Mortal Kombat 1 is bringing back vampire Nitara after 17 years, and this time she's played by Megan Fox

Mortal Kombat 1
(Image credit: NetherRealm)

A new Mortal Kombat 1 roster reveal is here, and this one stands out. Not only is Nitara returning to the series as a playable character for the first time in 17 years, she's voiced by actor and '00s sex symbol Megan Fox.

You can see some snippets of Nitara's in-game design and Fox's performance in the Mortal Kombat 1 video below, though if you're looking to see how she plays you're going to have to make do with just a couple of quick combo breakdowns. Naturally, the footage ends with a fatality - here, Nitara rips out an opponent's intestines, and then dropkicks the foe back to the ground, the force of the impact sheering skeleton from flesh.

Nitara originally appeared as a playable character in 2002's Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, and while she's had a few other cameos over the years, her only other playable appearance in a proper MK game was 2006's Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. While she's never been a true staple of MK lore, she did have a small role in the 2021 Mortal Kombat film, portrayed by Mel Jarnson.

"She comes from this weird realm," as Fox herself describes Nitara. "She is a type of vampire creature. She’s evil but she’s also good. She’s trying to save her people. I really like her. She’s a vampire, which obviously… resonates for whatever reason." That awkward pause might just be a reference to the time Fox and partner Machine Gun Kelly said they drank each other's blood.

Mortal Kombat fans already have some experience with celebrity voiceover for a returning character with MK11's casting of Ronda Rousey as Sonya Blade. Of course, Rousey's performance as Sonya was notoriously flat, and it seems that Fox's work as Nitara is already a step above. Fox is, after all, actually an actor.

There's definitely experience with violence here, given how Megan Fox eulogized all those Diablo 4 deaths.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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