The Mortal Kombat series has had its lows. Very deep-in-the-fires-of-the-Netherrealm lows. There was a moment, between “Heroic Brutalities” and do-it-yourself fatalities, when even Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon had to know things weren’t going according to plan. Seeming to confirm this notion, Mortal Kombat maker Midway would declare bankruptcy and close its doors in 2009, leaving the bloody MK legacy in a state of limbo. Warner Bros eventually bought the series rights and assets, and after a year at the drawing board, the newly-formed NetherRealm Studios would re-introduce Mortal Kombat to us all, with a re-energized Ed Boon at the helm. It was, against all odds, one of the greatest turnarounds in the genre’s history.

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2011’s rebooted game, just called Mortal Kombat (in truth Mortal Kombat 9) played like a dream fusion of all the best aspects from the series’ history. Now, with their third game slated for 2015, it’s becoming clear that it is NetherRealm who is in the position to teach the rest of the industry a thing or two about making a proper fighting game.

Read on to learn about three major reasons the Mortal Kombat series is more relevant than ever.

Telling Real Stories

Fighting game storylines are often laughable - tales that only franchise diehards followed. Sure, you could get a personalized ending for each character after beating the Arcade Mode, but there was only ever one true ending. The cast of characters all were interconnected in some convoluted way, but their relationships were never sufficiently explained.

Both Mortal Kombat 9 and Injustice: Gods Among Us solved this problem by adding an honest-to-goodness story mode. By telling a cohesive narrative through multiple chapters, with playtime divided amongst a healthy sampling of combatants, both of NetherRealm’s titles found a way to make it all make sense.

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Sibling rivalries, family drama, avenging the fallen - all stories commonly touched on in games like Tekken, but never given the opportunity to truly grow into substantial tales for the casual fighting game consumer to gravitate to. Hardcore players can be counted on to buy the next iteration in a series, but it’s the promise of an engaging plot with interesting characters that baits people who don’t know anything about 40% mid-screen, no-meter Scorpion combos, but still think, “Hell, ninjas are pretty cool.”

Interactive Environments

NetherRealm isn't the first fighting game developer to give venues a more active role in individual fights. Mild interactivity spans back into the Genesis era, with games like Eternal Warriors offering secret stage finishes akin to stage fatalities in the Mortal Kombat games. Even Nintendo 64/PS2 era MK games dabbled in interactive stages by offering big, open platforms full of things to hit your opponent with or throw them into. But it was clunky and awkward to execute, and was more of a distraction than a means to an end of any particular match.

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There was, however, never a 2D fighter that allowed you to use elements of the stage like Injustice did. No matter how mismatched in skill you and your opponent may be, you can always lean on the fact that littered across the arena are vehicles, statues, robots, and plenty more all just waiting to be utilized creatively to tip the scales in your favor. Taking a play out of mascot brawlers like Super Smash Bros.’s playbook, as well as their personal list of hits and misses from their own 3D forays, NetherRealm made knowing the stage almost as important as knowing your opponent.

This fresh take on stage design will make its return in Mortal Kombat X

see deal Mortal Kombat X - PlayStation 4 $19.99 on Gamestop

Educating the Community

Anyone who has played a fighting game competitively knows that knowing the move list is only the tip of the iceberg as far as understanding a game’s mechanics. Step into your local game store during a tournament and echoing off of the walls will be terms like “start up frames” and “animation length.” These are essential elements to grasp when trying to master any particular character, and this data is almost always absent from the games themselves. Kick Brady $20 for a strategy guide, and they’ll tell you everything you need to know about frames and priorities. For the average gamer trying to make the transition from couch-with-her-friends to sport-in-the-local-circuit, this may be a learning curve that is nigh insurmountable.

Injustice, and now MKX, did the hard work for you by putting all of this information in the move lists. Every time you access your character’s move suite, each particular input is accompanied by all the relevant frame data. This is important because it allows gamers to educate themselves more comprehensively about the game they’re playing.

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Removing these barriers has allowed gamers to manipulate the engine in ways they never thought they could. They are empowered, given a greater sense of reward from the title, and can be counted on to buy follow-ups in the series, thanks to the positive experience the enhanced player agency provided. Better informed users become better informed critics and can offer more useful feedback to developers like NetherRealm, helping them to turnover an even better product next time. Educating the consumer only helps the market.

A market that is primed for the Mortal Kombat franchise to dominate it. The 2011 reboot sold very well across Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms, totaling over 4 million copies sold, and if demos and videos are to be believed, Mortal Kombat X has all the makings of being the new gold standard in fighting games.

Jarrett Green is a freelance video games and technology writer. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jarrettjawn