Mortal Kombat 12 has seemingly been 'leaked' by a producer at series developer NetherRealm Studios.
Jonathan Andersen, a senior production manager at NetherRealm, recently posted a (now deleted) image of his desk covered in Mortal Kombat memorabilia on Twitter (check out the image at VGC). But eagle-eyed fans spotted that the monitor screen in the corner of the image shows a file titled "MK12_Mast…", while snippets of an email on the screen say "our fans eagerly scrape the internet" and " take extra care with this material" - suggesting Mortal Kombat 12 is in the works.
However, fans suspect the image may not have been an "accidental" leak at all, but instead a tease for the next entry in NetherRealm Studios' fighting game series.
Opinion: an accident or tease?
It's been three years since the release of Mortal Kombat 11, so it would make sense that NetherRealm is working on its next entry in the long-running fighting series. Typically entries in the series are released around four years apart, with Mortal Kombat 11 (2019) released four years after Mortal Kombat 10 (2015) and Mortal Kombat 9 (2011) released four years after Mortal Kombat 10.
What's more, GamesBeat journalist Jeff Grubb claimed in 2021 that he's heard the NetherRealm is working on Mortal Kombat 12, rather than a new Injustice game, due to concerns around whether Warner Bros. Games will sell the studio in the future.
But then there's the question of whether this leak really was an accident. After all, NetherRealm boss and series co-creator, Ed Boon, is notorious for teases, with fans often unsure which of his tweets are teases and which aren't. So a 'leak' tease would be on-brand for the studio.
What's more, the specificity of what's shown in the image (nothing critical but just enough for a tease) seems staged - even if the tweet was removed.
It's likely, then, that Mortal Kombat 12 will be announced in the coming months, and (I imagine) the game will then release in 2023, sticking to the four-year release pattern NetherRealm has followed until now.
