Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal almost joined Mortal Kombat

Since 2011’s Mortal Kombat 9, guest characters have become a big draw for fans looking to get more out of Mortal Kombat. The advent of downloadable content makes it so much easier for NetherRealm Studios to deliver guest fighters, as the contracts required to get an external character don’t need to be finished well in advance of a game’s launch. And NetherRealm has gotten some incredible talent to make appearances in Mortal Kombat over the years. Freddy Kreuger, Jason Vorhees, the Alien, RoboCop, John Rambo — the list goes on.

But earlier this week, series creator Ed Boon revealed that a famous video game villain could have made an appearance in the franchise at some point. Did you know that Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal might have joined Mortal Kombat as a guest fighter?

This bombshell came courtesy of Boon’s Twitter on Sept. 15 where he shared a picture of him and Twisted Metal series director David Scott Jaffe taken around 12 years ago. Boon also revealed that Sweet Tooth came close to joining the Mortal Kombat roster — on multiple occasions, no less.

Why Sweet Tooth never joined Mortal Kombat

Boon revealed the relationship between the Mortal Kombat and Twisted Metal teams goes way back. When he was still working at Midway Games, Boon met with Jaffe to discuss making a Twisted Metal arcade game. That never came to be, but it opened the gates to a larger potential collaboration between the two developers. Namely, Sweet Tooth appearing as a kombatant.

We don’t know when these meetings happened, so which games the MK team wanted Sweet Tooth for aren’t clear. Mortal Kombat 9 is perhaps the most likely game, but that’s pure speculation.

So why didn’t Sweet Tooth end up on the roster? Boon didn’t go into details, but a likely reason is legal disputes. It’s possible that Midway/NetherRealm and Sony Interactive Entertainment just couldn’t reach mutually agreeable terms for Sweet Tooth. This has precedent, as legal issues prevented Ash Williams and Neo from joining Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2 respectively.

Another theory is that Kratos from God of War, another David Jaffe creation, took the spot over Sweet Tooth for MK9. For the franchise’s sole video game guest character to date, it’s high time that someone else — Sweet Tooth or otherwise — dives into the series.

Considering Twisted Metal is getting a TV series and NetherRealm is potentially focusing on Mortal Kombat going forward, the possibility for Sweet Tooth making a guest appearance is still there. We’ll just have to wait for Mortal Kombat 12 to find out.

Via SVG.