Adding to its long list of accomplishments, Mortal Kombat (2011) took first place in the Best Fighting Game category at this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards. Second place went to King of Fighters XIII, third to Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, and WWE All Stars took fourth.

Unfortunately, it's a bittersweet win for fans of the series, as Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon revealed in an interview at the show that NetherRealm Studios will be taking a break from the franchise for a while to concentrate on other projects.

According to Boon, while it's an inevitability that the studio will eventually return to the franchise that was first born in 1992, right now the team is at work on a different project. Boon did not offer any other details on what that project may be, though he did note that Netherrealm has no plans to release additional downloadable content for the most recent Mortal Kombat.

While shocking, this news comes as no surprise considering NRS last week released Batman: Arkham City Lockdown for the Apple iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.

UPDATE (12/13/2011): It appears that Gamespot may have taken some of Ed's statements at the VGAs out of context. According to a post on his official twitter feed, he reassures that NRS is indeed still working on Mortal Kombat, as well as non-MK games.

[tweet]http://twitter.com/#!/noobde/status/146400248523264000[/tweet]