Image via Complex Original
Mortal Kombat's small, innocuous beginnings—a team of four working over eight months—belie just what a juggernaut that game (and subsequent franchise) became. The once Midway-owned property has spawned nine primary fighters on a variety of consoles, spin-off games such as Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Shaolin Monks, two live-action movies (let's all just forget Annihilation), a live-action TV show (Conquest), an animated series (Defenders of the Realm), a stage show, comic books, and an ongoing web series (Legacy)—plus the requisite apparel, toys, and the like. Years ago, MK became a phenomenon far outside gaming circles alone. Its name has become recognizable enough to be name dropped on sitcoms (Malcolm in the Middle and Married... With Children), found in movies (Christian Slater plays MK4 in Very Bad Things), and used as part of cultural studies (see Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins' book From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games).
That notoriety has come with a price, as its gory Fatalities and gallons of blood have sparked Congressional hearings, endless watchdog reports, and even ties to national tragedies like the Columbine massacre. The first title's violence was instrumental to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Few video games have created as many reverberations in and out of the industry as Mortal Kombat.
Last month marked 20 years since the original game bum-rushed arcades, spearing in millions in quarters from players who were just getting to know these Scorpion and Sub-Zero dudes. In light of this milestone, we chatted with Ed Boon, the game's co-creator alongside John Tobias (who left the team in 1999), about the franchise. Ahead, NetherRealm Studios’ Creative Director talks about the move that first separated MK from Street Fighter II, the ninjas’ origin, the sci-fi game that almost replaced MKII, his best and worst memories associated with the series, and much more.
RELATED: 25 Additional DC Characters That Should Be In "Injustice"
RELATED: Interview: "Injustice: Gods Among Us" Producer on Walking the Line Between Casual and Hardcore
Ed Boon's 12 Biggest Mortal Kombat Memories
Mortal Kombat's small, innocuous beginnings—a team of four working over eight months—belie just what a juggernaut that game (and subsequent franchise) became. The once Midway-owned property has spawned nine primary fighters on a variety of consoles, spin-off games such as Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Shaolin Monks, two live-action movies (let's all just forget Annihilation), a live-action TV show (Conquest), an animated series (Defenders of the Realm), a stage show, comic books, and an ongoing web series (Legacy)—plus the requisite apparel, toys, and the like. Years ago, MK became a phenomenon far outside gaming circles alone. Its name has become recognizable enough to be name dropped on sitcoms (Malcolm in the Middle and Married... With Children), found in movies (Christian Slater plays MK4 in Very Bad Things), and used as part of cultural studies (see Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins' book From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games).
That notoriety has come with a price, as its gory Fatalities and gallons of blood have sparked Congressional hearings, endless watchdog reports, and even ties to national tragedies like the Columbine massacre. The first title's violence was instrumental to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Few video games have created as many reverberations in and out of the industry as Mortal Kombat.
Last month marked 20 years since the original game bum-rushed arcades, spearing in millions in quarters from players who were just getting to know these Scorpion and Sub-Zero dudes. In light of this milestone, we chatted with Ed Boon, the game's co-creator alongside John Tobias (who left the team in 1999), about the franchise. Ahead, NetherRealm Studios’ Creative Director talks about the move that first separated MK from Street Fighter II, the ninjas’ origin, the sci-fi game that almost replaced MKII, his best and worst memories associated with the series, and much more.
RELATED: 25 Additional DC Characters That Should Be In "Injustice"
RELATED: Interview: "Injustice: Gods Among Us" Producer on Walking the Line Between Casual and Hardcore
12. Favorite MK Moment
There are so many, but I would maybe say my favorite memory was when we first put the original game on test at an arcade in Chicago [and] seeing the reaction of players, and how you could see a player who played it one day would come back with friends—"Oh, you've got to see this thing"—and everybody gathering around it. By the end of the time, it was a big crowd of people. It was just this outrageous, outrageous reaction—cheers and all that stuff. Seeing people playing the game for the first time and getting all excited was probably the best memory.
11. The Worst MK Moment
That's a tough one. I don't know if this is my least favorite memory, but I wasn't a big fan of the second movie [Mortal Kombat: Annihilation].
10. Sub-Zero's Fatality
The Sub-Zero [spine-ripping] one got the most attention. A lot of the stuff that we did was based on movies we saw. In Predator—that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie—there was a scene where one of the Predators did that to somebody. There was a scene when he pulled out somebody's head and there was a spine attached to it. We said, "Oh, we should do that." I think John Tobias suggested that one. My reaction was, "No, man, that's just too far. That's over-the-top," and then everybody who heard it said, "No, you've gotta do that." The whole idea was, "Okay, we'll mock it up and just see if people think it's too far." Then, everybody's like, "No, no, we've got to do it." That really set the pace of those over-the-top Fatalities.
9. Creating Scorpion's Spear Attack
I remember when we first put in the uppercut move. Basically, you duck down and hit the high punch, and the guy delivers this uppercut move that launches your [opponent] way up in the air and he lands on the ground and the screen shakes—just the most explosive, powerful-feeling move. I remember people sitting in my office all day just doing this uppercut again and again, like 'Oh my God, that feels so good.' It just became the cornerstone of [the game]. That was a big moment. It sounds odd, but people would be coming into my office and saying, "Let me see that uppercut move everybody is talking about."
Another one is Scorpion's spear. That, to me, was clearly the one move that I remember really set Mortal Kombat on a different path than Street Fighter. Street Fighter is an amazing game; they had projectiles. That was really kind of special. These characters can shoot energy out of themselves.
When Mortal Kombat got the spear out and it would attach to the other guy, they would shake and you would pull him in and hear “Get over here.” Then, you got that salivating free hit; usually, people would do an uppercut. That was really the defining moment of "Okay, this game is going to go in this direction. This is what this game is going to be all about"—just over-the-top moments. Scorpion's spear, Sub-Zero freezing a guy, Raiden diving and teleporting behind you—all of those things became very defining moments—but the Scorpion spear is the biggest one.
8. Seeing One Of His Characters Outside Of The Game
Over the years, when Mortal Kombat started becoming its own intellectual property, other teams at Midway [would] be working on a game, like the [MLB] Slugfest guys asked, "Oh, can we put Scorpion in it?" It was always funny to see Scorpion playing basketball or baseball or something like that. We always got a kick out of that. To me, [my favorite] was when we put Mortal Kombat in The Grid. That was our first game outside of the Mortal Kombat universe, but there was something novel about seeing those characters interacting in a completely different mechanic.
[Note: The Grid's secret characters included Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Noob Saibot.]
I loved seeing Raiden in [NFL] Blitz. That always made me laugh, seeing him pass the ball to the quarterback.
When we released The Grid, it was really at the very tail end of the arcade industry. Home console games were becoming so powerful that less and less people were going to the arcade. Ironically, we released an arcade game that was most fun with multiple cabinets. Three cabinets was 10 times more fun than two cabinets, four cabinets was 10 times more fun than three. The most fun I've ever had playing a video game in my life was playing The Grid with six people. Ironically, the economics of the arcade industry was people weren't buying many arcade cabinets, let alone [multiples of one game], so that game really [lent] itself to something like Xbox Live or something online. When the first Xbox was being started [and] they were talking about Xbox Live, they actually bought a bunch of Grid cabinets, and they were going to do The Grid for the Xbox, but then that fell through for whatever reason. A couple of times, Midway marketing wanted to do The Grid as a downloadable game for Xbox 360, and for some reason, that never transpired. It was just a series of people being really interested in doing it, and then for whatever reason—the economics or somebody who was driving it left the company or something like that—it just never came true. I still to this day feel like it would be a fantastic Xbox Live game.
7. Transitioning from 2D To 3D
There was a lot of technical challenges. Obviously, going from sprites to 3D characters, everything kind of feels differently. Suddenly, you can move the camera and you can move in 3D space. There was a feel of that's also where other fighting games were going. At about Mortal Kombat 3, Tekken and Virtua Fighter had come out, and those were 3D games. At first, those games fought on a 2-D plane, they started experimenting with moving in 3D.
I think that we spent so much time on the technology and we wanted to maintain the gameplay that people were so accustomed to and happy with, with combos and stuff like that, that, to me, Mortal Kombat 4 turned out to be a half 3D, half 2D game. You jump up and down, and you can move in a 3D space, but it was still trying to keep the whole Mortal Kombat I, II, and 3 high punch, low punch [dynamic]. We really didn't embrace 3D until we did Deadly Alliance, which was Mortal Kombat 5.
6. Creating "Mortal Kombat II"
The timing of Mortal Kombat II was interesting. When we finished Mortal Kombat I, Acclaim did the home version, and they sold six million copies or something crazy like that. We had already started talking about doing a Star Wars game, and then our general manager at the time came to us one day and said, 'What do you mean a Star Wars game? You can't do a Star Wars game. You've got to do another Mortal Kombat game.' The notion of sequels wasn't even something that we had entertained. It was just like, 'Oh, you do this game and then you move onto the next game.' Looking back now, it's really silly that we wouldn't have entertained that idea.
[The proposed Star Wars game] was so much in the dream concept stage. We hadn't even come up with a perspective, whether it was third-person, first-person, top-down, whatever. It was just something that we were into Star Wars and that was it.
When we did Mortal Kombat II, we got new equipment and all that stuff, but it was funny because when we started working on Mortal Kombat II, the mania, the hysteria of the home versions of Mortal Kombat I was literally all around us. We were so busy working on the next one, going from seven characters to 12 and two Fatalities per character and all these other things that that consumed every second.
When we were working on Mortal Kombat 3, the hoopla for Mortal Kombat II coming out in the home was all there, so it was like we were on a treadmill. We were just cranking out the games while the previous version was in the public eye.
5. Addressing The Violence
To me, it was always a very simple conversation. When the arcade game came out, there was no system in place of preventing a young kid from seeing that stuff. When the game became really popular, ironically, there were other games that were more violent that just never became as popular and didn't have as much exposure. The objection was always 'Parents, especially buying this home version, need to be able to know what they're buying. Do you want your child to see this?' There was no rating system, and the rating systems came as a result of a number of these games, including Mortal Kombat. I've always had the position that the rating system was a good idea and should be put in place. Once Mortal Kombat II came out, there was a rating system in place. We were an M-rated game, and everybody knew the content that was in there, so it became almost a non-issue.
4. Going Mainstream
I remember going to, I think it was called the Consumer Electronics Show. I remember when Acclaim were promoting the first Mortal Kombat game in the home, they created these giant plastic molded pieces of the dragon. I remember seeing that at their booth and doing a double take. "Oh my God, they actually spent money to create this dragon for the show." Then, they lead me up the booth and put in a videotape. They played me the first commercial for a Mortal Kombat game with the kid in the street screaming, "Mortal Kombat!" I remember that being another moment—pausing, going, "Wow, this thing has really become commercial and mainstream."
When the Mortal Kombat movie was being created and released and it opened number one—I think it was the second-best August opening ever or something—and seeing that on CNN, just getting [a feeling of] "Wow, this is outside of the game. This is outside of an arcade game that's released."
Over the years, as the other movie came out and there were TV shows and you see the merchandising and people with shirts and all that stuff, it was just this gradual acceptance of "Wow, this thing has a life of its own." It's not like we were in control over every single Mortal Kombat incarnation that was released because there were so many other forms of media and forms of entertainment that it was growing into. That, to me, was the experience of realizing that it became part of pop culture.
3. Creating Scorpion And Sub-Zero
The original reason Scorpion and Sub-Zero came along was because when we were driving around Chicago looking for props to create these characters and costumes, we found a costume shop in Chicago and they had a ninja-like costume. We took pieces of this, pieces of that, and made a mask for this, and came up with this yellow ninja. That character didn't have a name at the time. We knew that in the arcade games, the amount of memory that you could use was put in EPROM—chips, basically. Memory was very, very scarce, so if you add more memory to your game, your game costs that much more, and then it costs the company that much more. A lot of attention went into the economics of it, and so we knew that if we could take a character and change their color and use basically the same memory to create two characters, we'd save a lot of money and we'd have two characters.
We colored the yellow ninja blue and created this blue ninja. We're giving them moves and everything, and blue looked like ice, so that gave the theme of Sub-Zero and freezing people. Yellow looked like fire, and that was like the Scorpion thing. They were opposites of each other, and that prompted the story behind them being these opposing ninja-clan-type characters. Everything rolled off of that.
2. Brainstorming The Game
The very earliest that I remember was the original conversation I had with a guy named John Tobias about the game. I was working on a football game called Super High Impact Football, and John was working on a game called Total Carnage, which was kind of a sequel to Smash TV. At the time, Street Fighter II was out. I don't think it had really quite taken off yet.
At the time, [Midway's] big thing was digitized graphics, which was basically taking video of people and using that as your source for your sprites as opposed to drawing, and that created a very photorealistic look. That was something that we were doing with our football game High Impact, a game called NARC, a Terminator 2 game, and all these games that had this realistic look.
In our conversation, John and I said, 'Wouldn't it be cool to do a photorealistic-looking fighting game to go with a lot more hard edge, a little bit more serious, a little bit more like Enter the Dragon [or] Bloodsport?'
I remember having that conversation after dinner one day. I remember I was playing one of the games Midway had done at the time in the one of the programmers' office, and we were just having a conversation. That was the first idea that we had to even do something like this.
1. Watching The Game Come To Life
Well, with 20 years of it, it's hard to have a first thing to come to mind because it's been so many years of working on it and so many big events have happened.
I suppose if you were to say "off the top of your head," I would rewind to the original game where it was just four of us working on it, no expectations behind us. We kind of caught the video game world by surprise with everything we were doing: our presentation, the blood, the violence, the controversy, all that—that whole chapter up there as just an arcade game. Once Acclaim took it into the mainstream with pretty high-profile television commercials and advertising really hard, that brought it up to a new level. Then, the movie brought it into different media. At that point, it just became one big, crazy ride where there are so many big events associated with it that it's hard to pinpoint any one of them. I could literally write a book on my experiences.