How Street Fighter II Inspired Mortal Kombat's Fatalities

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon has shed light on where the original idea for Fatalities came from, citing the Street Fighter franchise as a key source of inspiration.

On the latest episode of our monthly interview show IGN Unfiltered, Boon revealed that the dizzy mechanic introduced in Street Fighter II (which renders a player unable to move for a brief period of time mid-battle after getting it too many times consecutively) ultimately led to the creation of Fatalities in Mortal Kombat.

"I played a lot of Street Fighter [II] and one of the things about Street Fighter that annoyed me and I loved was when you get the other guy dizzy" he said, highlighting how good it felt to be the guy who got his opponent dizzy, and conversely how bad it felt when you were on the receiving end.

For Mortal Kombat, Boon wanted to capture that "good feeling" without giving the opposing player the "bad feeling." As such, they "moved the dizzy to the end of the fight" and created Mortal Kombat's iconic FINISH HIM! ending, providing the winning player with that added moment of satisfaction.

"Usually people would just do an uppercut and that would feel better," Boon said of the initial response to the FINISH HIM! ending. This then led the team to wonder: "What if you could do something special at the end?" which ultimately led to the creation of Fatalities.

We also asked Boon which Fatality came first, to which he said, "I think the Kano tearing the guy's heart out," noting it was such a "cliché martial arts movie type of thing."

For more on Mortal Kombat, including Boon's thoughts on the possibility of a Street Fighter crossover, check out our full IGN Unfiltered interview with the NetherRealm Studios creative director.