On February 12, 2009, Midway Games, developer, publisher and owner of the Mortal Kombatintellectual property, filed for Chapter 11bankruptcy in the United States. Warner Bros. subsequently acquired "substantially all of the assets", including Mortal Kombat, This Is Vegas and the Midway Games company structure, on July 10, 2009. While Warner Bros. went on to close most of Midway Games' Chicago, Illinois headquarters and San Diego, California and Liverpool, England development studios, they retained the Midway Games Chicago development studio, which became part of Warner Bros.' Interactive Entertainment division. The surviving studio was renamed WB Games Chicago a few days later. On April 20, 2010, the studio was reincorporated as NetherRealm Studios, effectively replacing WB Games Chicago. NetherRealm Studios' first game, the ninth installment and reboot of the Mortal Kombat series, was released in April 2011. Their first game in an original intellectual property, ', based on the DC Universe, was released in 2013. The success of the two games allowed the development of respective sequels; Mortal Kombat X in 2015 and Injustice 2 in 2017. Meanwhile, NetherRealm Studios has also developed the Android and iOS versions of ', and WWE Immortals. NetherRealm Studios' next game, Mortal Kombat 11, was released on April 23, 2019.
Games developed
Controversies
Shortly after the launch of Mortal Kombat 11, several independent declarations from former employees came through about the studio's alleged practices and general working conditions during the development of their last four games. In May 2019, NetherRealm released a statement saying “At NetherRealm Studios, we greatly appreciate and respect all of our employees and prioritize creating a positive work experience. As an equal opportunity employer, we encourage diversity and constantly take steps to reduce crunch time for our employees. We are actively looking into all allegations, as we take these matters very seriously and are always working to improve our company environment. There are confidential ways for employees to raise any concerns or issues.” Following the statement, NetherRealm gave the studio the weekend off The same month, another article by Kotaku reported on the mental toll the developers were taking on by developing such graphic video games; one developer would detail stories about using pictures and videos of murders or animal slaughter as reference material, causing nightmares and eventual insomnia, with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
