 Now we're gonna show what is the pre-order character, which we've been excited to show for a bit. Stephanie, you've been working with some Shang Tsung. Yes, he's very exciting. I think this is a really, really cool take on Shang. Everybody's Shang Tsung tonight. I like it. Yeah, I like it. Who, what kind of people want to play Shang Tsung? Well, Shang Tsung has always, for 30 years, been kind of a tricky character. The brown fireballs from like, different kind of zoning tools, the ability to morph into the opponent. He's always been a character that really rewards knowledge. And I think that's been brought into this game in a really cool, fresh way. Awesome. Well, then the new things about him is he wears these claws that have poison tubes attached to them. He's, in Liu Kang's new era, he's still a sorcerer. But he's also more of a scientist, like an alchemist or a scientist into like, poisons and potions and stuff like that. So Liu Kang turned him into an evil genius now? Yeah. Oops. Mistakes happen. You know, kind of the outworld court's, almost like a Rasputin, like a weirdo advisor that's in the kind of the mystic arts, but also weird experimentation and stuff like that, which I think is a really fresh, cool take on the character. Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's check out his gameplay. Let's jump in, yeah. First thing we'll talk about is the claws, which you can kind of expect he uses in a lot of his normal attacks, like instead of a sweet kick. He uses his claws. They give him pretty good range. He has a bunch of slashing normals. Got this back one that has to pop up. Yeah, I am a big fan of the claw trail, it's pretty bad. Yeah, it looks really cool. One of his key strings I'd like to show is his Ford 4, which is this triple kick, really good range, pretty quick mid. I think it's gonna be one of his kind of key normals. Not the way. Yeah. And then let's check out his throw, which I'm a huge fan of, because it reminds me of Mortal Kombat 3. It does. That's one of my favorite takes on Shang Tsung. That's awesome. I love when we have those little throwbacks in there. You can also see he has this quick overhead. It doesn't pop up or lead to combos, but it's pretty fast and it's gonna lead to a knockdown. And here's a really interesting twist on Shang Tsung that I can't wait to talk about. So, you know, there's always a debate. Some people like him when he's an old man. Some people like him when he's young. Right. Why not golf? Well. Any time during a fight, Shang Tsung can morph into an old version. That's cool. And this drastically changes his move list. Like how? Well, for example, when he's young, his 2-4 is a knockdown. When he's old, 2-4 becomes a low. Does he think it's because he can't stretch that much in there? No, he might be. Another example, back 1-2 is a profit. When he's old, it's a mid that knocks down. However, his overhead becomes a low combo starter. Interesting. It's because he's just not as flexible. And his 4-4 strain is significantly longer and has more hits. That's cool. Another neat thing is you're not, this is not meant to be something you have to set up, switching back and forth. It's not something you need to cover your base. It's meant to be very quick and it's something you should be going in and out constantly. Cool. So in addition, you can see, it's pretty quick. You can also do it in the air. Oh, neat, yeah. And you can do it in the middle of a combo. And it's extremely fast. Wow. You can also switch. That's just swaggy. Like, this is cool. And then finish combos. Here's an example. So I'm actually inputting it, hitting the morph and then switching at the end of the combo automatically and I can go straight into a combo. There's going to be some cool stuff. Oh, yeah. I'll show him when we get into a special move. Oh, okay. So let's go into a special move. Sure. Straight off the bat, you expect it. If you were to beat it and have it, he has the flaming souls. Absolutely. He can do the double. And he's like in his classic pose too. Exactly. I love. He also has an EX version. What? And it starts off as a kind of reference to his 3D Fireball from Deadly Alliance. Yeah, I'm going to say Deadly Alliance, yeah. He can also do Fireball in the air. And then let's... He's just controlling everything. Yes. Then he has a new move using his claw, which is a claw slap. Oh. It's a great combo-ender. The EX version has armor, so it's playing with his anti-pressure tool. Super cool. Another new move, which again reminds you of MK3, is Bed of Nails. Awesome. He summons these, flips backwards. It's like an escape tool. If you want to get back to zoning, you can do it as an anti-air. You think they're going to jump. They're going to land on Bed of Nails, which is a really painful way to land through your jump. That's super cool. And then he also has the ability to morph into his opponent. He's doing all the morphin. Yes. It's morphin time for him. He can also morph back. And so will you time out after a while? Yes. He morphs back on his own, or he'll time out. Gotcha. Now, as an old man, his special move set completely changes. Instead of the straight fireballs, he has a ground fireball. Oh, it's like it's classic. Ah, that is like, I love it. Instead of the multiple kind of claw move, he has a single one that covers significantly more space. And this is also an armor move. Instead of the Bed of Nails, he has this injector, where he actually implants you with an injection of poison that mutates you and then knocks you away. Now, this has an EX version that is super, super cool. He'll inject you, morph into the opponent, they're re-stand, and then he actually gets a damage buff for it. He's scorpion, but he'll be doing even more damage. That's pretty nasty. A better scorpion than the scorpion, yep. And he has an air fireball on his own, which is like a jumping version of a classic ground stall. Right, that's so cool, man. Boom, screen, it's gone. Is there anything he can't do? He's pretty awesome. So one thing I wanted to show is the different ways that you can combo. Oh yeah. So you could do stuff like normally you just come into this, you can morph mid-string and then do a special move. Another example. What? So I was able to start as young, go into a combo string, do a special move as old Shane, then do the re-stand with a morph. So two different morphs in one combo as well. Very, very cool. That's a lot. Tyler's not gonna play this character either, that's what I know. Well, one really wonderful thing about him is while there's a ton of depth, he's actually not super hard to play because the moveset inputs are the same between young and old. So the fireballs, he has two different types of fireballs, but they'll always be down forward one. Or the bed of nails moves is down back three and the injector's down back three. So, you know, the depth. They translate perfectly fine. It's very intuitive while also having a lot of depth to it. So there's a lot to think about, but you're thinking about what you want to do, not how to do it, which I think is a really neat design to sit in. So I'd play him like young first round, second round old, and if I can, it would be the second round that took place 60 years ago. You could do that, but I really think when you get used to him, it's gonna be super effective to be going back and forth. I think that's gonna be the idea. It's so fast. And it's really easy to do. It's just down and left trigger, right? It's just down and left trigger. Oh, just down, right. He is not meant to be challenging to play. The challenge is how you apply the tools. The tools themselves are not meant to be overly challenging. Gotcha. And this brings when you're morphing, it's very lenient. Like you input it, and then once the special moves about to come out, that's when the morph happens. Okay. Very cool. Let's talk about the cameo I chose, because I chose Shijinko. Yeah, he popped out for a second, but we haven't seen him since. Yeah, he's one of the coolest cameos in the game. Shijinko has no unique moves. Instead, he duplicates moves depending on who the opponent is using. A good mixup with Shang Tsung and Shijinko. Exactly. They're both taking stuff. So it's just like deception. He's able to just watch people fight, learn, take after them, and then copy their moves. This is a lot to take in right now. His throw actually changes every opponent. So he is using Scorpion's 4-4 attack as his throw. Okay. He also, if you look at his meter, it's actually different than everyone else. He starts out with no abilities as cameo at all. You call him in, and he will start meditating and you can see his cameo bar is filling up. Once it's filled, he now has access to moves. What moves does he have access to? I can call him out because he can do Scorpion's rope spin. He gets one charge of it. You can see one charge went away. Now I need to recharge him so I can call him in using his A-Pet punch. And he'll begin to meditate. You can see he's building his meter back. Now as a player, I'm like, I want to hit him to get him out of there. I don't want him to meditate anymore. And I can call him out if I think you're going to hit him. Okay. So now with two charges, I can do his second move, which is, you know, it had to be this. Get over here. Nice. So could you do a double kick over? Yes, you could. Mind blown. And there's the timeline. This timeline is crazy. Another way to charge him up. And then you get to do it. And you can also, like, you can have him come out, be next to you. And at any time, he can peace out. So you're going to want to protect him on screen while building up. Then once the meter's built up, you can call him at any time. So sometimes I'll use cameos, a barrier for me to take a hit, so I don't have to. Yes, you could do that. For you, you want to be a barrier for him, so he doesn't take that hit. Exactly. And let's go into the X-ray. There's a lot there. Wow. There's a lot there. Okay. So he infects you with Takata? Yeah, that's what he's been experimenting on for the Queen. So he's supposedly trying to fight. He just walks around with diseases. He's a nasty guy. What kind of person is this? Well, big shock here, not to spoil too much Shang Tsung's kind of a scheme or he's kind of evil. He always has been evil. You are correct. So this is just a new level of evil. Man. Let's take a look at, you have one more thing you'd like to show. Yeah, just a really neat scenario with Shijinko I'd like to show off. Okay. So, as I've explained, he has the ability to copy moves from the opponent. If you use Shijinko against Shang Tsung, the first move he can steal is the classic Fireball. What you would expect? What you'd kind of expect. But his level two move, he steals the ability to morph. And he will morph into Shang Tsung's Cameo. And then I have access to Cameo Kung Lao's moves. That's a lot to take in right there. It's very neat. That's a lot to take in. And that even includes the Cameo throw. So I'm morphin' to Kung Lao and then I can use all of his moves and his moves. It's just a fun little scenario in that match that I thought would be really cool to show. There was a lot of morphin' goin' on right here. Yeah. Wow! That was great. The people out there who like, just have like that encyclopedic brain of characters and moves are going to enjoy this a lot. Yeah, I think it's such a cool way to do Shijinko too. You know, from the Conquest Moon Deception and how you would learn all those moves. It's so neat. Really cool.