Mortal Kombat 2 Isn't Even Trying To Hide Cole Young's Fate Anymore

There will be fatalities galore in Mortal Kombat II, and Cole Young’s death has practically been confirmed already. 2021’s Mortal Kombat introduced the original character played by Lewis Tan as the movie reboot’s main hero. Despite being the descendant of Mortal Kombat icon Scorpion, the film left a lot to be desired by Cole, making the sequel a chance to fix and improve the character.

That opportunity exists on paper, with Tan confirmed to reprise his role in the follow-up. However, theories have long existed that Mortal Kombat II would take a different approach and kill the original character. With Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) entering the fight this time, he’s replaced Cole as the main hero.

This has been reinforced from the start of Mortal Kombat II‘s marketing campaign, which has sidelined Tan’s character in favor of a large emphasis on Urban’s introduction. And now, it’s gone to such extremes that Cole Young looks as good as dead in the sequel.

Cole Young Is Basically Completely Absent From Mortal Kombat 2’s New Trailer

Warner Bros. has restarted the marketing campaign by releasing an official Mortal Kombat 2 trailer ahead of its new May release date. And if you were looking for Cole, your first watch probably brought the same result it did for me: he’s nowhere to be seen. He gets no dialogue or prominent placements in any shots, let alone standing somewhat noticeably in the background of scenes.

The truth is, he has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it presence. Cole is only seen for one second at the 1:49 mark of the trailer, screenshot featured below:

He’s shown sparring with Jax and Liu Kang, as Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade watch. That’s literally it. Shockingly, the marketing reduced his presence even more from where it was in the first trailer, where he appeared in a whopping three scenes totaling about five seconds.

Mortal Kombat 2 showing even less of Cole in the second trailer directly tells us how small his role is. But sidelining him as Outworld and Earthrealm clash would not make sense within the rules of this universe. The only option is that Cole’s screentime in the trailers is so small because he dies, and that probably happens very early on, considering all the scenes he’s missing from.

Judging by the footage in both trailers, my prediction is that Cole dies fighting Shang Tsung with Lord Raiden. He could essentially sacrifice himself in such an event to help the other champions escape and save Raiden’s life, giving him a heroic death that makes the rest of the movie possible.

I’ve been suspicious about Cole’s fate in the sequel for a long time, but the movie’s marketing team had previously done the bare minimum with him before. Now, it feels like there’s no attempt to even really hide that Cole is dying in Mortal Kombat II.