Fatalities

In the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games, a Fatalityis a special finishing move that can be used against one's opponent at the end of the final match. When the announcer says "Finish Him" (or "Finish Her" if the opponent is female), the player can choose to kill him or her through a fatality move. If input correctly, the background will darken, followed by the desired result.

Unlike special moves, a fatality may require certain distances and quick button sequences in order to achieve the desired result. For example, in Mortal Kombat 3, one of Sub-Zero's fatalities requires that he stands close to the opponent and quickly execute Block, Block, Run, Block, Run. Every character has their own special fatality that must be performed at a certain distance from the opponent. The number of fatalities varies depending on the game; while characters in Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance had only one, Mortal Kombat 3 and its updates featured as many as four.

In the movie, the word "fatality" is actually said once by Shang Tsung.

Fatality-style finishing moves have also appeared in other fighting games such as Killer Instinct, though they are not named as such.

The beginning

With Street Fighter II dominating arcades, Mortal Kombat co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias wanted to create a fighting game that retained Street Fighter's gameplay without being a complete copy. Originally, the project revolved around actor Jean Claude Van Damme; this idea was eventually dropped and Mortal Kombat was born.

Tobias and Boon started with Street Fighter II's system and retained many of its conventions (fireball-style projectile attacks, one on one matches, minigames, etc.), but tweaked others (the block button, special endurance matches, juggling, etc.). The most notable additions were graphic blood and fatality finishing moves. Traditional fighting games ends with the loser knocked unconscious and the victor posing for the players; characters never died during a match. The idea of a fatality proved very popular with fans.

Reaction

Mortal Kombat attracted numerous fans because it featured blood and the ability to perform fatalities. The new feature addition helped make Mortal Kombat a successful game franchise that challenged the supremacy of Street Fighter II.

The fatality concept caused considerable controversy, and many parents disapproved of the violence and the brutal endings of the game, deeming it disturbing.

The newly-founded ESRB gave Mortal Kombat a rating of M, deeming the game too violent for audiences under the age of 17. It's worth noting that, in the United States, the ESRB has no legal standing to prevent the sale of video games to minors, and therefore many people under the suggested age were able to play the game. Arcade owners were asked to monitor the ages of players, although few did.

Mortal Kombat II added some extras when it came to fatalities. The characters were given two fatalities each, and the fatalities were more violent. Many angry parents and protesters wrote letters and complained about the content of the game, but since the ESRB had already rated the games, nothing came of the protests.

Many parents feared that the introduction of fatalities would influence children to murder, and to teach them that it was okay to kill their enemies at school if they were threatened.

Fatality Types

• Decapitation - The most recurring type. Removes the head from the body through blunt force, forcefully removed or a slicing weapon.

• Immolation - Another common type. Victim suffers from severe burns from high-powered flames that often remove skin and flesh from the body, leaving behind charred bone.

• Bifurcation - Splits the victim in half at the waist area.

• Explosion - Reduces the victim into a pile of gore through explosive techniques and/or devices.

• Impalement - Runs the opponent through, often with a sharp weapon.

• Limb removal - Removes appendages through forceful means. Victim dies of blood loss.

• Devour - Kills opponent by eating a part or their entire body.

• Morphing - Changes into a creature to kill the opponent in a gruesome fashion.

• Miscellaneous - Fatalities of a unique nature not shared with others.

Variations

• Animality - This finisher allows the player to morph into an animal and maul or eat their opponent alive. This style of fatality debuted in Mortal Kombat 3. Some say the precursor to the Animality was Liu Kang's Dragon Fatality from Mortal Kombat II, in which he turned into a dragon and ate the upper half of his opponent. That fatality was turned intro Liu Kang's Animality in UMK3.
• Brutality - Introduced in Mortal Kombat Trilogy and the SNES and Sega Genesis ports of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, this finisher allowed players to perform a combo which would cause the opponent to explode. Brutalities were not very popular, as they were extremely difficult to accomplish, requiring the player to memorize and perform a special 11-hit combo. Many felt the pay-off was lacking with the only result being a fiery explosion where the victim disappears and an unrealistic amount of bone and flesh are sent flying and covering most of the screen. In some versions, the bone and flesh flies completely offscreen. This finisher didn't appear in another game until Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, in which it wasn't explicitly used as a finisher, but rather as a power-up.
• Multality - Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks also features multalities, which are fatalities performed on multiple enemies at one time.
• Heroic Brutality - In Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, many of the DC characters are superheroes who have sworn an oath against ever taking lives, Superman and Batman for example. Instead of performing Fatalities, they can perform Heroic Brutalities, which severely injure their opponent, but leave them alive to face justice.
• Babality - The defeated characters turns into a baby, sitting on the floor and wearing a miniature version of their adult clothing and accessories and/or a diaper (nappy). In some versions, the sound effect of a baby crying plays, along with a lullaby, and the word "Babality" is spelt out by colored building blocks that fall from the top of the screen. The announcer then declares (Albeit unusually and unnervingly gently) "Babality!!"
• Friendship - Instead of injuring the loser, the victor will make a peace offering, such as Sub-Zero using his powers to make a snowman, Scorpion startling his opponent with a skull in a Jack-in-the-Box, or Johnny Cage offering a signed photo of himself. The announcer is generally disappointed when a match ends in Friendship, sometimes saying "What? Friendship? Again?!"

Stage Fatalities

Stage fatalities brought a new level of environment interaction within the series. A stage fatality occurs when a player uses a part of the stage or map to execute a fatality that is not a standard character fatality. Some examples of stage fatalities are having the victim fall into a pool of acid or a pit of razor-sharp spikes, or to be run over by a subway train. Stage fatalities are present in the series from Mortal Kombat through Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, though are absent from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

Mortal Kombat: Deception features more stage fatalities than any previous Mortal Kombat game. Renamed "Death Traps", there are more stages that allow death by stage interaction than not. No longer is a special button combination required as the opponent only needs to be either standing or hit in a particular spot on the stage. Unlike previous stage fatalities, "Death Traps" can be initiated anytime during a round and only require the opponent be hit into them, meaning an instant victory. However, if they are not executed in the decisive round, the fight does not end, going on to the next round. This action acts as a ring out.

Hara-Kiri

The new kind of fatality introduced in Deception is the Hara-Kiri. The Hara-Kiri (which is a type of Japanese ritual suicide, and literally means belly cut; even though Kenshi is the only character who literally commits Hara-Kiri in this form) is a move in which the defeated player kills him/herself upon defeat at the end of the last match, rather than be finished off by their opponent. This still results in a win for the character who was victorious in battle, it is just seen as an incredibly stylish way to go out. It is the first and so far only time in the Mortal Kombat series in which the defeated player is allowed to perform a finishing move. The Hara-Kiri made its debut in Deception and seems to be a popular feature with the fans, although is not included in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon due to the new Kreate-a-Fatality feature.

Although it was called a fatality in-game, the first example of a suicidal finishing move in Mortal Kombat was Cyrax's "self-destruct" move fromMortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Gold; Cyrax, a cyborg, enters a code on to his arm panel and moments later explodes along with his opponent in a manner reminiscient of the ending of the first Predator movie. Smokewent farther with his fatality since he destroys the whole planet with his bombs. In Mortal Kombat Gold, Cyrax adopted this Fatality together with his own while Smoke adopted Cyrax's self-destruct as his Hara-Kiri inDeception. Raiden also has a Fatality which kills both him and his opponent, ending with Raiden winning.

Kreate-A-Fatality

For Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, the fatality concept was completely revised. In all previous games, fatalities and finishing moves were in the form of a button combo, activating a scripted animation sequence. In Armageddon, this system was replaced with a new Kreate-A-Fatality, or "custom chain-fatality" system. After defeating an opponent in two rounds (with default settings), players are given a limited amount of time to perform one of several violent moves (such as ripping an organ out or snapping their neck) attributed to a button and direction combination. The time then resets and the player can perform a second move, but the timebar decreases more rapidly after each move. The longer a player is able to continue the chain, the higher ranking his fatality receives; "Killer" Fatality, "Brutal" Fatality, "Evil" Fatality, etc. It is possible, with practice, to pull off a fatality of up to ten moves or possibly higher. It is also possible to "fail" the fatality by running out of time before performing a final finishing move (such as ripping the opponent's head off). If time runs out before the player can end the chain with a final fatal move, no rank or reward is given and the fatality is not counted, regardless of how many moves were completed. 

Ranks of Kreate-a-Fatality

1. Fatality
2. Deadly Fatality
3. Killer Fatality
4. Bloody Fatality
5. Mortal Fatality
6. Brutal Fatality
7. Evil Fatality
8. Vicious Fatality
9. Savage Fatality
10. Extreme Fatality
11. Ultimate Fatality

This new system required that other forms of finishing moves, such as Deception's popular Hara-Kiri self-fatalities, be left out of Armageddon. This was met with a mixed reaction, some fans preferring the more interactive nature and freedom of the Kreate-a-Fatality system, and others missing the previous games' character-specific ending moves and alternatives to killing the opponent. Also, originally, there were individual character-specific Kreate-a-Fatality moves for each character, with other characters unable to access them, but this idea was dropped somewhere along the way, and in the final product all characters' pool of moves are identical, except for shokans (goro, sheeva and kintaro.) and beast characters(moloch, blaze, onaga and more.)

Behind the scenes

The Fatality concept originated from various developers' wishes to further emphasize victory at the end of a match, so much as to rub it in the loser's face, although Steve Beran himself stated in a G4 interview that he wondered if it was possible to 'rip a guy's heart out'. Ed Boon and his fellow staff often come together to collaborate on ideas of different Fatalities often derived from movies, especially those from Japan.

The effect of dismemberment simply came from digitally editing body parts of the actors. The charred skeleton sprite came from a small skeleton figurine, animating it via stop-animation and adding fiery effects and resizing it to match the actors' size. In the History of Fatalities, the original figurine was stated to have been destroyed from constant bending, the only remnant existing being the arm, the main part used for MKII's burning animation. The bloody effects were digitally drawn on the actors when body parts were edited off. Kung Lao's Hat Slice vivisection effect was done by capturing footage of the actor falling to one side, cutting the images in half and then mirroring it.