“Finish him!”
Besides “bon appetit”, few phrases fill me with as much anticipation.
The Mortal Kombat series might be even older than I am, but more than 30 years after it became a poster child for moral panic about video game violence, its infamous “fatality” moves remain intriguing.
Not content with allowing players to beat each other to a pulp, the fighting series always brings each match to an unapologetically grisly finale by inviting the victor to perform a finishing move.
Different button combinations lead to different results, from decapitations to immolations. Every single character, and there are many, has their own selection.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that after more than a dozen entries, the franchise’s developer NetherRealm would struggle to come up with new methods of murder.
But for series creator Ed Boon, it’s just one of the ways his team continues to raise its game – this time with a reboot entry dubbed Mortal Kombat 1 (MK1).
The fatality committee
“It’s about getting as many minds into the conversation as possible,” he tells Sky News.
“There’s a sort of ‘committee’ who bounce around ideas, talk with our concept artists, make mock-ups.
“They’re sent over to me and I’ll ask for modifications, or if I’m not keen I’ll ask for different ideas.
“I supply ideas as well, it’s a collaborative effort. Anybody on the team who has an idea for a fatality, we’re all ears!”
Call me (and tens of millions of other players) a sicko, but there’s definitely a morbid curiosity in seeing what kind of fresh fatalities have made it into each new game.
Boon admits there have been plenty of times when even he’s had to draw the line – and given I had just eaten lunch when we spoke, I dared not ask for details.
But that morbid curiosity is never higher than when the series, which has sold 80 million copies, hits new consoles.
MK1 is the…
