Mortal Kombat 8 inspired by Gears of War, using Unreal Engine 3

Speaking with Game Informer, Ed Boon described an opportunity to start anew with the next version of Mortal Kombat, the eighth in the series. Boon revealed that MK8 will be built using Unreal Engine 3, inspired by Epic's recent engine showcase Gears of War. "To me, when I saw Gears of War, I was like, 'Holy shit! That's the look that we've been talking about.' Visually, that's what we want to do," explained Boon. Visually.

MK8 is still a fighter at heart, and Boon and the team hope that by starting from scratch, Mortal Kombat can inspire the genre as it did more than a decade ago. "We're not going to have three fighting styles, we're not going to have the same punches and kicks and the same kind of control scheme. Everything is getting trashed. We're reinventing everything from the ground up," promised Boon. Don't expect any solid details for some time; Boon admitted that MK8 is currently not in a playable state, supposing that its release won't come until the end of 2008.

While Boon hinted at the possibility of MK8 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii, it should be noted that Epic's Mark Rein recently told Wired that "it's not in [Epic's] plans to bring Unreal Engine 3 to the Wii. It's really designed for next-gen, high-definition." Oh snap!