Last updated: 08/10/2006 by Steven Rodriguez

Like Deception before it, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon will get a late start on a Nintendo platform. However, this time around the game will be released on Wii instead of GameCube. The news was surprising, considering one of the fathers of MK, Ed Boon, made some comments that implied a game like Mortal Kombat wouldn't be suited for the controller of the then-named Revolution.

As it stands, there is no information on how the game will take advantage of the Wii's unique controller or more powerful Wii hardware. It's a safe bet that the Wii version of Armageddon will be an enhanced port of the PS2 and Xbox versions—of which the info in this preview is based on—so the features in the current-gen game should also be present in the next-gen version. With that, here's what we know about the game so far.

Every playable character that has made an appearance in any of the previous MK fighting games will be playable in Armageddon. Every single one. Before you remove your socks and start using your toes to count them up, that's over 50 characters. Sub-Zero, Scorpion and the usual suspects are going to be there, of course, but it'll also have all the one-offs that appeared in only one game before MKA. Callbacks include Stryker from MK3, Fujin from MK4, and even Mokap, a hidden “joke” character in Deadly Alliance. There are sure to be more secret characters, which will probably push the character total to 60 or more. That's a lot of characters!

Adding to that count will be a new feature for Mortal Kombat: character creation. Kreate-a-Fighter will let players “define their fighter’s look, abilities and personality with a deep level of customization,” according to Midway's press materials on the game. We know that the fighter can be male or female, have a wide variety of appearances, and have a choice of fighting styles, weapon styles and other poses. There should be enough customization to where no two created characters are alike, which is important to have in a game with such a feature.

Also new in Armageddon is Kreate-a-Fatality. Finally, players will be able to choose exactly how they want to finish off their defeated opponent. By inputting series of button presses (on the PS2/Xbox versions), it's possible to link together more moves and further rip apart a victim. There's a lot of potential here for Wii-specific fatalities via controller motions, but whether or not the Midway development team will incorporate that is not known at this point.

Konquest mode, present in the previous two Kombat console games, is getting a massive overhaul. It's said to be the biggest yet, supposedly big enough to almost be its own game, a la the MK beat-'em-up, Shaolin Monks. In fact, there are reports that Armageddon's Konquest mode will feature areas similar to Monks, where the main character will need to fight off baddies in a quasi-adventure-slash-fighter kind of way.

On top of all that, MK: Armageddon will feature online play—or at least, the PS2 and Xbox versions will. No one currently knows if the Wii version will let players beat the crap (erm...krap) out of each other online. The game is coming out in early 2007, though, so hopefully by then there will be more details on which games will take advantage of Wii's online features.