Game Tech: Mortal line lives on in the cinema

“Finish him!” It’s one of the most famous lines in video games – in fact, they pretty much built the entire series around it. Mortal Kombat is notorious for brutal finishing moves, in which the characters kill off their opponents in horrific (and often humourous) fashion.

Now they are hoping to end something else – the run of terrible Mortal Kombat films that have plagued Hollywood. In January 2021, Mortal Kombat (2021) will hit theatres, even though we expect a lot more hitting than just that.

The film will be directed by a feature debutant, a man called Simon McQuoid who seems to have done most of his work in advertising, including pieces on Call of Duty and Halo, which may explain the link to gaming in this case.

The January 2021 date was announced this week, pushed forward from April of the same year, which may not bode well for faith in the project.

Still, while the film doesn’t have a single famous actor to its name, it has pulled together a decent list of stuntmen and martial artists to pull off the famous fatalities.

And the fatalities will indeed be shown on screen, with Mortal Kombat (2021) already slated for an R rating.

Now they just need Scorpion at the entrance to every cinema globally, ready with his harpoon.

“Get over here!”

Game delays

Meanwhile, if there’s one thing that will kill off excitement, it’s a delay. Three big titles were pushed out recently, with one particularly big disappointment.

Dying Light 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake and – worst of all – Cyberpunk 2077 were all delayed in recent days.

There were also delays to Marvel Avengers and Iron Man VR in the last month. Dying Light 2 has been delayed indefinitely, with no new release date, while Final Fantasy VII Remake was pushed out a month to April.

However, Cyberpunk, which is arguably the most anticipated game of the year, has been delayed from April to September.

The Witcher 3 was delayed twice before releasing, so let’s Cyberpunk doesn’t suffer another delay come Autumn.

Loot worries

We wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of those game delays were related to loot boxes and the tide turning against them. This week, the Mental Health Director of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) took a strong stance against loot boxes in games.

“Frankly no company should be setting kids up for addiction by teaching them to gamble on the content of these loot boxes,” said Clare Murdoch in a statement.

“No firm should sell to children loot box games with this element of chance, so yes those sales should end.

Young people’s health is at stake, and although the NHS is stepping up with these new, innovative services available to families through our Long Term Plan, we cannot do this alone, so other parts of society must do what they can to limit risks and safeguard children’s wellbeing.

This is the strongest statement yet from a British institution on loot boxes and a sure sign that gambling in video games is slowly but surely on the way to being regulated.

Streaming services

Meanwhile, both Google and Microsoft are taking very different stances in the quest for next-generation dominance.

Google are pushing their streaming service Stadia by announcing that more exclusive games will launch for the platform in the first 6 months of 2020, while Microsoft have announced that there will be no exclusives at all on Xbox Series X – a highly unusual step.

“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,” Booty told MCV.

“We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and Series X that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”

Meanwhile, Google say:

Looking at our upcoming lineup, we are tracking more than 120 games coming to Stadia in 2020 and are targeting more than ten games in the first half of this year alone that will be only available on Stadia when they launch.

It will be interesting to see how competing mindsets like these evolve over the next generation, and if exclusives will still play an important role in the lifecycle of a console.