Every Mortal Kombat Secret Fighter MK12 Could Reboot

The Mortal Kombat franchise is known for a great many things, including its stylized violence, but with ninjas, cyborgs, gods, vampires, and the undead on its character roster, it can be easy to forget that it’s also well known for secret characters. With eyes on Mortal Kombat 12 as the likely next project from NetherRealm Studios, and Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath having opened seemingly limitless possibilities for the future, the question remains which secret characters could return in the next incarnation of the universe.

Secret characters in the Mortal Kombat series are those who have little to no presence in the game’s campaign and are unlocked by completing difficult challenges. Some characters require an absolutely perfect fight without blocking just for the opportunity to fight the secret character and unlock them. Others are hidden on the character select screen and require a special code input each time players want to use them.

As the series has evolved, each character has developed and built relationships with the others. Their fates have intertwined over the years, but with Mortal Kombat 12 posing a fresh take on the universe, some of these klassic secret characters may return as secrets once more.

Mortal Kombat’s Secret Character Palette Swaps

In the early days of Mortal Kombat, the easiest way to include a new secret character was to change the color of one of the existing iconic ninjas and tweak their moveset. With Scorpion and Sub-Zero only covering two colors, this left a veritable rainbow of ninjas to be exploited. Ermac, who was originally a glitch, was red. Rain was a purple ninja created as a Prince joke but was soon established as a real character. Smoke, a member of the Lin Kuei, first appeared in grey or silver before turning into a cyborg and becoming a palette swap of Cyrax.

The most noteworthy hidden kombatant with the greatest evolution over time is the original Mortal Kombat secret character, Reptile. Green in color, Reptile has evolved not only in his personal story but in appearance as well, becoming more reptilian as the games progressed. Noob Saibot, AKA the original Sub-Zero, also had an entirely shadowed-out ninja form and eventually became a terrifying revenant. Finally, all of these colors are combined into one with Chameleon, who can change between all of the colors and contains the fighting styles of each ninja.

Mortal Kombat’s Female Character Palette Swaps And Beyond

As the Mortal Kombat roster expanded, so too did the potential for more secret fighters based on color variants. Kitana’s original blue model was turned green and given darker skin to create Jade as a secret fighter in Mortal Kombat II. Mileena, a different model of female ninja in purple who had gone from the main roster to secret, to the main roster again was also the base for Khameleon; the female version of Chameleon. Similar to her counterpart, Khameleon was able to copy the moveset of each of the female ninjas depending on the color of her name in her health bar. Eventually, players saw original secret characters in the form of Mokap, the motion capture artist with multiple fighters’ combined moves, and Blaze, the fire elemental tasked with guarding the egg of the Dragon King.

Each of these fighters has a connection to Mortal Kombat’s secret character roster, having been a special unlock at least once. While each character developed their own plot and backstory over the years, they never quite made it to the top-tier of the roster. Any one of them could return reimagined in what could be a reality-shifted universe of the next Mortal Kombat and take up the mantle of secret character once more, if only as an homage to their origins.