Midway Games has recently revealed that Mortal Kombat is still right on schedule for its next-gen revival. It seems the gears are in motion. A mysterious website with the Mortal Kombat logo has just emerged with a countdown. What could it mean? More details over at the full article.

Marvel Vs. Capcom. Capcom Vs. SNK. Namco x Capcom. What will be the next versus game that will pit two well-known franchises against each other? According to the rumors going around recently, there are talks of a next-gen versus title that will make Mortal Kombat go against a yet-unnamed well-established franchise.

Sounds a bit too incredible? We don't blame you. However, Mortal Kombat resource site TRMK states that their sources have confirmed that the latest Mortal Kombat title to hit the next-gen consoles will be indeed a versus title. But what could the other franchise be? Some say that it will be the DC Universe, but that idea may be a bit too farfetched what with Mortal Kombat known to be a bit too bloody for its own good.

This mystery Mortal Kombat title is slated to be released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 late next year, according to series co-creator Ed Boon.

Certainly an interesting news from the rumor bin. Will this turn out to be true? Stay tuned for details.

Ed Boon tells CVG that Mortal Kombat 8 from Midway will be "a real serious Mortal Kombat." Okay, that got CVG's attention - and ours - please explain.

It's going to be a fighting game, definitely, but after that anything can go. We're not putting any restrictions like we HAVE to keep weapons or we HAVE to keep fighting styles and stuff like that... we're going to... try to introduce as many new characters as possible, new features, new stuff like that and take advantage of the amazing presentation, graphics that all of a sudden you can do, things that are a lot more real.

Ed suggest that MK8 will be grittier and dirtier than before - helps to have Unreal on your side, perhaps - "We're not going to joke around in this one, it's not going to be like jokes."

Ah, something about the PS3 now. Yes, they're looking at ways to take advantage of SIXAXIS motion-sensing. But as to peeking at that, and at the game in general, he says that even a first reveal is most likely "a year away."

The game Mortal Kombat has developed such a large following that a movie was made. Unlike some of the other games turned into movies, this had a certain pair of movie critics give it a "two thumbs up". Unfortunately, the second movie didn't receive as much acclaim as the first. The third movie hasn't even been started because of certain problems.

Threshold (the people who hold the rights to MK) had to wait for their contract with New Line Cinema to expire. They are apparently blaming New Line Cinema for the less than stellar performance of the second movie. Another reason for the delay has to do with the script.

The people at Threshold and the director have been constantly writing drafts which they send to Midway (the makers of the game). This is to ensure that Ed Boon (the creator of the game) can give his inputs on the draft. Only after all of those steps will the script be passed on to the studio. It's pretty understandable why the movie is taking long.

With all of the said people lavishing attention on this, we hope that it turns out more like the first movie and not the second. You can see the director's comments on the movie via the read link.

If Digital Battle, the source of this, is as skeptical as we are, we can't blame them. They say they found that what-the-heck in the rumor section of the Official Xbox Magazine, April issue. Yeah, "Happy April Fool's Day" is a potential theory.

Digital Battle points out that this might be a long-shot possibility, though, citing what Ed Boon said last year in the annual Fight Night Chat: "Mortal Kombat 8... will also go in a direction that nobody is going to expect" (MMO? We could imagine an RTS Mortal Kombat where you Zerg Liu Kang clones...).

We still want to to lean more in the direction of "Happy April Fool's Day"... although the concept behind a Mortal Kombat MMO isn't that too hard to imagine, if martial arts-themed games like 9Dragons are any clue. Still, it looks like the two most-spammed skills in such a game will be Fatalities... and Resurrection.

Sorry if this is on the late-ish side, but perhaps it was because people have been focusing on Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, this might have slipped under the radar... until CVG brought it up recently. And we're still wondering WHY this slipped under the radar until now.

Don't over-react: starting from scratch isn't necessarily a bad thing. "Everything is getting trashed. We're reinventing everything from the ground up. We really think that's needed," Ed Boon tells GameInformer back during MGD '07, about the Midway Games MK team's concept for the next-gen Mortal Kombat 8. "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."

Never mind what it doesn't have: guess what it will have, according to CVG: Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3. Yes, Ed did a Squeenix. And there's one game to blame - er, to credit for MK8's new look. "Our goal, graphically, with this game is to be as gritty... To me, when I saw Gears of War, I was like, 'Holy s***! That's the look that we've been talking about... Visually, that's what we want to do.'"

If that chainsaw ever makes a cameo as a Fatality... Well, you now know who or what to turn to when the blood starts to fly in MK8. Boon gives a "Novemberish time of 2008" estimate for the next-gen Kombat to kick in. (As there are no known specifics yet about which console/s it will appear in, we've gone and dropped it in all three next-gen consoles, to be sure. Please put all debates on hold until we get firmer reports about 8's destination.)

Mark Rein must be tickled pink into a Babality.