At the end of a deciding round of Mortal Kombat, the loser does not fall down. He stands swaying, defenceless, and a voice tells the winner to “Finish him!” For a few seconds the winner can enter a secret joystick command and kill the beaten fighter on screen: Kano reaches into the chest and pulls out a still-beating heart; Sub-Zero tears off the head and holds it up with the spine still attached. These were the Fatalities, and they made Midway’s 1992 arcade game famous. A year later they shaped two very different home versions, and that winter they were at the centre of the US Senate hearings on violent video games.
Fast facts
- First appeared: Mortal Kombat (Midway, arcade, 1992), created by Ed Boon and John Tobias.
- How: a hidden joystick and button sequence, entered at the right distance while the loser stands dazed. Kano’s was back, down, forward, light punch, standing close.
- Home versions: 13 September 1993, “Mortal Monday”, from Acclaim. The Mega Drive hid the Fatalities behind a cheat; the Super NES renamed them Finishing Moves and replaced four.
- Sequels: at least two Fatalities per fighter, plus Babality and Friendship, in Mortal Kombat II (arcade by early 1994, home versions later that year); Animality in Mortal Kombat 3 (1995).
- Still running: NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat of 2011 and Mortal Kombat 1 of 2023 both sold on their Fatalities.
In the arcade
Mortal Kombat was Midway’s answer to Street Fighter II, and its digitised fighters already looked more real than Capcom’s cartoons. The Fatalities pushed that further. “Everyone on the team contributed ideas for the fatalities,” Boon told Retro Gamer in 2007. “There were also PLENTY of them that we thought were crossing the line and didn’t include. Most of them had to do with technical limitations, but there certainly were some that were rejected because they went into the category of ‘bad taste’.”
Each fighter had one, and players had to work out the sequence for themselves; Kano’s heart was the reward, Retro Gamer noted, “once you worked out Kano’s fatality”. Kano’s heart, Sub-Zero’s head and spine, Sonya Blade’s kiss that turned her opponent into a pillar of flame and Raiden’s lightning that turned the loser’s head to pulp were the ones the magazine still remembered fifteen years later. Computer and Video Games reviewed the coin-op in November 1992 and singled out “some pretty good (not to mention violent) moves”.
“Finish Him!” at home
Acclaim’s conversions came out on the same day in September 1993, “Mortal Monday”, and they did not agree about the Fatalities. CVG’s August 1993 review of Probe’s Mega Drive version explained the ritual for readers who had not seen the arcade machine:
At the end of your second victory your battered victim will stand stunned for a few seconds and Shang Tsung will screech ‘Finish Him!’ You’ll then get a ‘free’ shot at his crumpled body to complete the slaughter.
As sold, the Mega Drive cartridge was “free of gore and guts”. But Probe had “included a secret cheat mode that will open the flood gates for the red stuff to flow and, more importantly, the killer moves to be executed. THAT’S RIGHT! The deadly finishing moves are in there, including the legendary Spinal Tearing move.” By December Edge’s charts had the game at number one on both machines, at £60 on the Super NES and £50 on the Mega Drive.
The Super NES version
Players expected Nintendo to soften it. A Super Play reader wrote in July 1993: “I heard Nintendo will most probably cut out the fatalities (death moves), and all the blood and stuff. Is this true?” The magazine’s answer was that “for commercial reasons, Nintendo have traditionally toned down violent games in the past”, that “Nintendo’s reputation remains untarnished, something that’s far more important to them in commercial terms”, and that “it is quite ironic — after all, the game is spectacularly popular simply because it is so violent”.
Nintendo Power’s review that October confirmed it. “Fatality Moves are now called Finishing Moves and four of them have been replaced from the arcade version: Rayden zaps opponents, Sub-Zero turns them into crumbling ice sculptures, Kano punches through the chest and Johnny Cage sticks his leg through the chest.” Its verdict box offered that the changes “can also be a positive if you want a new challenge”. Boon saw it differently: “When we found out that the blood would have to be replaced with ‘sweat’, we knew that version was doomed.”
In Congress
Sega’s own magazine described the winter of 1993–94 in its April 1994 issue: “headlines all over the nation have centered on video game violence, fueled by highly visible Senate hearings on the issue.” Its letters page named the two senators sponsoring rating legislation, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. Ken Williams of Sierra, in a guest editorial in the same issue, wrote which games the hearings had been about:
Congress focused on the violence in Mortal Kombat, and on Night Trap. The amount of violence in a creative work cannot be used as a means of determining whether it has a right to exist.
The publishers’ answer was a rating system. At the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Sega, Nintendo, 3DO, Atari, Philips, Acclaim, Electronic Arts and others formed a committee, and on 4 March 1994 it announced it would have “a comprehensive rating system in place by the end of the year”. See Congressional Hearings 1993 and ESRB.
Mortal Kombat II
The sequel doubled the Fatalities, to “a minimum of two distinct fatalities” for each fighter, and added finishers that mocked the whole idea. Nintendo Power’s strategy guide explained that “to go for a Babality move, there can be no punches thrown in the final round of the match. Instead of ripping off body parts or gouging spleens or something really cool like that, your opponent turns into a diaper-wearing baby.” The Friendship had the same no-punches condition and was, the magazine said, for “the weak of heart”.
By the time Mortal Kombat II reached the Super NES in 1994, Nintendo had changed its mind. Nintendo Power announced that the game “has it all. All the moves! Fatality, Babality, Friendship”, then dismissed the previous year’s argument: “the content of MKII is pure fantasy. Anyone who thinks you’ll need a mop to clean up after it is seriously misinformed.” Its review box confirmed “all the fatalities, babalities and friendship moves are included in their original form”. Boon was happier: “That version turned out to be perfect. Great graphics, great gameplay and lots of BLOOD!” The Game Boy cartridge kept the Fatalities and Babalities; “the Friendship moves didn’t fit”.
Mortal Kombat 3 and the imitators
The Super NES Mortal Kombat 3 of late 1995 carried “the multiple Fatalities, Friendship, Animality and Babality moves”, the Animality being the new one. It came with a condition: “You must show mercy to do an Animality”, which meant first performing a Mercy move on the beaten opponent. Rival games took up the idea in their own way. Killer Instinct had finishers too: Nintendo Power called its Humiliation moves “a kinder and gentler alternative to bloody Danger moves”, the Humiliation leaving the loser “a dancing fool”, and GamePro’s 1996 moves list gave each character a “No Mercy” and a “Humiliation” alongside the combo breakers.
Later games
The novelty wore off for some critics. Previewing Mortal Kombat 4 in 1997, Edge asked: “More gore? New fatalities? Who actually gives a toss?” The series kept them anyway. After the previous game, made with DC Comics’ characters, had been held back by “the licence constrictions applied by DC Comics”, NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat of 2011 brought the Fatalities back “in a more cheerfully gratuitous form than ever before”, with “at least two different finishers for each character” and new ones that used the scenery. When Mortal Kombat 1 restarted the series in September 2023, Warner Bros. still advertised its “brutal Fatalities”.
Sources
- Retro Gamer issue 40, 2007, pp. 27–30, “Blood Simple: the history of Mortal Kombat”: the 1992 arcade game, Boon on the fatalities the team rejected, Kano’s, Sub-Zero’s, Sonya’s and Raiden’s fatalities, the Super NES “sweat”, two fatalities per fighter in Mortal Kombat II, Boon on the Super NES sequel.
- Computer and Video Games issue 132, November 1992, p. 99: arcade review. Issue 141, August 1993, p. 48: Mega Drive review (Probe Software, “Finish Him!”, the gore cheat and the Spinal Tearing move, out 13 September).
- Edge issue 3, December 1993: charts.
- Super Play issue 9, July 1993, Gamefreak letters: the Super NES version and Nintendo’s policy. Issue 11, September 1993: the Super NES release on Mortal Monday.
- Nintendo Power issue 53, October 1993: Super NES review, Finishing Moves.
- Sega Visions, April/May 1994: “Video Game Industry Pushes for Universal Game Rating System”, the letters page, and Ken Williams’s guest editorial.
- Nintendo Power issue 63, August 1994: on the Super NES Mortal Kombat II. Issue 64, September 1994: strategy guide (Babality and Friendship) and review. Issue 65, October 1994: Game Boy Mortal Kombat II.
- Nintendo Power issue 78, November 1995: Super NES Mortal Kombat 3. Issue 77, October 1995: Killer Instinct strategy.
- GamePro issue 90, March 1996: Killer Instinct moves list.
- Edge issue 49, September 1997: Mortal Kombat 4. Issue 225, March 2011, p. 38: NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat.
- Warner Bros. Games, “Warner Bros. Games Launches Mortal Kombat 1”, September 2023 (web, secondary). https://warnerbrosgames.com/article/mk1