Image via Complex Original
Start the interview by clicking the image above.
In November 2008, Midway Games issued Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the first crack from MK co-creator Ed Boon and his team at translating DC Comics characters into fighting game form. While promising enough based on the magnitude of the franchises at hand, skimping on the gore and secrets (two staples of a Boon release) left MK vs. DCU as a so-so game time is bound to forget.
"With this game, we don't have the Mortal Kombat requirements, so it's just 100 percent embracing the DC Universe"
Nearly five years later, much has changed. Midway went belly-up long ago, the flagging Mortal Kombat franchise was seriously rejuvenated with the major 2011 game released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Boon and company are back on the DC brand with Injustice: Gods Among Us. The title—which arrived on iOS on April 3 and hits Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii U on April 16—sports a stacked roster and marked differences from the Mortal Kombat team's last stab at DC Comics. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Joker, Lex Luthor, Nightwing, the Flash, Harley Quinn, Solomon Grundy and a whole mess of other names are playable, and Injustice's graphics and gameplay hew to the standards of 2011's Mortal Kombat. That said, this Fatality-free, surely T-rated game does aim for certain differences from Boon's flagship franchise. We caught up with the Creative Director of NetherRealm Studios himself to discuss Injustice's development and fundamentals, plus whether or not he'd entertain the idea of orchestrating DC vs. Marvel.
RELATED: Ed Boon's 12 Biggest Mortal Kombat Memories
RELATED: 25 Additional DC Characters That Should Be In "Injustice: Gods Among Us"
"Mortal Kombat" Creator Ed Boon Talks "Injustice: Gods Among Us" And The Possibility Of "DC Vs. Marvel"
Start the interview by clicking the image above.
In November 2008, Midway Games issued Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the first crack from MK co-creator Ed Boon and his team at translating DC Comics characters into fighting game form. While promising enough based on the magnitude of the franchises at hand, skimping on the gore and secrets (two staples of a Boon release) left MK vs. DCU as a so-so game time is bound to forget.
"With this game, we don't have the Mortal Kombat requirements, so it's just 100 percent embracing the DC Universe"
Nearly five years later, much has changed. Midway went belly-up long ago, the flagging Mortal Kombat franchise was seriously rejuvenated with the major 2011 game released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Boon and company are back on the DC brand with Injustice: Gods Among Us. The title—which arrived on iOS on April 3 and hits Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii U on April 16—sports a stacked roster and marked differences from the Mortal Kombat team's last stab at DC Comics. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Joker, Lex Luthor, Nightwing, the Flash, Harley Quinn, Solomon Grundy and a whole mess of other names are playable, and Injustice's graphics and gameplay hew to the standards of 2011's Mortal Kombat. That said, this Fatality-free, surely T-rated game does aim for certain differences from Boon's flagship franchise. We caught up with the Creative Director of NetherRealm Studios himself to discuss Injustice's development and fundamentals, plus whether or not he'd entertain the idea of orchestrating DC vs. Marvel.
RELATED: Ed Boon's 12 Biggest Mortal Kombat Memories
RELATED: 25 Additional DC Characters That Should Be In "Injustice: Gods Among Us"
Separate Games
You've talked before about how Injustice and 2011's Mortal Kombat are totally separate games. What's the most crucial difference between the two?
The main difference is the size and scope of the fighting. Injustice is much bigger in terms of the event that happen. You're knocking people through buildings, and there are multiple arenas. There's just gigantic, huge fighting areas with multiple arenas and much bigger events. You throw cars at people as opposed to throwing a weapon or something like that at 'em. It's much bigger in scale, much more epic, much more kind of a movie thing.
Also, where Mortal Kombat is just so outrageously violent, the violence [here] is really replaced with epic, gigantic, over-the-top scope events—Superman punching somebody into outer space, Flash running around the globe with a big wind-up punch, Batman summoning a Batmobile to run his opponent over. Those are just the two main differences in terms of the presentation and all that. At the heart of both games is a fighting game, but they couldn't be more different as far as their presentation.
In most fighting games—Mortal Kombat included—the arenas that you fight in don't make a huge difference with regards to your strategy in the game. Injustice has the big objects that you interact with to help you with the fight. They actually play a role in the fight. That's another thing that separates the two.
The idea
Whose idea was Injustice in the first place? Did NetherRealm go to Warner Bros., did Warner Bros. come to you, or was it sort of a mutual thing?
It was kind of a mutual thing. When we were part of Midway Games, we did Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe so we had worked with these characters before, but it was a lot more of their more traditional versions. When we joined the Warner Bros. team, we obviously had conversations about 'Well, what could we do with existing Warner Bros. properties because Warner Bros. has such a wealth of intellectual properties—Harry Potter, all the DC library of characters, and all the movies they have?' As DC came up, we just began conversations about a more contemporary approach to the characters. DC was also happening to be planning their New 52launch of characters, so everything just seemed to really coincide. It just looked like it was meant to happen. Our team wanted to do something outside of the Mortal Kombat universe, and we feel like these characters hadn't been fully used to their maximum potential yet.
violence
Aside from any violent elements, were there any restrictions imposed on you? Any characters or backgrounds you couldn't use or reference?
The only restriction on us was having us be consistent with the abilities and themes and personalities and the characters. We're obviously not going to have someone like Batman flying or killing a bunch of people or doing something that's completely out of character. I just called that a restriction, but I don't think it's anything that we ran into just because we would never have proposed that in the first place. DC was really just like, 'Hey, let's just stay true to the character,' but outside of that, they were unbelievably flexible with regards to new designs and new takes on the characters. We weren't following a particular version of them. We weren't following the movie one, the Arkham City ones, any of the animated series or the New 52 even. We were really just trying to create our own version's universe of these characters. Probably the funnest part of it was just exploring ways of presenting that.
Primary Sources
When you were preparing the basic look of the game, what primary sources did you use?
We have a lot of really talented artists on our team, so obviously, [when] you ask one of the artists, 'What would your take on Batman be? What would your take on Superman be?' is like a dream come true for them. There was no problem finding ideas. For every character that we had, every costume we came up with, there was 10 that were not used, so it was just a tidal wave of design ideas we were going back and forth with. Ideas came from everybody: DC had ideas, we had ideas. They were very receptive to how outside the box we went with a lot of these characters. A lot of stuff that people haven't seen yet will be even more outrageous in terms of new interpretations.
Alternate Costumes
Do you have any alternate costumes that will resemble more traditional themes? Most of what's been seen resembles the looks from the New 52 line.
Yeah. There's definitely going to be different themed versions of the character costumes. If you were to say what would our stuff look closest to, probably the New 52 would be the closest, but even our guys now are different from that as well. We have so many options with regards to DLC and things like that to let us do stuff. We've thrown around so many ideas. We haven't any decisions, but how cool would it be to play as the Arkham City Batman [or] the Red Son Superman? All of the iterations have happened over the years are just such a great wealth of options.
MK vs DC Universe
You're in a different position from when you did Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Having made that game, read feedback, etc., has anything changed in your approach to Injustice based on that past experience?
I think the biggest learning experience we had was Mortal Kombat vs. DC sold very well, but it was a game that needed to appeal to two very different fans, so to speak. Mortal Kombat people want their characters. They want the violence, they want the blood, they want the very established storyline. DC has their own characters with their abilities, their history, and their styles of gameplay. Merging the two was definitely a challenge. With this game, we don't have the Mortal Kombat requirements, so it's just 100 percent embracing the DC Universe—just really celebrating that whole part of it: the essence of what these characters do, the superpowered battles of the gods, over-the-top extreme events happening in the game. That's really at the heart of what this game is. This game doesn't have to appeal to the specific needs of Mortal Kombat players.
DC vs Marvel
You did another interview where you joked that you'd be up for Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter. Now, how about DC vs. Marvel? Would you consider that possibility?
Yes. [With] DC vs. Marvel, the obstacle would not be our studio wanting to do it, I can tell you that much.