How the game "Mortal Kombat 3" and "MK 3 Ultimate" was created: 19 interesting facts about the game (30 photos)

The Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 fighting game was released in the mid-90s on arcade machines and consoles. The game became a real hit of that time and is still remembered by gamers as one of the best fighting games.





1. The third part of the game was supposed to be even larger and more interesting than the first two, so two years were allocated for the development of the game instead of one. John Tobias and Ed Boon began to think about new ideas, where there would be a place for both old and new characters, of which there should have been even more.



The staff of employees engaged in development has expanded from five to seven people, and the equipment for work has also been updated.

2. Johnny Cage was supposed to return to the game, and his role was supposed to be played by Daniel Pesina, who played this character in the first two parts of the game. But in the end, the character was never introduced into the game, and all because of Daniel himself.





When the first two parts of the game "Mortal Kombat" gained wild popularity, Daniel Pesina decided that the bosses of "Midway" were significantly underpaying him. During the creation of the first part of the game, Pesina and other actors earned $ 50 an hour, and during the creation of the second part - already $ 75 an hour.

Pesina decided that this was just crumbs, so he demanded to give him at least a percentage of the media sold for home consoles. Some other actors, such as Philip Ahn (Shang Tsung, MK 2), Elizabeth Malecki (Sonya, MK) and Katalin Zamiar (Kitana, Mileena, Jade, MK 2), also joined this demand. But "Midway", as well as the companies involved in porting the game to home consoles, refused to pay them additional payments.



In addition, the company "Akklaim" (they were the ones doing the porting) recommended that the actors go to court, since they themselves would not pay them anything.

As a result, Daniel Pesina and other actors filed a lawsuit for the use of their images in games on home consoles. But despite hiring a bunch of lawyers, the actors lost the case, and Midway refused to cooperate with them in the future.

And for Pesina's impudence (he asked for $10 million in compensation), the developers decided not only to refuse to cooperate with Pesina, but also to remove Johnny Cage from the game in principle, killing the character himself according to the script somewhere off-screen.

There is a story that Daniel Pesina was fired for advertising slot machines with the game "Bloodstorm", which was presented as "Mortal Kombat Killer". The actor himself acted in the image of Johnny Cage.



But Daniel Pesina himself denied these rumors. Yes, there was advertising, but he left the project not because of it, since his contract did not contain any prohibitions on the use of the image and advertising of other games. Cooperation with the rest of the actors was also terminated.



Also, the company decided to refuse cooperation with Daniel Pesina's brother - Carlos, who played Raiden in the first two parts. Raiden himself, although not killed, was removed from the game plot-wise. Although, there is a story there too.

3. Initially, the game "Mortal Kombat 3" was going to be made in 3D format, or at least using 3D technologies. But at that time these technologies were still in their infancy, so it was decided to use the same format as before.



4. It was because of the lawsuits with Pesin and other actors that John Tobias (Tobias) began to think about how to temporarily put some old characters somewhere, and carefully introduce new ones. As a result, a plot was invented about Queen Sindel (Kitana's mother), who once committed suicide after Shao Kahn killed her husband and forcibly took her as his wife.



The resurrected Sindel became a kind of bridge between the Outer and Earthly worlds, which is why Shao Kahn's troops penetrated the earth, stealing the souls of almost everyone except the chosen ones.

5. As for the characters, the developers argued wildly and for a long time about which of the old characters to leave and which new characters to add. In the end, after a long brainstorming session, it was decided to leave only Liu Kang, Sub-Zero Jr. (without a mask, so that everyone could see that it was not Daniel Pesina, who played him in the second part), Sonya Blade, Jax, Kano, Shang Tsung and Kung Lao.



As for the new characters, there were even more problems with them. Everyone wanted to introduce their own fictional character, but someone always rejected it. In the end, they agreed that the game would feature the following cast:

Liu Kang - Shaolin monk, winner of Mortal Kombat (played by Eddie Wong);

Sonya Blade - special forces operative, lieutenant, participant in the first Mortal Kombat (played by Carey Anne Hoskins);

Sub-Zero Jr. - ninja from the Lin Kuei clan. Possesses the power of cold (cryomancer), like his older brother, but is a positive character (played by John Turk);

Shang Tsung - an evil sorcerer (also played by John Turk);

Kung Lao - a Shaolin monk, a descendant of the great Kung Lao, a friend and comrade of Liu Kang (as in the second part, he was played by Anthony Marquez);

Jax - Sonya Blade's commander, major, participant in the second Mortal Kombat (played by John Parrish);

Kano - a criminal, the leader of the Black Dragon clan (played by Richard Divizio);

Shao Kahn (non-player character, boss) - the emperor of Outworld (played by Brian Thompson).



That's it for the familiar characters. As for the newcomers, the following new characters were introduced into the third part of the game:

Nightwolf - an Indian (played by Sal Divita);

Cyrax - a cyborg from the Lin Kuei clan, who was once a human (played by Sal Divita);

Sektor - a red cyborg from the Lin Kuei clan, who was once a human (played by Sal Divita);

Smoke - a gray cyborg from the Lin Kuei clan, who was previously a human. Sub-Zero Jr.'s friend and ally, a secret character (played by Sal Divita);

Curtis Stryker - a police officer without superpowers (played by Michael O'Brian);

Sheeva - a four-armed Shokan woman (created using stop-motion animation using a puppet);



Sindel - the resurrected queen of Edenia, mother of Kitana (played by Lia Montelongo);

Kabal - Kano's former comrade in the Black Dragon clan, who defected to the good guys. Wears a mask and a ventilator, as he was badly injured during the attack by Shao Kahn (played by Richard Divizio);

Motaro is a representative of the centaur race, a podross, a non-playable character (created using stop-motion animation using a doll).



Leah Montelongo

By the way, 19-year-old Leah Montelongo, who played Sindel, was brought in by Brian Thompson, who played Shao Kahn, who was her boyfriend at the time. But Brian himself was brought in by John Parrish, who played Jax. The thing is, they went to the gym together. It was there that Parrish told his friend about the audition for the role of Shao Kahn.

By the way, Richard Divizio became the only actor who appeared in all parts of the classic trilogy. During this time, he played Kano, Baraka and Kabal.



Carrie Ann Hoskins

But Carrie Ann Hoskins, who played Sonya, was already working at "Midway" as a model, so she was invited to play Sonya. In particular, she played one of the cheerleaders in the game "NBA Jam".

6. Thanks to the new employees, such innovations as a running bar, combo attacks, throwing the enemy to another arena with an uppercut, combat codes that allowed changing the game mode (playing in the dark, playing without a life bar, secret games like "Galaxian", playing for bosses, etc.) were added to the game.



The idea with running, by the way, arose thanks to one of the developers, who decided that the fighters were approaching each other too slowly from different ends of the screen.

7. A new finishing mode appeared in the game - "Animality", thanks to which the player turned into his totem animal and finished off the enemy. Moreover, each character had their own animal.



In order to perform this finishing move, you need to bring the game to the third round (1 win and 1 loss), and then defeat the opponent. Now in the "Finish him" mode, you need to enter the combination for mercy (Mercy), after which the opponent will come back to life. And now you need to defeat the opponent again and during "Finish Him" ​​enter the combination "Animality".

8. As a rule, athletes and martial artists were always invited to play the roles of characters, but in the third part, one exception was made. One of the developers of the game, Sal Divita, played Nightwolf (Night Wolf) and all the cyborgs.



This even caused some problems. Since Sal was not an athlete, he could not raise his leg high. As a result, Nightwolf's upper kick had to be completed on the computer, artificially raising the leg.



9. Despite the fact that Motaro is a sub-boss, and not the main boss, he is much more difficult to defeat than Shao Kahn. And the whole point is that the developers decided to provide the centaur with full protection from signature moves.



10. Curtis Stryker was created for the first part of the game, but the studio bosses ordered to make at least one female character for the game, which is why STryker was put on the shelf. In the second part, the Special Forces operative was still introduced, but for some reason under the name Jax. And only in the third part of the game, the developers dusted off their developments for the first part of the game and introduced a character with this name into the third part.



11. By the way, Stryker turned out to be one of the most unloved characters among gamers. Most of all, gamers did not like that Stryker is an ordinary person without superpowers, who uses ordinary weapons. Although personally, Stryker is one of my favorite characters.

12. I already mentioned this in my previous article about "Mortal Kombat 2", but I will say it again: in the third part of the game, Sub-Zero has a European appearance, while in the second part we were clearly shown that Sub-Zero is Asian.



By the way, in the third part of the game, Sub-Zero was played by former police officer John Turk. The parents of young gamers were terribly unhappy that a police officer was filmed for a bloodthirsty game, which is why his department received many complaints.



13. In the version of the game for "Sega mega drive 2" they shoved Noobsaibot as a secret non-playable character. True, despite the fact that Noob Saibot is a shadow of the deceased Sub-Zero Sr., in the game he had clear outlines of Kano.



This oversight was due to the fact that in the third part of the game there was not a single ninja, and creating a new sprite for such a character was unprofitable. Therefore, the image of Kano was taken as a basis, although in their place I would have taken the image of Sub-Zero without a mask.

14. After the release of the game, the developers realized that they released it rather raw, which is why they immediately began working on an improved version of the game, which was called "Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate".



As a result, the game received a whole bunch of updates, including:

Several new characters and the return of old ones. Thus, Mileena, Kitana, Jade, Scorpion, Sub-Zero (in a mask), Rain (a demigod, a purple ninja), Ermac (a creature consisting of souls, aka the red ninja), Reptile and Noob Saibot were added to the game. John Tobias came up with a biography especially for them that would not violate the canon;

New "2 on 2" modes and a tournament (8 players) appeared;

An additional difficulty level "Master" appeared, where you had to defeat 12 opponents;

A new finishing mode "Brutality" also appeared;

Combos can now be blocked, and also started during a hit in the choke;

We worked a little on the characters. For example, Striker now has the ability to shoot from a machine gun, and the speed of throwing grenades was greatly slowed down, so that he could not throw an enemy to death. Also, Sub-Zero could no longer create an ice clone close to the enemy;

New arenas appeared, for example "Jade Desert".

And more.



15. They couldn't come up with a normal "Friendship" for Sonya Blade, so during the reception she just happily waves her hands. But in the Ultimate version of the game, this reception was replaced. However, filming the actress again was quite tedious, so the developers simply put Sonya in a victory stance, and in the meantime flowers were blooming in front of her, which looked even stupider than before.



However, in the Sega "Ultimate" version, the classic "Friendship" from the third part is still used.

16. By the way, about Ermac. This character appeared essentially thanks to the fans. Even during the first part, due to a glitch in the game, Scorpion was repainted red, and instead of his name, it was written "Ermac", which meant "Error macro", that is, a macro error.



Players immediately began trying to find this secret character in any way, but they failed. And in the second part, the developers added "fuel to the fire" by leaving players a secret message "Ermac who", which is why players again began to look for a secret character.

Only in the "Ultimate" version of the third part of the game, the developers took pity on the fans and still squeezed Ermac into the game, having come up with his own biography.

17. Due to such a large amount of new content, the game simply could not fit on cartridges for the Sega Mega drive 2 and SNES, since there was simply not enough memory. As a result, the game had to be cut down a lot to fit it on these cartridges:

Some arenas were removed;

This version of the game did not have Shiva;

The "Animality" finishing mode was removed;

Some Fatalities were reworked. For example, the Sega version does not have Scorpion's fatality with his numerous doubles. Instead, he transfers the victim to his lair, where the opponent explodes;

Etc.



18. Even though many fans of the game were indignant about the transfer of the action to modern urban landscapes, the appearance of Sub-Zero, cyborgs, etc., the game gained enormous success among gamers. And to this day it is one of the best in the series. Even the later 4th, 5th and subsequent parts could not overshadow it.



19. But in fact, the story of the trio did not end with the game "Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate". In 1996, an updated version was released under the name "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", which became even more extensive.

In this game, they shoved all the characters of the game, including those from the first and second parts. They even brought back Johnny Cage. However, his role was not played by Daniel Pesina, but by Chris Alexander for obvious reasons. The resentment towards Daniel was too strong. But his brother Carlos was brought back to the game as Raiden, and even supplied with new techniques and finishing moves.



However, due to the fact that the character did not have an animation for a blow to the groin, Johnny Cage's technique with a blow to the crotch had to be removed.

Also, the game had an aggression bar, which when filled made the fighter stronger and faster for a short period of time.

But due to the fact that the game took up too much memory, it was not possible to port it to the 16-bit Sega or SNES. Also, the game never appeared on arcade machines. As a result, the game was distributed only on consoles such as Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation 1, Sega Saturn and personal computers. That's why many of us (including me) had never heard of this game in the 90s.