👊 Mortal Kombat II Is Chasing the Game's Sequel Legacy

Sophomore Surge: How 1992’s Mortal Kombat Defined Itself with an Ambitious Sequel

With Mortal Kombat II coming to theaters this week, it stands to double down on the lethal martial arts action and dark fantasy scope that the franchise is known for. Over 30 years before its premiere, however, the 1993 video game Mortal Kombat II similarly upped the ante for fighting game fans compared to its 1992 predecessor. But more than just going bigger and bloodier than the first game, it was Mortal Kombat II where the iconic franchise truly found itself, defining the video game series as we know it today.

There were certainly fantasy elements in the first Mortal Kombat game but in a way that still felt familiar to any number of martial arts games of its era. Fighters could use magical attacks, like Liu Kang’s fireballs, the game’s secondary boss was the monstrous Goro, and the primary antagonist was the shape-shifting evil sorcerer Shang Tsung, but the story that unfolded in locations around Earth – or Earthrealm as it was referred to in-game. There was always the threat of an invasion from an otherworldly realm, known as Outworld, but this wasn’t explicitly seen in the 1992 game.

With Mortal Kombat II, Shang Tsung’s master, the warlord ruler of Outworld Shao Kahn, refuses to honor Earthrealm’s victory in the preceding game, throwing another martial arts tournament, this time within Outworld to give himself home field advantage. This means the sequel’s various stages have a distinctly otherworldly quality to them in comparison to the first game, including swirling vortices and forests full of unsettlingly sentient trees. Though the game featured more conventional fighters, including additional ninjas, it also expanded the decidedly more fantastical Tarkatans, with bladed forearms and razor-sharp teeth, along with the hulking Kintaro as the secondary boss. Shao Kahn, of course, is the final boss, as a payoff to this expanded mythology.

Matching this increase in scope was a larger playable roster, with 12 fighters to choose from compared to the first game’s seven. Most of the preceding game’s characters return, joined by five all-new fighters and the first-time playable appearances of Shang Tsung and the first game’s secret challenger, Reptile. The game doubled down on its bonus content, adding three secret challengers in Jade, Smoke, and Noob Saibot, while similarly tripling the number of stage fatalities for savvy players who knew how to trigger them.

More than just upping the roster and stages, Mortal Kombat II features a much more refined art style and presentation than its predecessor that came to define much of the franchise’s look moving forward. The first game, while certainly a sizable hit, visibly appeared limited by its considerably rushed production schedule, with the arcade game released after a $1million production budget and nine-month development window. By contrast, Mortal Kombat II was produced and marketed with a $50 million budget that really enhanced its presentation and art design, boasting a richer color palette and more animated frames per character than the first game.

That investment paid off in dividends, with the sequel surpassing the commercial success of the first game, both selling more arcade cabinets and earning $600 million in revenue by 2002. Mortal Kombat II proved Midway’s fighting game franchise wasn’t a one-hit wonder and brought more to the table than digitized actors and gory finishing moves to make it stand out from the competition. That success not only helped the fanbase continue to grow but was parlayed into a rapidly developing multimedia presence.

The first Mortal Kombat movie was in preproduction while Mortal Kombat II was wrapping up its playtesting phase and was able to incorporate the world-building elements of the sequel in its own story. Most of the 1995 movie’s action takes place in Earthrealm and the big bad is Shang Tsung, but the fighters do venture into Outworld and confront Shao Kahn at the end of the film as a closing cliffhanger while fellow MKII character Kitana plays a major role. Those narrative threads wouldn’t be possible without the 1993 arcade game, with the movie effectively canonizing them through their prominent usage on the silver screen.

Looking back, comparatively, Mortal Kombat II feels like The Lord of the Rings while the first game has a similar scope as The Hobbit. The inciting stories are both crucial in laying the foundation for their respective worlds, including the core elements that made them each so appealing. But Mortal Kombat II expands the mythology to epic lengths, showing in addition to telling gamers that this is a story that spans multiple realms while bringing in even more formidable heroes and villains into the mix.

Just as Street Fighter found itself with its second installment, so too did Mortal Kombat, building a sweeping scope to its bloody fisticuffs in its sophomore outing. Fans, and Hollywood, responded in kind, propelling the franchise to new heights and fueling development on a whole line of sequels, spinoffs, and merchandising. Mortal Kombat II cemented the fighting game series’s place in the industry and distinguished itself further from its contemporaries, heightening the fantasy informing the frenzied fracas.

— Sam Stone, Den of Geek contributor

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BONUS LEVEL

Heeeeere's Johnny!

The Mortal Kombat II movie finally brings Johnny Cage into the mix, played by Karl Urban as a jaded action star presumably past his prime. In the rare instances when Johnny is absent from a given Mortal Kombat game or movie, it always feels like something is fundamentally off with the experience. As good as Mortal Kombat 3 is, there is a distinct lack of Johnny, something that’s rectified by Mortal Kombat 4.

This trend is especially noticeable with the Mortal Kombat movies. There is a lot wrong with 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, but killing off Johnny in the opening scene puts a bad taste in the movie’s mouth that it never recovers from. Similarly, though the 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot reinvigorated the franchise’s cinematic prospects, Johnny’s absence in favor of an original protagonist is one of its more head-scratching creative decisions.

Simply put, Johnny Cage is the secret sauce to the Mortal Kombat franchise. With a whole rainbow’s worth of color-coded ninjas, monsters, cyborgs, and Shaolin monks, there’s just something about a wise-cracking movie star that makes the whole premise work. Welcome back to the party, Johnny. We’ve missed you.

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