#oof. damn sory for the rant. i just. have a lot of feelings about this whole deal. asking me about how i feel about an aspect

[gophergal]

What do you think about the lack of importance Edenia have in the last (and probably in the upcoming too) games?

Seriously, it makes me really Sad. Edenia was so important in the first timeline. What the hell happened? Only a few characteres mention this realm in MKX

It sucks. Big time

If you'll note, basically none of the realms matter anymore, aside from Earthrealm and Outworld.

Sure, the Netherrealm exists, but that's pretty much it. Dreamrealm is of dubious canonicity (introduced to explain Freddy Krueger as a guest fighter, then used to explain Tremor's glow up. Given he isn't shown in the storyline and arcade endings aren't canon in that game, I don't feel comfortable saying "yeah. That's important to the story"), and means nothing to the plot.

Chaosrealm and Orderrealm also don't show up despite being neat concepts.

What I'm getting at is that it makes the MK universe feel small. Edenia is only part of the problem, but I think it's a good example. Mortal Kombat feels more focused on nostalgia bait, Realistic Graphics, and more grisly Kombat than being, y'know, Mortal Kombat. None of that is necessarily Bad, but it's making it feel a little generic to me.

Maybe it's my bias and nostalgia, but that's just wrong. I'm not saying they need to bloat the worldbuilding, that would suck too. I'm just saying that they have these fun concepts, could they PLEASE do something with them???

Not to be the "they changed it, and now it sucks" guy, but I really love the original timeline's absurd worldbuilding. That's a major draw for me. Not only is it absurd, but it was constantly rolling and acquiring new and interesting bullshit. To me, that gave it a personality.

The original timeline feels like you took Enter the Dragon, the Matrix, Magic the Gathering, and classic slasher films, mixed it all up, then used it to bread and batter the gameplay. Deepfry that sonuvabitch until golden brown and serve it hot. Its the fried fish and hush puppies of gaming. I wouldn't say that it's Good For Me, but it's fucking delicious.

Its also not widely palatable and, just as Long John Silver's isn't exactly a big name restaurant, MK was kinda in a slump for a while, profit wise.

I think what happened is they cut back the weirder shit in order to make the games more popular. Its a chicken tender now. Not bad, but it's more of a "I'll take it if there's nothing better/nothing else I feel comfy eating" dish. Still not Good For Me, but often dressed up to seem healthier. By which I mean "able to be taken seriously by more people." The worldbuilding is more Serious ™️, so is the Gameplay. Don't get me started on the State Of The art Graphics.

Its all done this way for profit reasons. I don't doubt that folks on the team are still passionate about the games, but you can't forget that NRS is owned by a bigger company than Midway was. There's more executive meddling, so we see less of the more niche worldbuilding elements like Edenia