Trivia / Thrill Kill

• Development Hell: Was in development for most of the late 90s with much hype behind it, and was even finished and ready to ship, only for EA to can its release.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The game is widely available for download in various forms online, thanks in part due to the developers leaking it after EA canceled the game's release. Since the game may never see an official release, the game will only have life on the web through circulation.
• Executive Meddling: The game was going to have a AO rating but the publisher (Virgin Interactive) thought the game wouldn't be able to be sold in stores or allowed on the Playstation with a rating like that so the game had to be toned down to an M rating.
• Follow the Leader: The game was made to compete with the Mortal Kombat craze at the time. The developers would later work on the cult classic Mortal Kombat spin-off Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks years later.
• Screwed by the Network: Thrill Kill was just weeks from being released when its publisher (Virgin Interactive) was bought up by Electronic Arts, who refused to release it to the public for its "extreme violence" when it's roughly tame compared to other games especially compared to today's more violent games. They also refused to sell it to anyone else.
• Vaporware:
  • It was supposed to have been canceled by EA acting as Moral Guardians, but a Developer Revolt led to the game making it to the internet anyhow.
  • This was eventually subverted, as the engine and gameplay style of Thrill Kill was used to make most of the developers future games such as Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style and even PS2 and XBox games such as Backyard Wrestling and most notably (and Ironically) Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game started out as a sports game based on Pock to Pock (a brutal ancient basketball game) called "Earth Monsters" but the publisher wanted more fighting elements. After a while, they realized the sports game element wasn't working so they made it into a fighting game instead.
  • The game's Aztec theme was dropped after a focus group test, where the producer wanted the game to have more violent and sexual themes to sell to a wider market.
  • All the game's single-player campaigns (including story mode) were going to have 1 on 1 matches and the 4 player was only for multiplayer. This idea was scrapped because it made the game too easy and standard, so the game was made into a "4 player for all" deathmatch. The only remnants of this idea were the 2 last boss fights with Cain and Marukka.
  • After the game was canceled it would have been changed to "Fubar", but after Activision contacted the studio, they requested a game based on the rap group Wu-Tang Clan leading to Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style.
  • At one point the developers considered releasing it for the PS Vita but that idea fell through.

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