It’s safe to say that Mortal Kombat 11‘s latest DLC addition is far and away the fighting game’s most controversial to date.
Announced last year, DC’s Joker was confirmed to be one of three guest characters NetherRealm had planned for the series’ latest installment alongside Terminator and Spawn. Unlike the latter pair, however, initial reactions to Joker’s design were met with heavy criticism due to supposedly looking too ‘clean-cut’ and unthreatening. In fact, many critics likened Batman’s feared nemesis to looking more like an attempt at cosplay rather than the real deal, negativity that NetherRealm seemingly ultimately took to heart.
Debuted via a surprise trailer at last year’s Game Awards, the new and improved appearance for Gotham’s most notorious criminal immediately attracted an overwhelmingly positive reception from fans, a sentiment that only spread further upon the release of last week’s official gameplay trailer. Mortal Kombat 11‘s Joker is a respectable iteration of the iconic villain, then, but new concept art has revealed an even greater number of scrapped designs.
The image, which can be found in-game, showcases a number of unused arrangements, all of which appear to be based on live-action versions of the character. Numbers 2 and 3, in particular, look incredibly similar to Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger’s portrayals respectively, with the first even sharing certain qualities with Joaquin Phoenix’s critically acclaimed interpretation. Why NetherRealm ultimately decided against using any of the above for Joker’s Mortal Kombat debut, we’ll likely never know, though there’s still a chance that fans could one day see them progress beyond the concept stage.
Given how popular DLC skin packs are for Mortal Kombat 11, we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some, if not all of the above, be added in a similar manner. That’s the hope, at least, as some of these are simply too good not to be made available. Fingers crossed!
