Mortal Kombat: 10 Craziest Features We STILL Can't Believe

At some point, it could be argued that Mortal Kombat had become the best fighting franchise in the world.

Sure, purists will tout the complexities of Street Fighter or the leaps that Tekken 7 has made within its own series. Others might be passionate followers of the Soul Calibur games or whatever insanity SNK has going on this week, but Mortal Kombat struck a perfect balance somewhere in the early 2010's.

The rudimentary combat was refined to be more nuanced and strategic. Augmenting that came a series of story modes that surpass virtually any other competitors in the genre. All in all, what is on the surface mixes together for a premium gaming experience.

But what about all those fringe benefits lying on the outside of the central fighting mode? The developers of Mortal Kombat have never shied away from piling on Easter eggs, bonus content, and completely different play modes.

Let's look back at some the good, the bad and the "huh?" of the godfather of gore.

Mortal Kombat Deception could be accused of many things, but playing it safe was not one of them. Indeed, this PS2 title saw the advent of numerous different concepts, with Ed Boon and company seemingly throwing every idea they had at a wall to see what stuck. Most ideas were never seen again, but certainly deserved credit for their originality.

With one of the cornerstones of the franchise being the Fatality, several different concepts had been used as plays off of that original premise with the same inherent principle: to shame and embarrass your opponent for having lost the bout.

With the Hara-Kiri, the developers of Mortal Kombat gave the losers a chance to give one last defiant middle finger to their opponents.

Rather than waiting for whatever torture the victor chose to dole out, the losers of the match could instead perform a brutal fatality on themselves, depriving the winner of the match of a well-earned chance to gloat in their superiority.