Trivia / Mortal Kombat 1

• Acting for Two:
  • Kari Wahlgren returns as both Kitana and Mileena, who are twins in this timeline.
  • Kelly Hu voices the playable fighter Li Mei and the nonplayable fighter Madam Bo, while also being the facial model of Li Mei.
  • Despite both characters sharing the same body, Jamieson Price voices both Ermac and Jerrod.
  • Vic Chao reprises both Kenshi Takahashi and Goro from Mortal Kombat X.
  • Mara Junot voices both Sindel and Sareena, as well as Johnny Cage's (ex-)wife Cris.
  • Andrew Bowen reprises his role as Johnny Cage and also serves as The Other Darrin for Antony Starr as Homelander.
• All-Star Cast: As per usual, Mortal Kombat 1 contains an impressive roster of voice-acting veterans in its cast. Featuring franchise regulars, Steve Blum, Kelly Hu, Phil LaMarr, Kari Wahlgren, Jennifer Hale, Jamieson Price, Andrew Morgado, Mara Junot, Andrew Bowen, Matthew Yang King, Vic Chao, Perry Shen, Sunil Malhotra, Ike Amadi and Travis Willingham. New to the franchise are Kaiji Tang, Daisuke Tsuji, Alan Lee, Noshir Dalal, Cherise Boothe, Vincent Rodriguez III, Derek Phillips, Susan Eisenberg, Yuri Lowenthal, Cristina Valenzuela, Jacob Craner, and the big names of Megan Fox, Jean-Claude Van Damme, J. K. Simmons AND John Cena.
• Approval of God
  • Robert Kirkman gave his glowing approval for Omni-Man as a Guest Fighter, having long wanting to have one of his characters in Mortal Kombat once they started introducing guest fighters.
  • Geras' original voice actor, Dave B. Mitchell expressed his support for Phil LaMarr taking over as Geras.
  • Despite Ed Boon turning down the idea of him being playable in any Mortal Kombat game, he notably expressed amusement over what the modding community has created for Mortal Kombat 1, including a mod that replaces Scorpion (who, unfortunately, isn't Hanzo this time around) with Boon himself.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • During the game's early "stress test" betas in June, by far the most common criticism was the slow speed of the gameplay, feeling especially sluggish when compared to the game's predecessors. This was swiftly noted by the dev team, and by the August 2023 build, fighter movement was improved substantially, with dashes becoming much faster and dash-block cancels (a feature not seen since Mortal Kombat 9) being added.
  • The debut of Seasonal Fatalities in October 2023 drew immense backlash due to one fatality costing over $10 apiece (1,200 Dragon Krystals), widely considered far too high a price for a single cosmetic in a game that already came with a $70-$110 price tag. NRS got the memo, and in early November, they announced that those who already bought the debut Halloween fatality would be receiving the upcoming bundle (including a Thanksgiving and Winter fatalities) entirely for free at no extra cost (further implying that the price of the Fatalities themselves would be lowered).
  • Ermac's initial design in the game (namely in the story campaign and promos for the Kombat Pack) had him with his bare face, which was met with a largely negative reception from fans, most of whom really wanted him to retain his "ninja" mask present in most of his previous appearances. Come the announcement trailer for Ermac as a DLC fighter, it was revealed that NRS updated his design by giving him his mask again, which the trailer implicitly highlights was in response to the backlash.
    Reptile: You've changed since we first met!
    Ermac: We believe for the better!
• Blooper: One story mode cutscene (specifically in Chapter 11) features Sindel confronting Reiko, saying the phrase "Know that it will cost you your life!". Initially, the subtitles mistakenly read "MK12_148_154,11", the line's ID rather than the actual line itself. This has since been patched.
• Cast as a Mask: Jennifer Hale once again voices Kronika, but this time, it's Titan Shang Tsung masquerading as her.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme appears as a skin for Johnny Cage.
  • J. K. Simmons and John Cena will appear as Omni-Man and Peacemaker. In Simmons' case, he's had a fair bit of experience doing voice acting for video games, such as with Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Portal 2, and Baldur's Gate III, which only released the month before Mortal Kombat 1 did.
  • Megan Fox not only voices Nitara but is her face model as well.
• Content Leak:
  • The Italian Amazon page for the Premium Edition leaked the downloadable fighters and Kameo Fighters from Kombat Pack 1 months before the official announcement.
  • Aside from the two trailers released at San Diego Comic-Con 2023 that confirmed Li Mei, Tanya, Baraka, and the first Kombat Pack, a third trailer yet to be revealed to the public showed two more characters that will appear in some capacity, later shown to be Motaro and Reiko.
  • Pictures of the Nintendo Switch version of the game showed Nitara as a part of the roster before she was officially confirmed.
  • Some players were able to acquire physical copies over a week before the game came out and uploaded the entire story mode as well as several fight intro dialogues and character endings.
  • Similar to what happened with Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019, players were able to Datamine the Switch version of the game and found data for many unannounced, possible DLC fighters post Kombat Pack 1 and a potential story expansion.
• Development Gag: The end of The '80s and early The '90s were the peak of Jean-Claude Van Damme's career, the planning phases of the very first Mortal Kombat were very inspired by his movies at the time (especially Bloodsport), to the point Ed Boon and John Tobias wished Van Damme himself would be a character in their upcoming game; back then, however, what became Mortal Kombat was just the humble debut entry of a series that had to prove itself so Van Damme was out of their reach, thus the character Johnny Cage was born as a clear stand-in for Van Damme. According to Boon himself during the Summer Game Fest 2023, they tried time and time again over 30 years to get Van Damme into the game in some way or another, always coming up short. Years go by and Mortal Kombat grew to become one of the most commercially successful gaming franchises in the medium, backed by Warner Bros.; in 2023, Mortal Kombat 1 had the pulling power to get Van Damme to be the Johnny Cage Boon and Tobias once wished is no big deal, so he became a DLC alternate skin for Johnny in this game, with its appearance heavily modeled on the aforementioned Bloodsport.
• Directed by Cast Member: In the Mexican Spanish dub, Alan Fernando Velázquez (Kung Lao) and Betzabé Jara (Kitana and Mileena) are the chosen dubbing directors of the game.
• Fake Nationality:
  • The Czech Smoke is voiced by American Yuri Lowenthal.
  • The Asian-resembling demoness Ashrah is voiced by the Jewish-American Susan Eisenberg.
• Orphaned Reference: One of Kenshi's post-round taunts has him say "Stop trying to hit me, and hit me!" which seems to be a benign, if fairly random, reference if not for the fact that Ed Boon was hoping to have Keanu Reeves voice a character, with this being evidence of the character he had in mind.
• The Other Darrin: Given the Continuity Reboot of the series, it's only natural:
  • English version:
    • Smoke is now voiced by Yuri Lowenthal rather than Ken Lally or Andrew Bowen.
    • Raiden is now voiced by Vincent Rodriguez III, taking over from both Richard Epcar and Travis Willingham. As noted below, Thunder God Raiden is a different matter.
    • Shang Tsung is now voiced by Alan Lee, replacing his previous post-reboot actors, Andrew Kishino and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.^note In particular, Lee evokes a lot of Tagawa's inflections and mannerisms to sound like a new version of the character as a much younger man.
    • Despite Steve Blum returning as Baraka, Reptile is now voiced by Andrew Morgado.
    • Rain is now voiced by Noshir Dalal, taking over for Dempsey Pappion.
    • Antony Starr confirmed on Instagram that he will not voice Homelander despite providing the face model. Despite initial claims that he would be voiced by Chris Cox, Homelander will instead be voiced by Andrew Bowen.
    • Ike Amadi is now the announcer for the game, replacing Jamieson Price.
  • On the ethnicity side of things when it comes to the recasts:
    • Kaiji Tang takes over as the Bi-Han Sub-Zero from Jamieson Price.
    • Daisuke Tsuji takes over as Kuai Liang from Steve Blum, with the character now adopting the Scorpion moniker.
    • Kelly Hu voices Li Mei, taking over for Tara Strong.
    • Despite Jennifer Hale returning as Kronika, Tanya is now voiced by Cherise Boothe
    • Geras is now voiced by Phil LaMarr, replacing Dave B. Mitchell.
    • Quan Chi is now voiced by Sean T. Krishnan taking over from Ronald M. Banks.
  • Mexican Spanish version:
    • José Gilberto Vilchis voices Kuai Liang, now as Scorpion, in the place of Sebastián Llapur, who voiced the Sub-Zero incarnation of the character.
    • Speaking of Sebastián Llapur, he now voices Bi-Han as Sub-Zero in the place of Tommy Rojas from the previous game as Noob Saibot.
    • As a result of Eduardo Garza leaving Pink Noise since 2018, Reptile is now voiced by Arturo Mercado Jr..
    • Because the New Era's Raiden is a mortal, the character is now voiced by Armando Guerrero. However, Gerardo Reyero retains as the godly alternate version of the character.
    • While Carlo Vázquez returns as Kenshi, this is not the case for Smoke, as the character is now voiced by José Ángel Torres.
    • Betzabé Jara now takes over as both Kitana and Mileena after the passing of Toni Rodríguez.
    • Dave Ramos didn't return as Rain, and therefore, Rafael Escalante now takes over.
    • Li Mei and Sareena are now voiced by Kerygma Flores instead of Susana Moreno and Xóchitl Ugarte, respectively. In the case of Li Mei, it's due to the character's more mature look and approach.
    • Despite Carla Castañeda returning as the voice of Sindel, Rebeca Gómez takes over as the voice of Tanya.
    • Quan Chi is now voiced by Daniel del Roble instead of José Gilberto Vilchis.
    • Kronika is now voiced by Gaby Willer, taking over for Irina Índigo.
    • Omni-Man is voiced by Santos Alberto, rather than Humberto Solórzano from the Mexican redub of the animated show.^note It should be noted, however, that in this particular case, Solorzano is the replacement for Alberto, not the other way around, since the decision to include Omni-Man, including their respective English and foreign voice actors in the game, was done very earlier before Amazon Prime Video chose to replace the original cast of the Latin Spanish dub, who was originally done in El Salvador, with one done in Mexico due to the criticisms against that dub, which mean that neither Netherrealm Studios nor the Mexican studio who dubbed the game wasn't aware of Amazon's plans on redoing the dub of the show, nor the one who did the dub of Invincible (2021) were also aware of Omni-Man being included on MK1 in the very first DLC pack, and that would also mean that Alberto would have been Omni-Man's dub voice in both this game and the show, had Amazon been aware of Netherrealm Studios' plans regarding DLC characters from the beginning.
  • Brazilian Portuguese version:
    • Tanya is now voiced by Veridiana Benassi instead of Luciana Baroli.
    • Quan Chi is now voiced by Alexandre Marconato instead of Cláudio Satiro, who passed away in 2022.
    • An interesting case with Scorpion and Sub-Zero: they have the same dubbers for the mantle of Scorpion and Sub-Zero as in X and 11, but count as Other Darrins for the characters under the masks. Kuai Liang is voiced by Felipe Silze (who voiced Hanzo Hasashi as Scorpion before) instead of Charles Dalla, who is now voicing Bi-Han instead of Ricardo Juarez (who had voiced Bi-Han as Noob Saibot in 11).
• Pre-Order Bonus: Shang Tsung for all platforms, and pre-order beta access to the game for the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions.
• Refitted for Sequel: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Role Reprise:
  • English version:
    • For the first time since Mortal Kombat X, Vic Chao, Parry Shen, and Jamieson Price reprised their roles as playable fighters, Kenshi Takahashi, Takeda, and Ermac. Chao even voiced the non-playable turned-Kameo fighter, Goro too as well.
• Promoted Fanboy: Raiden's voice actor, Vincent Rodriguez III is a childhood fan of the series.
• Promoted Fangirl: Megan Fox has been a documented fan of the series for years. In this game, she voices Nitara.
• Star-Making Role: For Alan Lee, while he was an unknown voice actor in many dub anime and video games. His role as Shang Tsung would help solidify his career. The same applies to Havik's voice actor, Jacob Craner.
• Talking To Himself: Andrew Bowen, the current voice of Johnny Cage, will also fill in for Antony Starr as Homelander.
• Throw It In!: Noah Fleder, who's done motion capture for several characters in addition to being Kenshi's face model, has made certain suggestions on how characters should fight, such as Smoke using a karambit instead of a straight knife he's initially imagined with or Liu Kang putting his hands behind his back during one of his kicking combos.
• Two Voices, One Character: While Megan Fox voices Nitara's dialogue, the character's grunts in gameplay are performed by Cristina Valenzuela.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ed Boon discussed with IGN that following the release of Mortal Kombat 11, NetherRealm Studios had strongly considered doing another Injustice sequel first as per their previous pattern of swapping between Mortal Kombat and Injustice installments. However, they ended up settling on doing a new Mortal Kombat due to various internal factors, from pandemic-induced complications to their decision to upgrade their game engine requiring all hands on deck, though Boon insists that Injustice 3 is by no means out of the question for the future.
  • The whole reason why NetherRealm went with the Kameo character mechanic, as revealed by Ed Boon himself in an interview with PlayStation Magazine. The team originally considered adding modifiers to the characters akin to Mortal Kombat X's variation system, but Boon turned it down because he wanted something that could be shared by everyone in the roster. He also turned down the Tag Team mode from Mortal Kombat 9 because, while both the fans and the dev team liked it, it wasn't very well played overall and it was felt that learning two entire movesets was too great a burden for most players. The Kameo character mechanic was seen as a happy medium of both of these ideas.
  • In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ed Boon once considered having every character in the game be voiced by a celebrity. One "pipe dream" Boon wanted was Keanu Reeves in the game, possibly as the voice of Kenshi, but walked that back when considering the allotted budget and availability of Reeves to read the hundreds of lines needed for the game.
  • Similarly, John Wick was considered as a Guest Fighter for the game, but they couldn't pull it off due to licensing issues. Before the game's release, Reeves said in 2021 that he couldn't see either Wick or Neo as a character in Mortal Kombat ^note  As an interesting parallel, Neo was considered as a guest character for Injustice 2 but NRS couldn't get Reeves behind the idea.
  • Omni-Man was not the first choice Ed Boon had for a Robert Kirkman guest character, as he revealed in a tweet that the first meeting Boon and Kirkman had was to discuss the possibility of Michonne Hawthorne being added to the roster. For unknown reasons, she failed to cut, leading to Omni-Man's inclusion.
• You Sound Familiar:
  • English Version:
    • Both Kelly Hu and Phil LaMarr previously voiced D'Vorah and Kotal Kahn in the past two Mortal Kombat games. Now they're Li Mei and Geras.
    • This isn't the first time Yuri Lowenthal is in Mortal Kombat. His first foray into the franchise was voicing Kobra in the direct-to-video animated movie, Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind. Now he's voicing Smoke.
    • The same applies to co-star Courtenay Taylor who went from voicing Kira in Snow Blind, to Kameo fighter, Janet Cage.
    • Andrew Morgado voiced Kollector from Mortal Kombat 11, and he's now voicing Reptile.
    • In terms of the sister series Injustice, long-time Wonder Woman voice actress Susan Eisenberg joins the franchise voicing the demon Ashrah. The same goes to Injustice (2021) for Derek Phillips, as he voices Reiko.
  • Mexican Spanish Version:
    • José Gilberto Vilchis previously voiced Quan Chi in Mortal Kombat X. Now he's voicing the Kuai Liang incarnation of Scorpion.
    • Sebastián Llapur previously voiced the Kuai Liang incarnation of Sub-Zero in the past two Mortal Kombat games and in Injustice 2. In this game, he's voicing the Bi-Han incarnation of the character for the first time.
    • Combined with Actor Allusion, this is the second time Arturo Mercado Jr. voices a green-clad character after the Hal Jordan incarnation of Green Lantern in the sister series Injustice. The character he's voicing in question for this game is Reptile.

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