Two sentences are all it takes to bring each player’s memory to a 2D world of pixels and martial arts: first Finish Him, then Fatality! 30 years ago Mortal Kombat made its arcade debut, and the world of video games has never been the same since.
Born in response to the hugely popular Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat certainly adopted a more violent and graphic style, winning the hearts of young gamers of the time and causing panic in legions of parents. Bloody Deaths actually started the process that led to a game being installed from the system to determine if it was suitable for minors: the ESRB.
But Mortal Kombat’s effect doesn’t stop with one final move, where a fighter cuts his opponent’s spine. Thirty years later, it was created by Ed Boon and John Tobias and middle ground games It has 11 main episodes with many spin-offs and remasters, an official competitive circuit, 3 movies, and hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide.
in this Exclusive to Mortal Kombat historyWe would trace the impact of the game on some of the most important moments in the evolution of the game: from the console war of the ’90s to the relationship between video games and movies, through the evolution of the fighting game industry and the ecosystem.
The rebel spirit of Mortal Kombat
Like many great classics, Mortal Kombat risked never seeing the light at the design stage. It was first supposed to be a fighting video game starring Ninja, then it was made into the official Universal Soldier video game: an action movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme. idea of Boon and Tobias The goal was to digitize the actor’s moves and fighting style, making him the protagonist of a video game bloodier and more serious than his rivals. But when the licensing contract was blown up, the entire project was at risk of cancellation, but the release and success of Street Fighter II convinced the upper floors of Midway to give the original idea the green light.
The Capcom game was never an inspiration for the Mortal Kombat crew because it was seen as too childish in its cartoon-like style. Tobias said most of the game’s identity elements come from his fascination with Chinese mythology and supernatural kung-fu movies. wrote in 2011 a tweet: “The works that influenced me the most, Tsui Hark’s movie – Zu Warriors and Swordsman. We had to buy them from some illegal vendor in Chicago’s Chinatown.”
someone think about the kids
Mortal Kombat reached many milestones: it was the first video game to feature a secret warrior (Reptile, who later became a playable character in the sequel), was one of the first games to be released simultaneously for 4 main consoles of the time (SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy and Game Gear). ) and arcade cabinet Most popular from its release in 1992 until the summer of 1993 when it lost the crown NBA Jam. But many remember Mortal Kombat for another reason: Doom, along with Night Trap and Lethal Enforcers, was the protagonist of a media storm that brought him before US officials.
Two ultra-conservative American senators accused these 4 video games of “corrupting the minds of our youth and our society” and held a series of hearings to clarify the matter. Celebrities were in front of the censors death and realistic depiction of violence with much blood and courage. The atmosphere, bordering on the grotesque that has gripped the world of video games for almost a year, is perfectly represented in the eleventh episode of the seventh season of The Simpsons, in which Bart is obsessed. bone stormA video game very similar to Mortal Kombat, which Marge considers to be “too violent and distracting from her duties.”
1992 and 1993 were also some of the busiest years in the world. console war Between Sega and Nintendo, and also in this case, the Midway title was one of the heroes. Nintendo He wanted the version of the game for their system to be censored, removing most of the Deaths and replacing blood with sweat. Choosing the role of rebel against the great N-scepter, Sega released a version with little censorship and a gimmick (the famous ABACABB) to unleash all the violence of the original. American teens have completely fallen in love with the brutality and realism of Mortal Kombat, and this is Saw. Despite the ludicrous accusations made against the public and the name, in 1994 US officials gave the video game industry an ultimatum that they would form the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) by the end of the year to determine if a game was eligible. they are small.
Movies, comics and music albums
Today, the relationship between video games and the world of cinema is improving, with hit series like Arcane and Egrunners and almost as good movies as Uncharted. However, Mortal Kombat was one of the first successful video game series that brought its extravagant identity to the cinema. In 1995, after all the controversy and hindrance from American legislators, Mortal Kombat movie It broke box office records, earning more than $120 million, six times its budget. While the video game’s violence was softened, fans enjoyed the movie, but weren’t as excited as the sequel Annihilation or the two TV series (one animated and one live-action) that followed in later years. The 2021 reboot brought the series back to the big screen, after a decade of uncertainty and problems, with moderate success from critics and audiences.
It can be ordered by mail after the release of the first part, the first Mortal Kombat cartoonCalled the “Collector’s Edition”, it was written and drawn by John Tobias and is intended to be an introduction to the events of the game. Dubbed “Attract Mode,” designed to attract the attention of walkers in old arcades, it’s been advertised in arcade cabinets when not in use. Mortal Kombat 2 also had an official comic book written and drawn by Tobias, with more than 100 million copies said to have been printed. The title’s cross-media collaborations don’t stop there: a 1994 release to accompany console versions of Mortal Kombat. techno music album The namesake made by The Immortals. Composed in a month between one stop of their tour and the next, the disc includes a song for each of the 7 characters, as well as a song for boss Goro and two other original tracks. One of them is Techno Syndrome, the famous “Mortal Kombat!” scream and debuted at number 10 in the Billboard top 200 that year.
Now the Mortal Kombat brand is in the hands of Warner Bros., which has managed to rework hyperviolence in a modern way, reviving the series thanks to several video games that have conquered fans old and new.
Mortal Kombat had such a profound impact on the world of video games that today, thirty years later, it would be hard to imagine a world where it never existed. From the laws of rating to the relationship with the world of cinema, “Come hereIn “Deadly” we can only be grateful to Midway for believing in Boon and Tobias’ great idea and giving us an icon of the warring universe.
Source: Multiplayer
