Now that Skarlet and Tremor are official characters in the Mortal Kombat universe, it's time for Mortal Kombat 12 to bring Hornbuckle and Belokk into canon. This would be a rather easy thing for the developers at NetherRealm Studios to do, story-wise, since the ending of Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath sees the entire Mortal Kombat timeline getting reset once again, all the way back to the time of the original Kung Lao.
More than most other popular fighting games of its time, Mortal Kombat was a series steeped in secrets, lore, and hidden characters. Players tried for hours to figure out how to unlock the fight against Reptile in Mortal Kombat, argued over whether or not Ermac was real, and tried over and over again to press both Down and Start as quickly as possible whenever Dan Forden appeared to shout "Toasty!" in Mortal Kombat II. Many characters who are now considered iconic Mortal Kombat fighters like Smoke, Ermac, and Blaze began as either secret or simply rumored fighters, and at this point nearly every Mortal Kombat rumor or inside joke has been made canon at some point.
However, there are two fighters Mortal Kombat 11, and every previous Mortal Kombat game, have yet to actually make canon - Hornbuckle and Belokk. One of them is simply a fan rumor, and one of them was cut from the final release of Mortal Kombat Gold, but with the story of Mortal Kombat officially reset once again with the end of MK11, it's time to bring both of them to the foreground.
Belokk was originally supposed to appear in Mortal Kombat Gold, but he was removed from the final release of the game. According to an interview with Eurocom conducted by Gamespot in May 2000, Belokk was "not a finished character and one of a number of new features that might (or might not) make it into the game... if there is time to complete the remaining work on him, and we have the approval of the coin-op team, then he might be implemented. Currently he is only a possibility." Despite this uncertainty, some images of Belokk (above) did make it out onto the internet, but he did not appear in MK Gold's final release. It is unclear what Belokk's role in Mortal Kombat's overarching lore would have been.
Hornbuckle is the name which players assigned to a re-skin of Liu Kang who is seen battling against Blaze in the background of the Pit II stage of Mortal Kombat II. The reason "Hornbuckle" was chosen as the character's name is because of one of Jade's phrases in MK2, one where she asks "Hornbuckle who?" While some fans took this to be a reference this the background character, Hornbuckle is actually a name which appears in the Mortal Kombat II credits.
Given that Liu Kang is now basically Raiden, it would be interesting if the original Kung Lao had a brother or cousin who was also a gifted fighter and bore a resemblance to Liu Kang's younger self. This could be how Mortal Kombat 12 introduces players to Hornbuckle in official Mortal Kombat canon. Belokk, with his demonic face and large body, looks to be better-suited for a mini-boss fight - someone like Goro, who players must defeat before Mortal Kombat 12's final challenge. No matter how the game uses them, with everyone else in the universe of Mortal Kombat that's been made official by now, it's past time for Belokk and Hornbuckle to get some recognition too.
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