Noob Saibot's Outworld seems to have shut down. However, being it is the first of April, anything can be a joke today. Go there to see the message, but don't believe it until April Fool's Day is over. :)

My good friend drub0y over at ActiveMK4 has finished tallying his MK4 Survey he took about a month ago. If you didn't enter, the survey covers the following areas: Favorite Character, Favorite
Version of MK, Favorite Feature, Desired Features. Hopefully, a member of the MK4 Crew will read the survey and actually take it into consideration during production. Check it out

According to sources at Midway, Mortal Kombat Mythologies is indeed a 2D 1/2 scrolling action and adventure game. The graphics will be close to the way that Killer Instinct was rendered. To clarify what I mentioned in the last update of Mythologies, Sub-Zero will move in and out of the backgrounds by the use of zooming and scaling. Along Sub-Zero's journey, he will encounter warriors from the Mortal Kombat series and team up with them in battles. So far there are 8 enormous 3D texture-mapped levels with real-time lighting planned for the game. Also, Sub-Zero and 30 other characters will all be digitized in that Killer Instinct look along with movie-like sequences to present story elements. As for a release date, look for Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero in stores before the holiday season.
In other news... Boon's site is STILL down... :|

To acknowledge the European viewers of my site, I read on Next-Generation that Williams will re-sell Mortal Kombat 3 as a part of the Replay label at 10£ to 15£ ($15 - $25) on May 1st in Europe. There goes Williams again, milkin' the life out of the bloody wanker! :

The ever so lovely farewell screen at Noob Saibot's Outworld now presents a link to http://www.idsoftware.com. It's one huge mystery. I think that Ed is sorta following up on some rumors he has heard around alt.games.mk. Currently, I have no idea what's going on here, but I promise to get an official word from id Software, and possibly Midway as soon as possible.

In NDP's TRSTS report on games sold during the month of February, Mortal Kombat Trilogy for Nintendo⁶⁴ ranks in at number 20. Other fighting games present on this list is Namco's Tekken 2 which is at 13, and Soul Blade which is at 15. Still, take into consideration that MKT N64 came out in November and it's still in the top 25

As promised, I have attained OFFICIAL word from both John Tobias and a Midway representative. If you are not on the ball with the rumors, Ed Boon shut down his webpage and put up a note saying he did so. However, after 7-8 days there appeared a link in the original message pointing to id Software. Apparently, there were rumors before Boon put that link up that he had quit Midway and left for id Software. When Boon heard that rumor, he put a link to id Software knowing he would get a bunch of people to believe the rumors. If you have kept up with the Mortal Kombat series, this type of rumor spinoff is apparent in MK2, MK3, UMK3, and MKT. Remember Ermac, the EGM's Trickman Terry pic of the day, where someone touched a pic of Scorpion to look red and read 'Ermac Wins' above him? Well, Boon put a red ninja character in UMK3 with the name Ermac. Also, do you remember when your buddy swore there was a way for Sub-Zero to turn into a polar bear in MK2? Voila, Animalities are present in MK3 with Sub-Zero turning into a polar bear. This type off rumor spinoff is what I call 'MK Rumor Humor.' Boon just plays off the rumors so that those people will say 'told ya so' and then that person becomes a "friend" of someone at Midway. :-) Apparently, this little webpage situation is another example of 'MK Rumor Humor.' In order for me to prove my rumor humor theory, I got a response from John Tobias.

From: John Tobias Subject: Re: (no subject) Date: Thursday, April 10, 1997 12:30 AM What's with all this Ed Boon has quit stuff? He's still workin for Midway as far as I know... I see him there every day. Unless he cloned himself.

Well, seems that Ed walks the halls of Midway still. If you're still skeptical, here's word from a Midway representative.

From: Midwaymail@aol.com Date: Friday, April 11, 1997 11:26 AM Contrary to what you might have heard, Ed Boon has not left the company. So, don't fret...MK4 will be on its way as planned. Thanks for the concern. Midway Home Entertainment, Inc.

Thanks to Jared Putnam for his contributions in resolving these ugly rumors.

On a very sad note, I recieved an e-mail from Juiceboy 1 stating that Jim Matson, The Limit, maintainer of Antony Espindola's Mortal Kombat WWW Pages died Friday, April 11th in a hit and run accident. Limit occasionally visited EFnet IRC #mk3 where he and I would have a nice quarrell about MK subjects. Antony and Limit's pages will be handed off to James Gutek. I wish Jim's family all the best.

The last of the worthy MK sites on the net shut down operation today. Drub0y said that the company wanted to make him pay for the amount of traffic he was generating. Don't fret. Drub0y and other ActiveMK4 Team members will be making special contributions to this site during
the months of MK4's public existence. Also, if you haven't noticed already, I'm housing the ActiveMK4 Survey Results so that they can still be available to the MK4 Crew for consideration in MK4. Hopefully one of them will view them and realize that this is what the people want to see.

These two new color sketches done by John Tobias depict a vicious looking bulldog called a "netherealm hound" and an unnamed female warrior. These scans are courtesy of n64.com, however, one would expect high quality scans from this "professional" website. The scans are ugly and have colored lines all over the pictures, disrupting the image. I have archived the pictures in the Picture Gallery. Go have a look.

Ultra Game Player's On-Line managed to get an interview from Ed Boon during this time of silence at Midway. This interview merely reinforces the information that we've known since February. (4 will be 'darker and more sinister,' about 12-15 characters, awesome hardware, tons of secrets, plays like the previous MK's) The only worthwhile information we can benefit from this interview is that MK4 will start Chicago area beta tests sometime during June of '97, and some of the hidden characters will be controllable

VideoGameSpot posted a new sketch of a male warrior, possibly from the Shao Lin. Along with this pic, there is a better quality scan of the 'netherealm hound' which I have used to replace the earlier scan from n64.com. All images are archived in the Picture Gallery

VideoGameSpot posted the full interview, originally printed in EGM #93, with Ed Boon and Dave Michicich. This interview contains the questions editted out before the interview went to print in issue #93. The interview doesn't give away much, as many interviews haven't, but clarifies and hints at new features to appear in MK4

In this interview with John Tobias, co-creator of MKM:S-Z, we're merely reinforced with information attained from the VideoGameSpot interview. However, we're introduced with information that MKM is being developed for the PC and with the first ever screenshots of the game! Check them out in the Picture Gallery Thanks to Slokums for the notification

I've been browsing around my site and saw that I was in dire need of some enhancements. I've redone the Picture Gallery, adding more screenshots from MKMythologies: Sub-Zero and screenshots from the MK4 AVI #1 (which have been added to the
MK4 AVI Editorial). You may be thinking, "Hey didn't Boon say he didn't want people to post those pics?" True, he did say that, but come on. Give me a break. I've seen these pics in every magazine and on all of the "professional" websites. Why
should I be refused the right to serve these pics to my viewers? I believe that this has to do with Midway's policy on what matters more. So what if I do not produce a 'print' magazine. I attract thousands of viewers a day and many of them are International viewers. Do
you think that GamePro or EGM are available to people in the Netherlands, Singapore, or Finland? The Internet is a strong and powerful medium. I'm sorry to see that Midway isn't taking us seriously.

Saturn owners can finally stop holding their breath as Midway promises Mortal Kombat Trilogy in June of '97. It was first promised for a December '96 release, according to Game Informer, then
suddenly hit "production snags." This was possibly due to the fact that Midway had higher interests, or that they wanted Sega to pay for making Ultimate MK3 an exclusive 32-bit title for their Saturn.

Here's the newest version of the MK:A cast according to the US Internet Movie Database:

Robin Shou	Liu Kang	Sandra Hess	Sonya Blade
Talisa Soto	Kitana	Irina Pantaeva	Jade
Brian Thompson	Shao Kahn	Reiner Schöne	Shinnok
Lynn 'Red' Williams	Jax	Deron McBee	Motaro (?)
LiteFoot	Nightwolf	James Remar	Rayden

It seems like Motaro will have a speaking part. Kinda weird, but you have to remember that Goro talked also, but for a short amount of time. James Remar is playing the part of Rayden, instead of Johnny Cage. The biggest news is that Shinnok will appear in MK:A! If you are unaware of the existence of Shinnok, he is the Elder God that used Noob Saibot as a double agent to destroy Kahn and relinquish both the Earth Realm and the Outworld to Shinnok. Could this also be the base of MK4's storyline? If it is, you heard it here first. (Thanks to Jared Putnam for notifying me that USIMDB updated