NetherRealm Studios Hides Potential Mortal Kombat 12 Tease In Thank You Video

The Mortal Kombat series reached its 30th anniversary back in October, and the team currently behind the bloody brutality has released a video thanking its fans for three decades of kombat--which may hold a quick peek at the future of the franchise.

The two-minute video features multiple NRS team members--including designers, animators, and more --both in the office and working from home. A few recognizable faces, such as community manager and host of KombatKast Tyler Lansdown and longtime audio director Dan Forden, also appear in the video.

The video ends with the most famous name in Mortal Kombat, co-creator Ed Boon, being saved for last. After he thanks the fans and says "we're not quite done yet," we see a 12-second clip of sand falling in an hourglass, with the final grain of said exploding before the video fades to black.

While nothing is specifically named, we know that Mortal Kombat 12 is planned for release in 2023, as that date was specified by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav during the company's Q1 2023 earnings call. As the hourglass resembles Kronika's Hourglass--the final stage of MK11--and Kronika herself was defeated at the end of MK11's story, this tease could relate to MK12's debut trailer.

The clip is the latest in a long series of teases and mentions of Mortal Kombat 12, as not only did Zaslav mention it during the earning call, but a NetherRealm producer left a MK12 mention in a photo of his desk back in January. Mortal Kombat 11, NetherRealm's most recent game, first launched in April 2019, with the expanded Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate releasing in November 2020.