Mortal Kombat: Deception

A fight between Kenshi and Mileena

The game's arenas are similar to those in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, but include new features. Some have weapons which may be picked up and used. Others are now branching, meaning that you can knock the opponent out of the fighting area in certain locations, and then continue the fight in a new area. Most levels now have deathtraps, which instantly kill any player that gets knocked into them. The game also introduces the "Combo Breaker", a system which allows players to interrupt combos up to three times per match.[1] In contrast to Deadly Alliance, in which characters had only one Fatality, the Deception characters have two Fatalities and a hara-kiri suicide move. The latter is used when the phrase "Finish Him/Her" is shown on the screen and the player is about to lose.[2]

Deception introduces two minigames that use MK characters, "Chess Kombat" and "Puzzle Kombat". The Konquest mode returns, but has been expanded into a roaming adventure game with its own plot.

The "Krypt" returns from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and serves as an interface to access extra content hidden in "koffins" (actual coffins named with the series' trademark misspelling). In Deception, the size of the Krypt was reduced from 676 koffins to 400 koffins. Some koffins also have locks that require keys which can only be found in the Konquest mode. The Krypt in Mortal Kombat: Deception includes twelve bonus characters (which was cut down to six characters in the GameCube version).[3]

Training mode

A young Shujinko meeting Kabal in the action-adventure Konquest mode

Deadly Alliance's action role-playing game-style training mode — called "Konquest" — returns in Deception and is greatly expanded from the previous version. Set before the events of the main game, Deception's Konquest mode explores the history of Shujinko, starting prior to his training with Bo' Rai Cho and ending with the beginning of Deception's main story. While mostly an adventure game, the combat elements take place in the normal Deception fighting mode. Mastering each character's moves are now minor missions, and it is not necessary to beat all of them to beat the game mode. In Konquest, a young Shujinko meets Damashi, a being who requests his assistance in collecting six powerful items, the Kamidogu, to send to the Elder Gods. By the time he collects the six Kamidogu, Shujinko is an old man, having spent forty-six years on his mission. However, Damashi is then revealed to be the Dragon King Onaga, who deceived Shujinko to obtain the six Kamidogu. Players seeking to unlock much of the bonus content in Deception are required to play through the Konquest mode. Even after completing the mode, players can continue exploring the worlds for additional items to unlock.[4]

26 total characters appear in the game, with seventeen returning and nine making their series debuts. Only one character (the boss Onaga) is unplayable.

New characters:

• Ashrah – a Netherrealm demoness searching for redemption and her freedom from the realm by way of slaying demons with a magical sword.
• Dairou – a disgraced Seidan Guardsman turned mercenary who is contracted by Darrius to assassinate his former superior Hotaru.
• Darrius – Leader of the Seidan Resistance, a movement fighting the oppressive regime of the Realm of Order.
• Havik – Chaosrealm cleric and archrival of Hotaru who wishes to resurrect Shao Kahn and ensure the reign of chaos over Outworld.
• Hotaru – Leader of the Seidan Guard who pledges his services to Onaga in hopes of forcibly establishing order in war-torn Outworld.
• Kira – a former weapons dealer recruited into Kabal's reformed Black Dragon organization.
• Kobra – Martial-artist-turned-killer who is recruited along with Kira into Kabal's reformed Black Dragon organization.
• Onaga – The Dragon King and former emperor of Outworld who seeks to regain his dominating rule of the realm. He serves as the game's final boss.
• Shujinko – An aged warrior who was deceived by Onaga when he was young. He is the central character of the game's training ("Konquest") mode.

Returning characters:

• Baraka – Member of the savage Tarkatan warrior race that attacks Outworld in order to distract Onaga's opposition. He additionally frees Mileena from imprisonment, enabling her to assume the enslaved Kitana's identity.
• Bo' Rai Cho – Outworlder who rescues Li Mei from the clutches of the Deadly Alliance (Shang Tsung and Quan Chi).
• Ermac – Composite of souls freed from Shao Kahn's control by Kenshi and who assists Liu Kang's spirit in saving the slain Earthrealm heroes resurrected and enslaved by Onaga.
• Jade – Edenian warrior and longtime ally of Kitana who joins Queen Sindel in freeing the princess, who is under Onaga's influence and serving as his bodyguard.
• Kabal – Black Dragon leader rescued from near-death by Havik. He reforms the crime syndicate with new members at the cleric's behest.
• Kenshi – Blind swordsman who joins forces with Sub-Zero in attempt to thwart Hotaru and Onaga's plans.
• Li Mei – Outworld native who is rescued from the Deadly Alliance by Bo' Rai Cho.
• Liu Kang – the deceased Mortal Kombat champion whose spirit enlists Ermac in freeing the enslaved Earthrealm fighters, but his corpse has been exhumed and reanimated for evil purposes.
• Mileena – Evil clone of Kitana who poses as the imprisoned princess and misleads Edenia's military forces in order to buy time for Onaga to enact his goals.
• Nightwolf – Native American shaman who willingly corrupts himself with the sins of his tribe so he can infiltrate the Netherrealm and defeat Onaga.
• Noob Saibot – Former member of the Brotherhood of the Shadow who reactivates the inoperative cyborg Smoke as a servant. He serves as the game's combined sub-boss with Smoke ("Noob-Smoke").[10]
• Raiden – Thunder god and Earthrealm protector who had previously sacrificed himself in a vain attempt to destroy Onaga. He has since reformed on Earth and is incensed at Shujinko's (unwitting) resurrection of the Dragon King.
• Scorpion – Revenant who escapes his Netherrealm imprisonment and serves the Elder Gods in order to prevent Onaga from merging the realms.
• Sindel – the Queen of Edenia who teams with Jade to free Princess Kitana from Onaga's control.
• Smoke – Inoperative Lin Kuei cyborg who is revived and reprogrammed to serve Noob Saibot. He is the game's combined sub-boss with Noob Saibot ("Noob-Smoke").[10]
• Sub-Zero – Lin Kuei clan leader who learns of his Cryomancer heritage while burying the remains of his protege Frost inside an ancient temple. He additionally teams with Kenshi to stop the machinations of Hotaru and Onaga.
• Tanya – Edenian traitor who swears allegiance to Onaga in his mission of conquering the realms.

The GameCube version had two more playable characters: the sub-boss from the original Mortal Kombat, Goro, and Shao Kahn, the final boss of the past digitized MK titles; both were previously thought to have perished in the prologue of Deadly Alliance.[11] PlayStation Portable version also had the characters from the GameCube version and had four more characters — Blaze, Frost, Jax and Kitana - taken directly from the Deadly Alliance.

Several of the returning characters have been redesigned and were given new moves, such as Liu Kang, who reappears as a zombie. Character redesigns were generally well-accepted, namely in the case of Sub-Zero. Once again appearing youthful rather than his depiction as a septuagenarian in Deadly Alliance, Sub-Zero sported a "grandmaster" armor set that was often likened to Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Scorpion was redesigned to resemble a more classical ninja look, while characters like Ermac received a considerable makeover from the standard palette-swap ninja fare, offering up a more sorcerous appearance.

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon wanted Deception to be an unpredictable fighting game that gave players new features "they could never imagine". In order to do so, the Midway staff listened to fans on bulletin boards to know what to work on for Deception, such as the playable characters. Wanting to surprise fans and make the game deeper, they added the puzzle and chess minigames (the chess minigame had first been considered for Deadly Alliance, but the developers lacked time to implement it).[12][13] Boon and John Podlasek supervised the staff, which was divided into teams to work on different areas of the game. One of their concerns was to maintain the traditional feel of the MK series as they wanted the game's violence to make it a more realistic fighting game, rather than "a fighting simulator".[14]

Character appearances were improved to make their moves "more responsive" to the player's input.[15] They also wanted to bring back several characters they felt were absent for too long — including Sindel, Nightwolf, Baraka, and Mileena[16] — and an arena with several weapons which players could use to fight; however, it was remade to become the Liu Kang's Tomb arena.[17] Characters' combos were redesigned to be distinctive so that they would be more important; as Boon noted, they were necessary for any move the player would use to inflict more damage on an opponent.[18] The Midway staff focused on the designs and functions of the backgrounds, wanting to make them as influential to the outcome of the battle as the fighting between the characters.[2]

Because of popular demand and favorable reception of Deadly Alliance, the number of finishing moves, known as Fatalities, increased to two per character. The Fatalities were developed by a group of animators led by Carlos Pesina; they comically described Mileena's Fatality in which she eats the opponents' neck as the most disturbing due to how her "sexy moves" are modeled from Pesina. The Hara-Kiri moves were added to allow the losers to perform a finishing move as well, creating a race between both players. The Death Traps, meant to be introduced in the previous game, were added to give the combat more strategy as well as to give more chances to players to win a fight if they are at a disadvantage.[19] The game was originally meant to have other new finishing moves, such as tortures and falling cliffs similar to Fatalities.[20][21]

One of the main features of Deception was the emphasis on online gameplay, which had yet to become common for console fighting games. A team of engineers took almost a full year to decide if the feature was viable. The MK team focused their energies solely on platforms that had strong online functionality available to the end consumer; this led to a greater focus on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions. Because the GameCube games require some re-engineering compared to the other platforms when porting, it was decided to exclude the GameCube from the work of the team until the online hurdles were cleared.[22] Some time after the game's release, Boon commented that he was disappointed that the GameCube version did not feature online gameplay as he regarded it as "the best in the business".[23]

Details about the game were first confirmed to the general public in the May 2003 issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine, in which the game was called Mortal Kombat VI, and an online mode was confirmed.[24] On February 6, 2004, Midway registered the domain names mkdeception.com and mortalkombatdeception.com. When Midway Entertainment was asked if Mortal Kombat: Deception was the official title, the developers gave no answers at that time.[25] Later that month, Midway released the first trailer from the game, confirming this title.[26]

Mortal Kombat: Deception was released for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and Xbox in North America on October 4, 2004, and in PAL territories on November 19, 2004.[27][28] While the game is known as Mortal Kombat: Mystification in France, other countries did not change its original name.[29] A GameCube version was later released exclusively in North America on March 1, 2005.[30]

Two versions were released for both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles: the standard edition for both systems, a Premium Pack for the PS2, and Kollector's Edition for the Xbox. The Premium Pack and Kollector's Edition include a metal trading card and a bonus disc containing a history of Mortal Kombat, several video biographies of characters, and an "arcade perfect" version of the original Mortal Kombat. The Xbox version cover art features either Scorpion, Raiden, Baraka or Mileena, while the PS2 version uses the character Sub-Zero.[31][32]

In October 2005, the game was redistributed as a Platinum Hits title on the Xbox and as a Greatest Hits title on the PS2, coming in new packaging and sold for a discounted price.[33] Deception is also included along with Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon in the compilation Mortal Kombat Kollection, which was released on September 29, 2008 for the PS2.[34]

During its release week, Mortal Kombat: Deception shipped one million units, surpassing sales of the previous MK title and becoming the fastest-selling game in Midway's history.[38] A year later, the game had shipped 1.9 million units worldwide.[33]

Prior to the game's release, GameSpot named it the best fighting game of E3 2004.[39] It was also the winner of the 2004 GameSpot Top Spike TV Video Game Awards in the category of best fighting game.[40] In GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004, Deception received the award for best fighting game.[41] The PlayStation 2 version was a runner-up in IGN's PS2 Best of 2004 Awards in the best fighting game category, and won the Readers' Choice.[42] On February 1, 2005, Deception received the fighting game of the year award at the 8th Annual Interactive Achievements Awards.[43] Deception was nominated for the "Game…Sequel Fighting" award by the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers, but lost to Dead or Alive Ultimate.[44] In the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2015 Ebook, the game was recognized for being the first fighting game to be given an online mode.[45]

• Official website
• Mortal Kombat: Deception at MobyGames