NetherRealm Studios polls fans to determine 'Injustice 2' guest stars

By Danny Cowan Published November 17, 2016

injustice 2 twitter polls seek out potential guest stars injustice2guest — Image used with permission by copyright holder

NetherRealm Studios creative director Ed Boon is polling his Twitter followers regarding expanded roster additions for the upcoming fighting game sequel Injustice 2, revealing that guest stars from multiple comic book universes and the Mortal Kombat series are under consideration.

Boon divides his nominees between comic book stars and Mortal Kombat veterans, making it likely that Injustice 2 will feature a slate of playable characters hailing from outside the series’ established DC Universe setting.

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Injustice 2 is a planned follow-up to 2013’s Injustice: Gods Among Us, a one-on-one fighting game featuring DC Comics characters including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. The series debut allowed players to pit their favorite superheroes against one another in brutal battles for supremacy, while an alternate-universe story mode featured villains like the Joker, Doomsday, and Sinestro.

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The original Injustice also allowed players to assume the role of Scorpion, an undead ninja featured throughout NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat series. Injustice 2 will follow suit by offering up its own Mortal Kombat guest star, and Twitter users can vote in Boon’s poll to determine who gets the nod.

Mortal Kombat stars up for consideration include the ice-wielding ninja Sub-Zero, lightning god Raiden, cocky movie star Johnny Cage, and bionically augmented soldier Jax. Currently, Sub-Zero leads Boon’s poll by a considerable margin, making him a likely lock for the upcoming sequel.

In terms of guest stars from other media franchises, Boon asks his Twitter followers to choose between Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, the T-800 from the Terminator film series, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As of this writing, the poll shows Spawn taking a decisive lead, with Hellboy trailing at a distant second.

As with NetherRealm’s previous games like Mortal Kombat X, Injustice 2‘s chosen guest stars will likely be available as paid downloadable content following the game’s worldwide launch. A release date for Injustice 2 is not yet known.

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Lost Judgment gets a surprisingly big expansion this month

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Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio confirmed that The Kaito Files, Lost Judgment's story expansion starring Yagami's brawny sidekick, Kaito, will finally release on March 28.
Like Kaito, this expansion is beefy. Sega revealed that The Kaito Files will contain four chapters of new content. Within that, players will experience the new Bruiser and Tank fighting styles exclusive to Kaito, as well as "Primal Focus" techniques where Kaito uses his heightened senses of smell, sight, and hearing to investigate certain crime scenes. It seems like The Kaito Files might be one of the densest expansions to grace any RGG Studio game.

The Kaito Files' story takes place after the events of Lost Judgment. In it, Kaito searches for a missing ex named Mikiko in Kamurocho with someone claiming to be his son. In classic Yakuza fashion, tensions escalate and bombastic fights against Japan's toughest criminals ensue. Considering that most of Lost Judgment's main story took place in Injincho, trotting around Kamurocho will be a welcome change of pace.
To access this DLC, players will need to own Lost Judgment already. Those who want to purchase just The Kaito Files will need to pay $30, half the price of the full game. Alternatively, players can pick up the $90 Ultimate Edition of the game and get access to this expansion as well as the Detective Essentials Pack and School Stories Expansion Pack DLC.
Like Lost Judgment, The Kaito Files will be available across PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S when it launches on March 28, 2022.

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King Regis runs through Insomnia in A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV.

Did you know that Square Enix released a retro-inspired beat ’em up based on Final Fantasy XV in 2016?
Even hardcore Final Fantasy fans might not remember the forgotten game well nowadays, but it’s quite the hidden gem. Titled A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV, the unlikely spinoff game was released as a pre-order bonus with Final Fantasy XV. It follows King Regis as he tells Noctis a bedtime story about defeating Ultros, a monstrous crystal thief causing daemons to spawn all over Insomnia and Duscae. In practice, it's a side-scrolling beat ’em up that pays homage to the classic brawlers while implementing Final Fantasy magic, enemies, and more.
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How did this project come to be? Why is it so polished? And why aren't more short but sweet games like this used to excite fans for notable game releases? I spoke to Cord Smith, executive producer and creative director on the project, to learn its history and how this forgotten Final Fantasy spinoff connects with everything from Dead Island to Masters of the Universe to Stranger Things.
At its heart, this is a story about an ambitious marketing agency that created a new kind of game through a multi-studio effort on a tight budget. And it all starts with Dead Island 2.
Retro Revenge
In the mid-2010s, Smith worked at a creative agency called Platform. This agency would often produce screenshots and trailers used in the marketing of video games. Around the time Dead Island 2 was in development and set to release, Smith and other people involved with channel marketing at the company pondered whether it could make a retro game that marketing could use to sell a notable game.
Smith asserted that it was possible, but thought it had to be done the right way to avoid producing a bad game. He found game development and animation partners to craft a small but satisfying retro game that could tie into the then soon-to-be-released Dead Island 2.
While his pitch had a high budget, Dead Island 2 developer Deep Silver and Platform accepted it. Smith and his partners now had to build something that wasn’t done much before and hasn’t been done much since. “Sure, it was a promotional game, but we were putting it on console, and we were treating it like a real game project,” Smith tells Digital Trends.

When designing it, Smith and his development partners didn’t have a playable build of Dead Island 2. They got a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of what that game was supposed to be and additional information to draw from. The result of this effort was Dead Island: Retro Revenge, an on-rails beat ’em up set within the Dead Island universe.
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“Dead Island 2 did not make it to release, but Dead Island: Retro Revenge did, so they put it in a collection,” he explains. “That was a shame as we didn’t get to see it reach what we built it for. It never got to be the pre-order promotional thing that we wanted.”
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The Wolf Among Us 2 will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in 2023. The PC version will be an Epic Games Store exclusive at launch.

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