Mortal Kombat 1 looks like another quality entry in the franchise but the blood and gore will make it impossible to stream. Series creator Ed Boon feels the gratuitous violence is part of the franchise’s core identity, refusing to make it streamer-friendly.
Boon spoke with IGN and was asked about a potential streamer-friendly mode for the bloody fighter. While Boon is open to the idea, the legendary developer also feels that censoring the violence would be a disservice to the series.
“Let’s say we had a mode that turned off all the blood or something or didn’t have fatalities or something like that. Part of it is… part of the definition of Mortal Kombat is those things, and so to strip away an entire layer of it, do we really want that to be the main representation that is of the game online?” said Boon.
That’s not to say Boon is against having a Mortal Kombat game streamed in the future. However, he does feel that the game’s violent identity needs to be represented somehow and basic censoring just won’t do that.
Whether fighting game enthusiasts love or hate the series, gore has always been a part of its core identity. That’s how the original game differentiated itself from Street Fighter 2 back in the arcade days. If anything, recent games have been even more violent, with chests getting ripped and heads getting eaten, among other things.
Unfortunately, blood and gore don’t help with the algorithm, which is why we won’t see too many streams of Mortal Kombat 1. At the least, players at home will be able to enjoy some of the single-player content, like the creative Invasions. Hopefully, future entries will have some kind of compromise so that viewers can make fun of the game’s janky animations.
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Mortal Kombat 1 is coming to the PS5, Xbox Series, PC, and Nintendo Switch on September 14.