Ed Boon's 12 Biggest Mortal Kombat Memories

The creator of one of the greatest games of all time and the upcoming Injustice: Gods Among Us speaks candidly about the historical franchise.

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Complex Original

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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

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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

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11. The Worst MK Moment

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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

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9. Creating Scorpion's Spear Attack

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8. Seeing One Of His Characters Outside Of The Game

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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

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6. Creating "Mortal Kombat II"

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5. Addressing The Violence

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4. Going Mainstream

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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

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2. Brainstorming The Game

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1. Watching The Game Come To Life

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