It’s hard to believe, but fatalities were significantly nearly cut from the final version of Mortal Kombat. Ed Boon disclosed on the occasion of the series’ 30th anniversary that fatalities were first introduced as a result of the team’s playful antics while they were in the process of developing the game and experimenting with what actions players may take while engaged in combat.
This information was gleaned from an interview with Ed Boon and YouTuber Brian Tong. Their discussion sheds light on the origins of the legendary first Mortal Kombat game and the rapid rise to prominence of one of the gaming industry’s most profitable franchises thanks to the game’s streamlined production process.
Initially, the only character other than Shang-Tsung, the final boss, to suffer a fatality was the final boss himself. The player wouldn’t even have gotten the benefit of his magical abilities because he’d end up getting beheaded by him. During development, however, Boon and the rest of the team concluded that it would be exciting to give this ability to the player. They then began brainstorming grisly methods in which we may kill our adversaries.
According to Boon, the last boss character in the game, Shang Tsung, had this ability where when he would defeat you, he would [grab] a giant sword and slash your head off. Boon was speaking about an older version of the game. So it was just going to be the boss, but we decided to have some fun and have Johnny Cage duck down and give the other man an uppercut at one point. After that, all we did was use the head animation [from Shang Tsung], but you could easily do it yourself.
Boon continues: When that was implemented, everyone completely lost their minds. You can’t do it, said almost fifty percent of those who were present. …while the other half of them were thinking, “You can’t NOT do that!”
