was stepping away from the games it was traditionally known for.

“While all of our games have been horror in some way, what we really try to do is to get a kind of playable immersion,” Grip said. “We want to give the player some sort of immersive fantasy, be that being a [World War 1] soldier trapped in a bunker or a robot stuck at the bottom of the ocean.

“Horror games naturally are where emotions are front and centre. Games really excel at this. However, we are also exploring themes outside of making things spooky.”

Grip explained that Frictional has made games about non-horror themes, like caring for an unborn child in Rebirth or ideas of consciousness in SOMA, but just packaged them in a horror setting. “It’s not about the fear, it’s about the holistic fantasy we deliver in each of our stories,” he said.

“For future projects, I think we will cut back a bit on the horror aspects in order to give greater focus on other emotional qualities. I am confident that these games will still feel like Frictional ones. The immersion, the personal journey, and a holistic vision are what I see as defining traits of a Frictional game — not just horror as such.”

Bloober Team, the developer behind the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake and other horror games like The Medium, Blair Witch, and Observer, made the similar announcement in June. Instead of stepping away from the genre altogether, however, Bloober Team said it was moving on from psychological horror to something more “mass-market”.

Frictional had found significant success with the horror genre, with its most recent release of Amnesia: The Bunker being praised by fans (holding a 92% “very positive” rating on Steam) and critics.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: “Amnesia: The Bunker is a smaller, more self-contained episode in the groundbreaking horror franchise that shows Frictional still has some chilling new tricks up their sleeves.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Tencent Buys Dying Light Developer Techland

Tencent announced it’s buying Polish developer Techland, the studio behind the original Dead Island and the Dying Light series.

In a blog post, Techland CEO Pawel Marchewka announced that Tencent “is currently in the process” of becoming the studio’s majority shareholder. “Teaming up with Tencent will allow us to move full speed ahead with the execution of the vision for our games,” Marchewka explained. “We have chosen an ally who has already partnered with some of the world’s finest video game companies and helped them reach new heights while respecting their ways of doing things.”

Marchewka insisted that even though Tencent will own the studio, Techland will retain full ownership of its intellectual properties, maintain creative freedom, and continue operating independently.

Marchewka founded Techland in 1991. The studio found fame for first-person shooter series Call of Juarez. In 2011, Techland hit the mainstream with open-world zombie game Dead Island and its sequel Riptide. The studio then split from publisher Deep Silver, who owns the Dead Island IP, citing creative differences, and in 2015 released Dying Light, a spiritual successor to Dead Island. Most recently, Techland released Dying Light 2: Stay Human.

Tencent is on something of a spending spree. In 2022, the Chinese mega-corp bought Sumo Group, the developer behind Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Wake Up Interactive. In December Tencent announced its intention to buy Back 4 Blood and Left 4 Dead developer Turtle Rock Studios.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Blizzard Promises Diablo 4 Fix for Heavily-Criticised Season 1 Menu Screen After Some Accidentally Activate Premium Battle Pass

Diablo 4 developer Blizzard has promised a fix for a user interface issue that is causing some players to accidentally activate the premium battle pass.

Streamer Rurikhan took to Twitter to post a clip showing how he inadvertently activated the 1,000 Platinum (£8.39 / $9.99) Season 1 premium battle pass on Diablo 4’s battle pass menu screen. Not only is the ‘Activate Premium Battle Pass’ button close to the button used to check your Season Journey, but the cursor defaults to the ‘Activate Premium Battle Pass’ button on this screen.

Rurikhan explained he was saving his battle pass unlock, obtained by buying either the Digital Deluxe or Ultimate Editions of Diablo 4, for a future season “since I don’t have time to commit to this one”.

“So Blizzard placed the ‘Activate Premium Battle Pass’ button right next to the button you have to constantly press to check your Season Journey,” Rurikhan said. “Guess what happened to me and at least five others on my stream? This is straight up malicious design.”

Popular streamer Rhykker also chimed in to accuse this user interface element of being a “dark pattern”. “IMO Blizzard needs to add a confirm button or something if they don’t want to be accused of using dark patterns. Simple ‘confirm’ pop-up would fix this.”

In response to the original Twitter post, which has had over three million views, Diablo 4 community chief Adam Fletcher said a temporary fix is in the works that will “at least ensure the cursor isn’t defaulted there and will instead be defaulted on Season Journey”. This small update is due out early the week starting July 24.

While this user interface issue is more of a problem on console than it is on PC, where mouse and keyboard input make accidental menu clicks less like, it’s still worth keeping an eye out for the ‘Activate Premium Battle Pass’ button so it can be avoided if you want to play Diablo 4 Season 1 without paying extra.

Last week, Blizzard addressed the backlash to Diablo 4’s controversial nerf patch, promising a new patch to revert many of the changes it made.

Despite various issues, Diablo 4 enjoyed an enormous launch that saw over 10 million people play in June. Diablo 4 is Blizzard’s fastest-selling game of all time, and has fuelled record revenue and profits for the company. If you’re still playing, check out our interactive Diablo 4 map to start tracking your progress as you play.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Tekken 8’s Katsuhiro Harada Calls Player Reaction So Far ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ | Comic Con 2023

At San Diego Comic-Con 2023, we had the chance to chat with Tekken 8 director Katsuhiro Harada and producer Michael Murray and learn the latest details on the much-anticipated next entry of the legendary fighting franchise.

During the interview, we touched on a wide variety of topics, including how the team is dealing with player feedback, how that feedback is making them a bit nervous as it’s been “overwhelmingly positive,” who the best-dressed fighter in the Tekken universe is, which move would hurt the most in real life, and much more.

Tekken 8 currently has no release date, but a PlayStation 5-only closed network test is currently taking place through today, July 24, and all platforms (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC) will have one from July 28 to 31. Unfortunately, sign-ups have already closed for these tests.

In our Tekken 8 hands-on preview, we said, “Tekken 8 looks phenomenal, its hits feel as impactful as ever, and its iconic cast of characters are even more uniquely defined thanks to the new Heat system. There’s still a lot we have yet to see, but as far first impressions go, Tekken 8 is a knockout.”

You can learn a ton more about Tekken 8 below, and be sure to also check out the details on crossplay and rollback netcode, as well as our exclusive first interview with Harada about the game.

IGN: What’s up everyone? Stella Chung here. I’m outside of the Tekken 8 area and I’m so excited, because we’re going to be talking to the developers, Katsuhiro Harada and Michael Murray. Let’s go inside and see what they can tell us. So, with there now being unique intro dialogue between specific characters before a match begins, do you have any specific favorite pairings or quips between two characters?

Katsuhiro Harada/Michael Murray: It’s something we’ve done in past entries, like Tag or sometimes Tekken 5. So it depends on the character pairing and what they say. So if they have some special relationship, whether good or bad, then it changes. And Harada said his favorite is Jun and Kazuya.

How will the new special control type help bring new characters and new players, not only to Tekken, but to fighting games as a whole?

KH/MM: The system that you mentioned is brand new for Tekken 8. We had something similar as a predecessor in Tekken 7, where you push a button and you can do certain commands simply. But this is even more evolved this time around. But one of the interesting things is, obviously, like you said, it’s good for bringing in new players, which you’ve noticed they like. But also, even if you’re a veteran player, if you’re trying to pick up a new character you’re not used to, it’s much easier if you’re using the special control systems. So, it’s actually beneficial for a large variety of different players. And so far, it’s been a great response to it.

What feedback have you been getting on the game over the last month since we talked during Summer of Gaming?

KH/MM: First off, we’ve had many different people playing the game. We have it hands on here and other places as well. We’ve announced it and then people have seen it and had time to play it for a bit now. So we were expecting, at some point, people to get used to it and then give us a variety of feedback. Some of it may be not positive. That’s how it works. And then we fix it and everything’s good. For us, it makes us a bit nervous that the reaction is so overwhelmingly positive. And last time that we talked to IGN, we were just showing the game at an earlier stage, but right now we have the closed network test going on in the background and we were able to get even more feedback from people. Obviously they’re loving the new gameplay mechanics, but also the net code and the online experience so far is the first time they’re trying that.

You have 16 playable characters here at San Diego Comic Con.

KH/MM: Yay, right?

For us, it makes us a bit nervous that the reaction is so overwhelmingly positive.

Yes. So who has been the most popular character so far?

KH/MM: We have 16 characters in the playable build. We haven’t had a chance to review the play data, so we can’t speak from an empirical standpoint, but just being able to see everyone play the game. Kazuya, a lot of people are picking up, King as well. So those are probably the two popular ones so far.

Could you go into detail about some of the changes that you have made for this closed test, what people are experiencing right now?

KH/MM: Well, it’s not that long since we last talked, so there hasn’t been any drastic changes to the gameplay, just fine-tuning, et cetera. The biggest difference is probably just the online play since everyone’s seen that for the first time. Although we’ve been saying it, not many people notice it, there is cross play in the game and people can try that out. Not this week, but when we open it up to the other platforms as well. So that’s there and then people are able to just see the matching and see some of the other elements of the game as well.

Tekken contains some of the most eccentric and stylish characters in modern fighting games. Out of the current roster shown, who’s the best dressed, in your opinion?

KH/MM: It’s tough, because all the characters are so unique this time around as well. But, especially Lili, because there’s a certain designer that he had kept an eye on for quite some time, and this is the first time that we actually worked with her. Her name’s Jasmine, I believe, from New Zealand. And we actually asked her to design Lili this time around. And so that’s a brand new costume for her, based on the artist that he’d been wanting to work with for quite some time. So, that’s probably his favorite one.

Earlier today, you were on a panel which I watched and you guys were fantastic. You were discussing real life moves and how they’re represented in Tekken. So, out of every move in the game, which one do you think hurts the most?

KH/MM: That’s really tough question, but maybe King’s. All of his throws are pretty dangerous if you were actually going to do them real life. But one thing that’s maybe doesn’t stand out at first, is low kicks on the shins or other areas of low kicks. This is because it hurts quite a bit for people who aren’t used to it. Someone like me who does Muay Thai, you get used to it because your shins get harder, but he said that it must really sting if you get a low kick and you’re not used to it.

Those are good answers. For me, I’m just like, “I’m good. I won’t take any of them.” Well, thank you so much. This was so fun. Thank you so much for taking us time.

KH/MM: Our pleasure.

Stella is a Video Producer, Host, and Editor at IGN. Her gameplay focus is on competitive FPS games and she’s previously reviewed Apex Legends, Hyper Scape, Halo Infinite Multiplayer, and Battlefield 2042. She regularly hosts and shoutcasts competitive Apex Legends and Halo Infinite tournaments when she isn’t streaming on her Twitch channel after work outs. You can follow her on Twitter @ParallaxStella.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Star Wars Outlaws May Have a Cooking System Based on Cryptic Tease From Director

Have you always wanted to know what people cook and eat in a galaxy far, far away? Well, it sounds like Star Wars Outlaws may give players the chance to discover that for themselves, according to a cryptic tease from Ubisoft Massive creative director Julian Gerighty.

In a panel covering the game today at San Diego Comic-Con, Gerighty participated in a discussion regarding details of Tatooine and the new location the team created, the moon Toshara. After chatting about speeders and geographic aesthetics, Gerighty concluded the panel with a tease of two potential surprises one might encounter on Toshara:

“There are a couple surprises I don’t want to spoil,” he said. “There is a particular predator on Toshara that is mind-blowingly cool. So if you have a fear of frogs, this might not be the game for you. It’s okay, it’s very rare. The second thing is that food is incredibly important to the world of Star Wars. And if you enjoy food and discovering alien concoctions, this is going to be an exciting experience for you.”

Did…Gerighty just confirm a cooking system? It’s not certain. But so many games, including open world games, these days implement cooking systems it wouldn’t be a shock. The Star Wars universe hasn’t really seen an in-depth, interactive cooking scenario before (aside from a series of official cookbooks), so including one in Outlaws would be a major shift in allowing an audience to experience the unique cuisines present across the galaxy. Blue milk, anyone?

We also interviewed the team from Ubisoft Massive and Lucasfilm about some of these same topics for an even more in-depth look on Outlaws.

You can catch up on all the other news coming out of Comic-Con in our roundup of everything announced.

Comedy Shooter High on Life Surprise-Launches on PS4 and PS5

Talking gun comedy shooter High on Life has launched on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 after seven months’ of console exclusivity on Xbox.

Developer Squanch Games made the surprise announcement during San Diego Comic-Con 2023. “The fans have spoken. And spoken. And spoken,” said studio director Mike Fridley. “We’ve been thrilled with High On Life’s reception since it launched in December. Our PlayStation fans have been slightly less thrilled, which is why we’re so excited to share that it’s coming their way very soon. Like now soon! Thank you for your patience!”

IGN gave High on Life 8/10 in its review: “High on Life is a laugh-out-loud funny space odyssey that’s chaotic, bizarre, and a ton of fun,” we said. It was a smash hit, and, with the help of a day-one launch on Game Pass, hit more than 7.5 million players. High on Life was also the biggest Xbox Game Pass release of 2022, the biggest third-party launch in Game Pass history, and the biggest single-player game launch on Game Pass ever.

Squanch recently announced the first DLC update, High on Knife, which introduces a brand-new talking gun character, Harper, voiced by Sarah Sherman (Saturday Night Live) and a goopy new boss named Mux who’s voiced by Gabourey Sidibe (Precious, American Horror Story). Kenny, the gun voiced by Justin Roiland (who parted ways with the studio after the since-dropped domestic violence allegations against him became public), isn’t in the DLC. High on Knife comes out this fall across PC, Xbox and PlayStation.

If you need a catch-up, here’s everything announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2023.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Mortal Kombat 1 Interview: NetherRealm Explains Why it Chose Homelander, Peacemaker, Omni-Man

At San Diego Comic-Con 2023, we were able to sit down with NetherRealm Studios’ Ed Boon, Thiago Gomes, and Dominic Cianciolo, along with voice actors Kelly Hu and Yuri Lowenthal, to discuss Mortal Kombat 1.

Hu and Lowenthal discussed a bit about their characters and the changes made to them as the next installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise serves as a reboot for the series.

The interview follows a big reveal that happened during the Mortal Kombat panel that took place yesterday, which revealed that Homelander, Peacemaker, Omni-Man, along with returning Mortal Kombat characters Quan Chi, Ermac, and Takeda will be available in the first Kombat Pack. Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon explains why the studio chose Homelander, Peacemaker, and Omni-Man as guest characters and how all three appropriately tie into the theme of the first Kombat Pack.

Read on for our full San Diego Comic-Con interview with NetherRealm Studios.

IGN: It’s been a while since we saw Li Mei. When was the last time we saw Li Mei in the series?

Ed Boon, Creative Director: I think it might have been Armageddon, was it? It was quite a while ago. Yeah, we’re very excited. One of the returning 3D characters, which has been requested quite a bit from our fans.

IGN: Where does Li Mei fit into the story here?
Dominic Cianciolo, Story Director: So Li Mei in the reboot of Mortal Kombat Universe is the first constable of the city of Sun Do, which is Outworld’s capital city. So she’s responsible for policing and maintaining order and that kind of thing. And before she had this role, she was the head of the Umgadi, which is the new palace guard for the royal family of Outworld. And so she’s got a lot of responsibility. She’s obviously a very tremendous fighter and she’s got a really enhanced position in the new universe.

IGN: Now, what’s her play style like in Mortal Kombat 1?

EB: We tried to incorporate a number of her signature moves that she’s had in the previous games, but nowshe’s got this fireworks effect thing. I don’t know, Tiago can elaborate on that.

Thiago Gomes, Art Director: A lot of her effects are really these bright colors and they lean back into the aesthetic of the Sun Do city, and there’s a lot of really bright, awesome effects that are associated with it.
IGN: Very cool. I believe you’re also sure that Tanya and Baraka are both coming?

EB: Baraka we had to bring back obviously, but instead of, story-wise, just that being part of his race, it’s more of an infection and it’s like a disease. So both Mileena and Baraka have this disease called Tarkat, which causes them to have the growths in their teeth and all that. So a lot of these characters are coming back as you know them, but their origins are completely different. That’s the big draw of this game is characters that you know in completely brand new story.

IGN: So in terms of that timeline reset, what were the elements of Mortal Kombat lore that you’re most

excited to tweak and have fun with?

DC: I, there was a lot, I mean, when the decision was made, we wanted to reboot, wanted to do something
different. I was really looking at all of that great foundation that we had had before. And so in talking
with Ed about it, what he really wanted to do was take that foundation, but take the story in a
completely different direction so that we’re surprising people and adding that novelty to it. And so being
able to play with the classic Sub-Zero, Scorpion relationship, playing with Mileena’s origin and her
relationship to Kitana and Sindel, it was a lot of fun to be able to tweak all of those things and just push
them in a slightly different direction.

EB: There are hints of things that, again, there’s always a competition between Scorpion and Subzero, but
now they’re not deadly enemies who are trying to kill each other. They’re brothers and it’s a brotherly conflict. And so that’s one example of all the kind of things that we’ve twisted around with the characters, the relationships, and throughout the game. And again, Liu Kang and Raidon have literally switched. Liu Kang is like the God and Raidon’s the more common person, and so it’s great. To me, that’s one of the things I’m most excited about with this game story.

IGN: And you’re playing Smoke?

Yuri Lowenthal, Voice of Smoke: Yes.

IGN: So what is this version of Smoke like?

YL: I’m going to throw it back to Dominic just to make sure that he’s in the right place as far as the

lore goes. I mean, one of the things that really attracted me to this when I was originally cast was I said,

“I’m not really big into fighting games.” And then Dominic started going down this story path with me

and I’m like, “Oh, that’s something I can connect to.” That’s what got me excited finally about this in

particular, was all the story that’s coming into it and the story that’s being created, but now as far as

where he is in the Liu Kang and all the, yeah.

DC: Smoke. He’s very similar to what we’ve seen before? The big difference is that we are playing up the relationship that he had with Kuai Liang, Scorpion, and it is taking that relationship and deepening it and fitting that into that whole brother dynamic. He’s the adopted brother of Subzero and Scorpion, and it really levels up their conflicts and their relationships.

IGN: And as for DLC Fighters, I think you’ve confirmed now it’s official Peacemaker, Homelander and OmniMan. What a trio.

YL: When I heard that I thought it was a joke. The best.

IGN: Is there a theme? Because I think with Mortal Kombat X and 11, there were sort of a theme to your DLC characters, horror movies and action movies. What’s the theme here?
EB: Well, obviously it’s R rated or M rated heroes and villains more from the comic book genre. Again,
Peacemaker, Homelander, Omni-Man, they’re all in this hyper and violent category of guests. And that’s
the theme there along with the Mortal Kombat characters of Takeda and Quan Chi. And I’m drawing a blank, and Ermac. If you think of the Omni-Man and the Homelander, that’s the kind of category that is our guest characters.

“If you think of the Omni-Man and the Homelander, that’s the kind of category that is our guest characters.

IGN: I imagine for a lot of viewers of the boys watching fatalities being performed on Homelander will be cathartic.

DC: Oh, yeah.

EB: I think a lot of people just seeing Homelander and Omni-Man in the same frame will be just, again, one
of those classic who would win in a fight kind of scenarios that players will be able to see the result of.

IGN: So Mortal Kombat 1 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X and S and PC and Nintendo Switch. First of all, how is that even possible?

EB: A lot of work, a lot of optimization, but we are very excited with how that version is turning out too.

IGN: I’m excited to see that one too. Let’s see. The Kameo Fighter system, there’s a lot of conversation in the community. How do you feel about the fan reaction to that mechanic coming out of the recent online stress test?

EB: Oh, we couldn’t be happier. The players have come up with, which is exactly what we wanted to

happen. They’ve come up with their own combos that we’ve never even seen before. And once

something like that happens, we really get excited because then we feel like we’ve thrown out the tools

for the sandbox for players to just come up with their own stuff. And that’s exactly what happened, and

I couldn’t be more excited about how players have embraced that feature.

Taylor Lyles is a reporter at IGN.