Presently, we are obsessed with time. Each era has its own obsession, whether that be war, technology, politics, celebrity status, or anything else. The '90s were all about counter-culture. The '70s were all about political intrigue. The new millennium was all about endless opportunity. Right now, we are all about time.

Time loops and multiverses/convergent timelines are all over our fiction, possibly owing to an escapism as our work-life balance has crumbled, or potentially because exploring a sense of self is celebrated and far less repressed than it once was. I don't know the reason for it. All I know is I am bored of it, especially when it combines with another obsession of the modern age: IP. Mortal Kombat 1 is the latest offender in this long line. Maybe if the line gets long enough it'll loop back around to the start.

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Let's begin with the name: Mortal Kombat 1. In common parlance, we call the first game or movie in a series '1'. Iron Man 1, Mass Effect 1, and so on. But these aren't actually the names. The movie is just called Iron Man. Recently, in part due to our endlessly hunger for IP, popular media has gotten around this issue with subtitles. It's not Shazam 1 and Shazam 2, it's Shazam and Shazam Fury of the Gods. Content is endless, not numbered. I could allow Mortal Kombat 1 if this was a remake of the first game, and they were being cute with the official title. But this is Mortal Kombat 12. The reason for the name lies in our obsession with time.

scorpion in mortal kombat 11
via NetherRealm

The reason it is called 1 and not 12 is because it features a 'Reborn' universe. It's the same saga continuing, but in a new universe. Right now, it's unclear whether the characters we've seen are the same characters with the same memories and experiences, different versions of what are essentially the exact same characters in new timelines, or radically different characters altogether. The press release around the trailer says the game features 'unexpected twists on classic rivalries and original backstories' and 'reimagined versions of iconic characters as they’ve never been seen before', which does suggest a fresh look.

My issue with all of this is it's not a fresh look. This is now a played out idea, and I suspect it will amount to little more than alternative costumes and a tweaking of the origin story that leads to minimal changes. I've never found Mortal Kombat's story to be that impressive, lacking the personal stakes of Tekken or the drive of NetherRealm's other flagship fighter, Injustice. I don't trust MK with a multiverse and suspect it will just be used as a stronger justification for the silly DLC characters and the chance to dress the regular roster up in new gear, while charging for the privilege through microtransactions. I'd love to be proven wrong but this feels like a trend being chased.

A clock used to tease Mortal Kombat 12.

When it comes to the name, many of you may point out Battlefield 1, and while I also think the naming conventions are silly there, at least that had a purpose - it was to highlight it was taking place in World War 1. Still silly, but silly with good intentions. Likewise, I'm not entirely down on multiverses as a concept. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a fantastic movie that explores the fears at the heart of why multiverse stories resonate - could I have been something else, something more? Is there a version of me out there who is happy, and why can't I be like them? Was I destined to fail, or did I just fail? It's a powerful, romantic, heart-wrenching story, and that's because it uses the multiverse as a narrative device, not as a toybox to pull recognisable characters from.

Maybe Mortal Kombat is too daft a game for me to care about this so much. Mortal Kombat switched to subtitles after MK4, and the ninth one was just called Mortal Kombat - the same name as the first. Then came Mortal Kombat X, introducing Roman numerals, before Mortal Kombat 11 immediately abandoned them. And now Mortal Kombat 1. This doesn't buck the trend when it comes to naming conventions. It also has played with timelines before (all fighting games do to an extent, with their non-canon narratives), and it's no stranger to shoving in IP characters like Joker or The Terminator. Not to mention the countless spin-offs - some canon, some not. It’s a mess before multiverses even come into play.

That's probably fair - Mortal Kombat is exactly the type of game to go after this trend and do something, if not interesting, then at least over the top and wild with it. It's just hard to get excited about these sorts of timeline stories when it feels like we've seen them all before and they're often an excuse not to tell a story rather than a story itself. Mortal Kombat is the latest game to take on time, but the clock is ticking for why I should care.

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