Ahead of Mortal Kombat 11‘s launch later this week (you did watch the awesome launch trailer, right?), Netherrealm Lead Character Artist Brendan George revealed to PlayStation Blog the alternate costumes for four kombatants, detailing the thought process behind each.
It’s not explicitly revealing any new details about the game, but come on, they look cool. No one wants a lame-looking fighter, right?
For the returning Erron Black, the team used a combination of rich colours and “bold confident shapes” in the design of his armour plating to make sure his moves were readable. The team also took inspiration from iconic Australian outlaw Ned Kelly to come up with this design.
For Shao Kahn, the team wanted to do a past version of the ruler of Outworld, but it was one that not only didn’t exist, but took a few tries to nail down. The result is a look for when he was leading armies into battle.
As for Raiden, the team decided to harken back to his MKII look, with a few modifications. On the technical side of things, the skin showcases the silk material which is one of several new material shading models in MK11. As well, this skin also used the same facial data from Netherrealm’s previous game, Injustice 2, with a “higher fidelity”.
Lastly, newcomer Cetrion’s alternate is a darker version of the character, which showcases “the destructive side of mother nature”, but one that would not come across as evil. This in itself was again a difficult task, but resulted in one of George’s favourite skins.
Mortal Kombat 11 enters the battle on April 23 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.