Warner Bros.’ CEO says Mortal Kombat 12 is coming this year

Warner Bros. announced Mortal Kombat 12 during an earnings call on Thursday.

Speaking during the call, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav mentioned the previously-unannounced sequel by name and claimed it would release this year.

“There’s lots more to come, including the highly anticipated Mortal Kombat 12 and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, games also set for release this year with ambitious launch projections,” he said during the call.

The latest game in the series, Mortal Kombat 11, was released in 2019, with a DLC expansion called Aftermath released the following year.

Co-creator Ed Boon and developer NetherRealm had been tight-lipped regarding details of its next game, to the extent that it wasn’t clear that it would be a Mortal Kombat title.

Speculation suggested that NetherRealm’s next game would be the third in its Injustice series of DC superhero fighting games.

However, journalist Jeff Grubb claimed last year that NetherRealm was instead prioritising Mortal Kombat 12 due to uncertainty over its future with parent company WB Games.

“It lines up with the reality and it lines up with what I’ve heard, where Mortal Kombat 12 would make the most sense because that’s a game they know will make money, it will sell well,” Grubb said at the time.

Earlier this year, the actor behind Johnny Cage appeared to tease that he was recording new material for the fighting game series.

In a now-deleted tweet, Andrew Bowen, who portrayed Cage in Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11, posted a video revealing that he was at the Warner Bros. lot.