Editorials
NetherRealm Should Just Go Ahead and Make a Horror Icons Fighting Game
When rebooting its iconic fighting game franchise back in 2011, NetherRealm Studios laid down many new precedents in the pointedly titled Mortal Kombat. New X-Ray moves gave us gorier insights into already brutal maneuvers. A greater focus on the story offered clarity to a series timeline that had increasingly spun out of control. But one of the most surprising turns came in a stronger emphasis on guest characters.
This idea alone wasn’t anything new for the genre. After all, many people can think back fondly to the likes of Soul Calibur II, in which mainstay characters crossed swords with The Legend of Zelda’s Link in the GameCube version, Spawn on Xbox and so on. However, by 2011 NetherRealm could use its experience working with characters outside of its own universe – three years earlier in Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe – to have Scorpion, Liu Kang, and more series staples duke it out with iconic characters from other areas of celebrated fiction.
The potential for platform-exclusive heroes neatly fitting into Mortal Kombat’s oeuvre was established right from the off with the appearance of Kratos on PS3. Yet it was only via the game’s post-release DLC, when A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger quite literally got his claws into the roster, when players received a small taste of what was possible when a guest fighter that was truly R-rated entered the fold. It all looked rather promising at first, until suddenly it didn’t.
You see, while it’s all well and good to release guest fighters on a game-by-game basis, it does mean that from Mortal Kombat X onwards the concept hasn’t been able to reach its full potential. This was the entry where we finally got to see The Predator and Xenomorph go toe to toe on the screen – they were even joined by Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees. But if you assumed that the inclusion of the latter meant that Freddy from MK9 would be returning, you’d be wrong. And it’s a crying shame.
The nature for Mortal Kombat to follow a traditional release schedule means that we’re afforded mechanical improvements and visual upgrades, sure, yet it also causes players to miss out on what could be the ultimate fighting game crossover featuring horror icons. NeatherRealm’s inability to achieve this is no doubt a result of the strict licensing agreements for these characters that must be negotiated each time. But how is it that an asymmetrical multiplayer game like Dead by Daylight is eating Mortal Kombat’s lunch in this regard? It only stings further after seeing both the T-800 and RoboCop (another classic rivalry seen in comics) make their way into Mortal Kombat 11.
All this isn’t to say that Mortal Kombat isn’t making big strides in other areas, of course. The recent reveal of MK11’s Aftermath expansion alone proves that the series isn’t one to stand still. Narrative in fighting games is such a rarity these days, so it’s nice to see NetherRealm champion this by way of story mode DLC. I can’t help but feel, though, that by forcing players onto a new Mortal Kombat release each time, NetherRealm isn’t capitalizing on the foundation they’ve built in featuring these lauded horror guest fighters. That’s why the next natural step for the studio, and what I think this has all been building towards, is a standalone game fully dedicated to the concept.
It doesn’t seem so crazy when you realize that NetherRealm has done this before. Prior to the launch of Injustice: Gods Among Us, many were concerned about how a fighting game based entirely on DC comic book characters would work exactly. The fact that it wasn’t just a sequel to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe also made it seem like the value proposition was suddenly halved. And yet, by seamlessly translating Mortal Kombat’s most successful core tenants – a deep story, easy-to-learn but tough-to-master fight mechanics and visually impressive special moves – to the superhero mold, NetherRealm now has another hit series on its hands.
There’s no reason why a similar treatment couldn’t be given to the likes of The Predator, Leatherface, RoboCop, and more by way of a standalone fighting game. The current boundaries that exist between Mortal Kombat entries would finally be broken, letting Freddy Krueger finally cross paths with Jason Voorhees in a game and allowing even more horror icons yet to appear to be brought in, too. What’s more, going this route would enable NetherRealm to maintain the gore factor synonymous with the studio, avoiding the need to make visual compromises that had to be made when toning down the violence for the Injustice series.
Whereas previously, before the release of Injustice 2 in 2017, one could easily look at the first game and see it as a simple skin swap of Mortal Kombat, NetherRealm has continued to make the DC fighter feel totally unique and separate. There may not be guts and viscera bandied about the screen or eye-wincing fatality kills, but its willingness to delve into the back catalog of DC’s vault, coupled with the loot-dropping “Gear System” that lets you to enhance a character’s base stats, has seen this superhero series fly. The stage is now set for a horror icon fighting game to similarly adapt the Mortal Kombat formula in a way that is less censored and makes total sense.
The only real issue that might prevent this from happening, as alluded to earlier, are those pesky licensing deals. Because while DC owning all the rights to its characters makes it easy to annualize Injustice should NetherRealm ever want to, most of the guest horror characters featured in Mortal Kombat so far are owned by entirely separate entities. 20th Century Fox (a subsidiary of Disney) would make it easy for The Predator and Xenomorph to battle against each other, but who’s to say that Paramount would be so forthcoming to have the T-800 appear again following MK11?
Still, even if it would be just for a one-off, by smartly adapting the powers and abilities of every guest horror icon featured in Mortal Kombat thus far, NetherRealm Studios has proved that a standalone fighting game entirely centered around some of cinema’s fiercest slashers could work. Never seeing it happen? Now that would be the real injustice.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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