10 Most Shocking Moments In Mortal Kombat History
5. The Fatalities
Considering the Fatalities were Mortal Kombat's central selling point, there was no question they had to make an appearance on this list.
The original Mortal Kombat didn't just shocking the gaming industry; it shocked the world. Parents and politicians were up in arms about how this game encourages and rewards the player for brutally killing their opponent. In fact, Mortal Kombat is directly responsible for the trope that "video games encourage violence".
The mass media create such a stir, it spurred the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board in 1994. The ESRB are responsible for rating video games for an appropriate age group, much like the film rating system. It may sound like the media blew the situation way out of proportion but Ed Boon himself said he understood the outrage and didn't like the idea of children playing the game.
But that's not the only shocking incident caused by the game's gory finishing moves. The controversy was so overwhelming, Nintendo agreed to remove all the blood from the SNES port of Mortal Kombat.
Nintendo fans were shocked when they booted up the game only to learn all the blood was replaced with sweat.