Looking Back on 30 Years of Mortal Kombat Music and Sound Effects

30 years! Wow, that’s a lot of Mortal Kombat.

When I think back to the history of Mortal Kombat and the fact that I’ve been a part of the franchise for its entire history, I feel incredibly grateful to have been on this ride. It is amazing to see how the little game that we released in 1992 survived and flourished and has become a cultural icon with many contributing people to fulfill its promise of high-quality martial arts Kombat, and incredibly creative finishing moves.

Also, looking back over the history of the game and the tools and tech we’ve used along the way to create it, I’m struck by where we were when we started, and where we find ourselves today. For the audio, the file we used to record the commands was a bit like an assembly language. Mortal KombatComputer to coerce sounds using a Yamaha frequency modulation chip. This allows the creation of music as well as many sound effects. 

Today we use the best-of-the-line, industry standard audio tools. The sounds were compressed into a few ROM chips that contained approximately 500 KB of data. I don’t even know how much audio we have in the latest games, as they encompass so many hours of Story mode music and sound, many suites of combat music, thousands of individual sound effects and 10 times as many grunts and other utterances by all the characters. All the sounds were created by me back then. Today, there is a team of audio professionals in house, as well as a number of external partners who assist in many ways.

After only being a game-audio designer for a couple of years, Ed Boons and John Tobias approached my to help them with a new project. Ed was a friend and I’d worked together on other games. After being hired in 1988, one of my first tasks was to make sounds and some music. Black Knight 2000Ed programmed a pinball game called “Ed’s Pinball Machine” (designed by Steve Ritchie, pinball legend). This went very well. Ed then decided to move on from pinball programming and design and program an extreme football arcade game, called High Impact FootballI was glad to be asked to participate in it. 

We made another one because it went well. Super High Impact. Ed and John had been talking about new ideas and soon the four of them came together. Ed was the programmer/designer while John was the lead artists. John Vogel also created the environment and additional art, and I did the sound. Once it became clear that we had a hit and were going to make more, the team started to grow, and grow… and grow.

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with many highly intelligent and motivated developers in my time as a developer. Mortal Kombat. My greatest motivator throughout my career, and especially while I was working on this project, has been the privilege of being able to collaborate with other people who are performing at such high levels day in and out. I’ve often felt challenged to keep up with so many of our smart and talented developers in trying to create meaningful and impactful content for the game. This highlights the importance of working together across different disciplines in order to create and deliver engaging content for our fans.

Probably the best aspect of working with such great teams over all these years is that it’s fun. It’s fun to figure out how to make compelling audio for Mortal Kombat when you’ve got super-talented animators, artists, designers, and programmers trying to make cool, unprecedented things happen on screen. When we first had an inkling we might be onto something, I can recall. Mortal Kombat. Ed was eager to create the uppercut function. He got the team in the room after he’d put some code in to make it happen. We had some reactions and voice-overs after I made the punch sound. The punch sound was made, the screen shaken, and our opponent flew (and shouted) into the air. We were shocked at the magnitude of this moment. It was a perfect example of all the disciplines coming together to create an impactful moment, and we were exhilarated because we all had a sense that we had just created something… fun!

Although I’m grateful for the opportunity to create sound, it is a great feeling to be in the right spot at the right moment. Mortal KombatMy greatest gratitude goes to the fans. It would not be possible for anyone to talk about the game if they didn’t care. Clearly, Mortal Kombat struck a chord as soon as it came out and our fans’ passion for the game is what has catapulted the franchise into the realm of cultural phenomenon over these 30 years.

Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate

Warner Bros. Games

☆☆☆☆☆
1470

★★★★★

$59.99

$14.99

MK11’s ultimate experience As Earthrealm’s protectors, take control in TWO highly acclaimed Story Campaigns that bend time. They race against Kronika to stop her from turning back time and rewriting history. The battle for all life is a test of friendships and a chance to form new alliances. MK11 Ultimate features the komplete 37-character roster, including new additions Rain, Mileena & Rambo.

Mortal Kombat 11 showcases every amusing friendship, gory fatality and soul-crushing fatal blow like never before. The fight will feel so real that you’ll almost be there!

Includes Mortal Kombat 11, Kombat Pack 1, Aftermath Expansion & Kombat Pack 2.

• Experience 2 robust, critically acclaimed Story Campaigns from MK11 & MK11: Aftermath
• Play as the komplete 37-character roster including newly added fighters Mileena, Rain & Rambo
• Thousands of skins, weapons & gear for an unprecedented level of fighter customization
• Includes all previous guest fighters: Terminator, Joker, Spawn & RoboCop
• Every mode including Towers of Time, Krypt, Tutorial, Online, Klassic Towers & more
• All Stages, Stage Fatalities, Brutalities, Iconic Fatalities & Friendships

MK11 Ultimate has Smart Delivery capability and offers FREE upgrades to the Xbox Series X.

• 4K Dynamic Resolution
• Enhanced Visuals
• Significantly Improved Loading Times
• Cross-Platform/Cross-Gen Compatibility

Mortal Kombat XL

Warner Bros. Games

☆☆☆☆☆
1820

★★★★★

$19.99

The XL edition of One of the Best-Sellers of 2015 has arrived! Komplete The Mortal Kombat X Experience. Includes main game, and new playable characters Alien, Leatherface, Triborg, and Bo’Rai Cho. Predator and Tremor are previously available playable characters. Tanya, Tanya and Goro were also released. Apocalypse Pack includes new skins.