Mortal Kombat fans think that they've spotted a few details in Geras' reveal trailer that point towards Mortal Kombat 1 having a gear customisation system.
NetherRealm Studios might have left us high and dry for a couple of years, but it's more than made up for it by giving us Mortal Kombat 1 character reveals, breakdowns, and other tidbits pretty much every couple of weeks since the game's initial reveal back in May. Yesterday was no different with a new trailer that showed off Liu Kang in more detail and revealed that Geras is returning from Mortal Kombat 11.
Although Geras was the main focus of the trailer (well, aside from Liu Kang's mind-blowing Fatality), it seems that it might have been hiding a few exciting details that might have revealed the answer to one of the biggest questions fans have had about Mortal Kombat 1 - is MK11's customisable gear returning? So far, the feature has been completely missing in action, leading many to believe it wasn't going to be in the game, an assumption that was only made more confusing when Ed Boon teased fans about it earlier this week.
As pointed out by eagle-eyed Redditor USSCrazybat on the Mortal Kombat subreddit, it looks like we might not have to wait for Boon to confirm if the gear system is returning or not. Throughout the trailer, Geras is seen in two very similar-looking outfits, but ones with a few key differences between them, such as the pauldron on his shoulder, the jewellery that he wears on his back, the symbol in the middle of his chest, and even the design of his trousers.
Gameplay footage of Mortal Kombat 1 has confirmed that we'll be seeing alternate colours for characters, but there are too many differences between the two outfits that Geras can be seen wearing in the trailer for it to be a simple colour swap. On the other hand, the outfits are still too similar to one another to be an alternate outfit of some kind, as you'd think that a second costume option would change up more than a few minor details. That, or Geras is just being completely dicked around with his alternate outfit choice.
The minor differences between the outfits could mean a number of things. On the more boring end, it could just indicate that Geras changes his outfit in the story, or that we're seeing two different development builds of the character in the trailer. More excitingly, it could be a hint that Mortal Kombat 1 does actually feature gear customisation of some kind, even if it's to a smaller degree than what we saw in Mortal Kombat 11.
Although I think that a gear customisation system of some kind would be good fun and do agree that it's weird that Geras has such minor differences in his outfits throughout the trailer, my money is on it being tied to some kind of ability that he can use in his moveset. Gear customisation would be such a big feature for Mortal Kombat 1 that I simply can't see NetherRealm not advertising it whenever it can. We'll have to wait and see, but at least those asking for it have one more big hint towards it being a possibility.