At a special EVO conference today, Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon announced franchise mainstay Raiden would officially be joining the fray for the upcoming Mortal Kombat X (prounced as “Ex”, not as “10”, according to developers).
Fans of the franchise’s previous installment, 2011’s adjectiveless Mortal Kombat, will remember that Raiden was one of the sole survivors of the heroes alongside Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage, and was all but outcast and damned after his insistence to try and solve mysterious messages from the future left things far worse than anticipated. Raiden and Scorpion remain the only confirmed playable characters from the previous installments (Sub-Zero appears, but is implied to be a different Sub-Zero than the ones we’ve already seen before).
Raiden, the franchise’s God of Thunder and protector of Earth Realm, has been a regular fighter in the series since first debuting in 1992’s Mortal Kombat, and has appeared in every fighting game installment of the franchise except for 1995’s Mortal Kombat 3. At the onset of the series’ 7th installment, Mortal Kombat: Deception, Raiden was believed to be dead, but instead revealed alive and possessed by a darker nature. This Raiden would eventually fail to save the realms from a powered up Shao Khan and send a message back in time to his MK1 self, thus setting the stage for 2011’s soft reboot of the franchise.
Raiden is one of only 7 confirmed playable characters for the upcoming Mortal Kombat X, which is presently planned for primary releases on Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One platforms with first party ports for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. First revealed on June 2, 2014 and highighted at E3 2014, the game is presently slated for release some time next year.
