It's actually refreshing to see this, new timeline, new events, makes the story a little more... unpredictable. Kinda liking it.

Jeff Gerstman interview :
-They switched to a newer Unreal Engine before COVID happened, so that plus the task of switching engines plus doing Injustice 3 would have led to a 7 year gap between MK11 and MK1 which they felt was too long, so they skipped Injustice 3 in favour of doing MK1.
-Ed pretty much drops the hint that their plan is to take the 4 year break to work on the new engine, do MK1 and then return to Injustice.
-Moving to UE4 was 'a heavy lift' for them and it required them to think and act differently in order to wire UE4's tools into their fighting game engine.
-They knew the change to UE4 was 'inevitable' but when they finally made the call to do it, COVID hit.
-The marketing for MK1 is even more 'condensed' than MK11's was.
-They have game modes they haven't talked about yet and 'a slew of new characters just waiting to be leaked'.
In response to Jeff bringing up Nitara, Ed says that people are going to be surprised at how deep they're going into the last few games.
-Stryker is listed on the same level as Meat and Mokap. RIP Stryker bros.
-They're 'getting obscure' with the roster, especially in regards to Kameo fighters.
-Character choices are going to get 'way deeper' than the likes of Stryker.
-Ed agrees that Stryker didn't need to be playable 'in this game'.
-The story dictates who is main roster and who is a kameo, with the latter essentially being 'non-canon' to the story.
-Cassie and the other Kombat Kids are not born yet.
-There's a bunch of klassic kameo fatalities, including some obscure ones.
-Team-up fatalities were a thing at one point but they were scrapped because they began to feel too 'cookie-cutter' and 'Armageddon-like'.
-Realms play a big part of the setting/time frame of MK1 and allows them to use old and ancient setting as opposed to Earthrealms more contemporary time frame and setting.
-Outworld is no longer the dark and dingy place it was in the previous games, but is now 'pretty'.
-They're bending things (such as realms) to be 'familiar but different'.
-They are 'reintroducing moments' in the character's stories that help establish their new backgrounds and relationships.
-"There's a new novelty in the story now of seeing a character introduced that you've known for 30 years, but now [they're] in this new situation and here's [their] new origin."
-While they hadn't fleshed out everything, by Aftermath they knew that the time had come to reboot things and reintroduce the series.
-There'll be a tutorial 'of sorts' in the story that introduces you to the concept of kameos.
-Ed thinks Street Fighter 6's modern control type is a great thing that allows more people to play the game who couldn't do so before.
-Jeff alludes to Amazon Italy leaking Kombat Pack 1 and Ed replies with a sad and quiet 'yeah, yeah'.
-The new mode for MK1 is a brand new thing that Ed thinks will be very cool.
-No Motor Kombat , Chess Kombat or Puzzle Kombat.
-There's a feeling of 'lets get the basic stuff into the game and work out the new engine' before adding any big side modes like the ones mentioned above.

Brian Tong interview :
-Ed calls MK1 a resetting and the story a rebooting.
-Ed describes it as 'the same toys but in a completely different sandbox'.
-A lot of the origins and story moments will be really cool for old fans (who already know what happens) to experience them in new ways.
-The idea for Kameos originally came from the idea of doing another tag team mode but feeling that people weren't comfortable learning more than one character.
-The idea then became giving every character their own unique assist, such as Sonya having a drone (which basically soft-confirms her) and Kung Lao having something like a spinning hat. However, the issue with this idea became them struggling to find unique assists for certain characters like Liu Kang and Johnny Cage.
-Ed eventually come up with the idea of having an assist that could universally be used by everyone, with the idea of using other characters themselves as the assists coming up soon after.
-Their objective with the kameos is to make them as simple as possible.
-They always strive to shake things up between games and not just have the biggest change between entries be prettier graphics.
-Kameos are not part of the story.
-Kameos are intended to be the throwbacks to the MK that everyone knows and will have lots of klassic kostumes.
-There are lots of obscure kameo kharacters and even some that 'couldn't possibly be controlled characters' which is later clarified to be characters that were in previous games but were not playable.
-Ed says that the 3D era of the series will have 'lots of representation'.
-I swear at 8:48 in this interview Ed almost says 'Sonya' in regards to characters that are both playable and a kameo before stopping himself and saying Sub-Zero.
-There's a character 'coming-up' that they haven't announced yet that is using facial motion capture in the same way as Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa did for Shang Tsung in MK11 (so either Homelander, Peacemaker or possibly both).
-Ed accidentally lets slip something regarding a male character at the start of the interview which is bleeped out but towards the end they talk about it and Brian -Tong says it's 'a colour of the rainbow' (so probably related to an unrevealed male ninja).

-The marketing for MK1 is even more 'condensed' than MK11's was.

-They have game modes they haven't talked about yet and 'a slew of new characters just waiting to be leaked'.

In response to Jeff bringing up Nitara, Ed says that people are going to be surprised at how deep they're going into the last few games.

-Stryker is listed on the same level as Meat and Mokap. RIP Stryker bros.
-They're 'getting obscure' with the roster, especially in regards to Kameo fighters.
-Character choices are going to get 'way deeper' than the likes of Stryker.
-Ed agrees that Stryker didn't need to be playable 'in this game'.

-The story dictates who is main roster and who is a kameo, with the latter essentially being 'non-canon' to the story.
-Cassie and the other Kombat Kids are not born yet.

-There's a bunch of klassic kameo fatalities, including some obscure ones.
-Team-up fatalities were a thing at one point but they were scrapped because they began to feel too 'cookie-cutter' and 'Armageddon-like'.

-Realms play a big part of the setting/time frame of MK1 and allows them to use old and ancient setting as opposed to Earthrealms more contemporary time frame and setting.
-Outworld is no longer the dark and dingy place it was in the previous games, but is now 'pretty'.
-They're bending things (such as realms) to be 'familiar but different'.

-They are 'reintroducing moments' in the character's stories that help establish their new backgrounds and relationships.
-"There's a new novelty in the story now of seeing a character introduced that you've known for 30 years, but now [they're] in this new situation and here's [their] new origin."

-While they hadn't fleshed out everything, by Aftermath they knew that the time had come to reboot things and reintroduce the series.

-There'll be a tutorial 'of sorts' in the story that introduces you to the concept of kameos.
-Ed thinks Street Fighter 6's modern control type is a great thing that allows more people to play the game who couldn't do so before.

-Jeff alludes to Amazon Italy leaking Kombat Pack 1 and Ed replies with a sad and quiet 'yeah, yeah'.

-The new mode for MK1 is a brand new thing that Ed thinks will be very cool.
-No Motor Kombat , Chess Kombat or Puzzle Kombat.
-There's a feeling of 'lets get the basic stuff into the game and work out the new engine' before adding any big side modes like the ones mentioned above.

-Ed calls MK1 a resetting and the story a rebooting.
-Ed describes it as 'the same toys but in a completely different sandbox'.
-A lot of the origins and story moments will be really cool for old fans (who already know what happens) to experience them in new ways.

-The idea for Kameos originally came from the idea of doing another tag team mode but feeling that people weren't comfortable learning more than one character.
-The idea then became giving every character their own unique assist, such as Sonya having a drone (which basically soft-confirms her) and Kung Lao having something like a spinning hat. However, the issue with this idea became them struggling to find unique assists for certain characters like Liu Kang and Johnny Cage.
-Ed eventually come up with the idea of having an assist that could universally be used by everyone, with the idea of using other characters themselves as the assists coming up soon after.

-Their objective with the kameos is to make them as simple as possible.
-They always strive to shake things up between games and not just have the biggest change between entries be prettier graphics.

-Kameos are not part of the story.
-Kameos are intended to be the throwbacks to the MK that everyone knows and will have lots of klassic kostumes.
-There are lots of obscure kameo kharacters and even some that 'couldn't possibly be controlled characters' which is later clarified to be characters that were in previous games but were not playable.

-Ed says that the 3D era of the series will have 'lots of representation'.

-I swear at 8:48 in this interview Ed almost says 'Sonya' in regards to characters that are both playable and a kameo before stopping himself and saying Sub-Zero.

-There's a character 'coming-up' that they haven't announced yet that is using facial motion capture in the same way as Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa did for Shang Tsung in MK11 (so either Homelander, Peacemaker or possibly both).

-Ed accidentally lets slip something regarding a male character at the start of the interview which is bleeped out but towards the end they talk about it and Brian -Tong says it's 'a colour of the rainbow' (so probably related to an unrevealed male ninja).

Liu-Kang really just went ahead and deleted the Tarkatan and the Shirai Ryu from existence lmao

Liu-Kang really just went ahead and deleted the Tarkatan and the Shirai Ryu from existence lmao

If you ask me, that is quite problematic.

Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty

I mean, you're turning a race into a disease, and supposedly that was the good God guy's own doing.