Netherrealm Studios' Narrative Director Answers All of Our Mortal Kombat 1 Lore Questions

ign.com:

At Gamescom 2023, we were able to sit down with Netherrealm Studios' story and voiceover director Dominic Cianciolo. During our interview, we asked Cianciolo a ton of questions about Mortal Kombat 1, specifically the lore side of things.

As previously confirmed by the developer, the upcoming installment in this popular fighting game franchise serves as a soft reboot for the series.

Read on for our full Gamescom interview with NetherRealm Studios' Dominic Cianciolo below, then check out our final preview and our separate conversation with director Ed Boon.

IGN: So I guess the first thing that I wanted to talk about was, was it always in the cards and the plan to do this grand reset of the timeline as far back as Mortal Kombat 11 and then Aftermath? Because I remember I watched the ending of Aftermath and I actually took it as, oh, we're going back to the era of Great Kung Lao and we're going to tell that story. Was it always in the cards for this?

Dominic Cianciolo, Story and Voiceover Director: I think when Ed chose the direction for Mortal Kombat 11's story with the various pitches that we gave him, and we sort of ended up with this chronica and the time reset, I think we all knew at that point there was going to be a reboot in the cards. The exact nature of that reboot was not determined at that time. That was kind of later. As we went into Aftermath and we came out that, Ed's and I had ideas like, you know what? We've been doing this same story or same vein of stories for the last 30 years. We're just in this anniversary. We've got this chance to start fresh, let's see what we can do and how to change it. And from there it became a discussion of what kind of a reboot did he want?

And so there was this discussion of,