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Ed Boon can't imagine leaving the series behind, but wants to diversify.

Since the early 1990s, Ed Boon has worked on the Mortal Kombat series almost exclusively. He created the arena-based arcade shooter The Grid back in 2001, but besides that, Boon (and most of the team that now comprises NetherRealm Studios) has been all about the gory fighting franchise. With the latest Mortal Kombat game selling over 3 million copies so far, it seems like a foregone conclusion that Boon and his team would want to get cranking on another iteration right away. Or is it? In a new interview, Mr. Boon talks just a bit about the future of NetherRealm.

It may have slipped under the radar a little bit, but NetherRealm actually released two titles in 2011: Mortal Kombat of course, as well as Batman: Arkham City Lockdown. The latter is an iPhone game based on the smash hit console release, and features gameplay very much like Epic’s Infinity Blade. Both games were developed on the Unreal 3 Engine, which Boon credits for the ease of sharing programming skills. “We're working in the Unreal environment, both in our console games as well as the iOS games, so there's a familiarity there,” he says in the Gamespot interview. “Obviously, the iOS games aren't as long, in terms of how long it takes us to complete the project.”

Mr. Boon goes on to say that NetherRealm wants to diversify and work on multiple formats and multiple types of games. He’s quick to point out that Mortal Kombat was very successful, and both his team and Warner Bros. Interactive would want to replicate that success. “But at the same time, we want our studio to do more than just make Mortal Kombat games,” he says. “We love making them but we also want to do different types of games. Different genres, different IPs.”

While Boon and his team haven’t strayed from the Mortal Kombat universe, they have tried to do different things with the franchise from time to time. The two player brawler Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks was well received by critics, and would have been the start of a new spin-off series had the game sold well enough. Many of the MK games that were released in the previous generation featured unique game modes, including a puzzle game and a kart racing minigame. Boon affirms in the interview that 2012 will be a year of diversification for NetherRealm, but we’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.

Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition is due on February 28, and includes all the DLC released for the game at a reduced price.