Just when you thought NetherRealm had already achieved perfection with its amazing line up of guest characters for Mortal Kombat 11, the developer goes and pulls a blinder out of the bag. As confirmed earlier this month, quintessential 80s action movie icon Rambo is headed to the popular fighting game as part of a second Kombat Pack DLC in November and it’s with no exaggeration when we say that Sylvester Stallone’s iconic character is looking to be one of the brawler’s best additions yet.
Revealed this week via a gorgeously gruesome gameplay trailer, fans have been pulling apart the footage ever since, having spotted some amazing little nods and references to the source material in the process. One of these, as highlighted by Twitter user ZachHub (and subsequently acknowledged by Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon himself) can be seen via the clip below.
Nothing gets by our fans. 🙂 https://t.co/eMCFYOHGtv
— Ed Boon (@noobde) October 22, 2020
Rambo’s in-game sliding low kick and its accompanying elbow-to-the-face follow up is lifted, almost frame for frame, from a scene in the original 1982 movie where John, concerned that he’s about to be incarcerated, uses the maneuver on a cop during his escape from a police station. It goes without saying that the talented folks at NetherRealm deserve a mighty pat on the back for their continued devotion to providing fan service in heaps and spades, especially as the above is far from the only homage that folks have noted. Rambo’s savage Fatality, for instance, in which he impales the opponent on a spike trap before literally ripping their throat out, is a throwback to the film franchise’s fourth entry.
Terrific stuff, then, and you can no doubt expect more loving tributes like these to be discovered when Rambo arrives alongside Rain and Mileena in Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate Edition next month, on November 17th.