Mortal Kombat Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
This Mortal Kombat trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and runs from Ed Boon and John Tobias's four-person Midway team in 1992 to the 2023 reboot and the 2021 film. It starts with the arcade original - the name that came from a pinball designer, the Sega blood code, the character who was nearly a man called Stryker - then moves through the Senate hearings that gave the world the ESRB, the Friendships and Babalities of Mortal Kombat II, and the Toasty guy himself. From there it covers the lore (Shokan, the Lin Kuei, the two brothers who have both worn the blue), the 3D-era games, the guest fighters, the record-setting sales of the NetherRealm era, and the three live-action films, the cartoon and the theme song. About a third of the questions are warm-ups any casual fan will get; the rest climb toward the kind of detail only someone who knows why the game shouts 'Frosty!' will land. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which company published the home console versions of the original Mortal Kombat in 1993?
Acclaim
Acclaim took Midway's arcade hit home and had to ship it two ways: Nintendo insisted the gore be toned down, while Sega let the full fatalities stay behind a cheat code.
Q 02Mortal Kombat's launch on four home systems on 13 September 1993 was marketed as what?
Mortal Monday
Mortal Monday was trumpeted by a flood of TV commercials, and the sequel copied the trick a year later with a 'Mortal Friday' of its own.
Q 03Pinball designer Steve Ritchie, credited by Ed Boon with naming Mortal Kombat, voiced which villain in the sequel?
Shao Kahn
Shao Kahn's booming taunts in the sequel are Ritchie's voice. By Boon's telling, he had spotted 'Kombat' scrawled on an office whiteboard and suggested putting 'Mortal' in front of it.
Q 04In the original games, which fighter did Shang Tsung create as an evil clone of Princess Kitana?
Mileena
Mileena was grown to spy on Kitana and replace her if need be, but Shang Tsung mixed in Tarkatan blood, which is why her veil hides a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
Q 05What was Mortal Kombat's Sonya called when the character was still a male Special Forces agent?
Stryker
Stryker lost his slot when the team decided the roster needed a woman: Sonya inherited his storyline of hunting Kano, and the name sat unused until a riot cop took it two games later.
Q 06Which martial-arts actress inspired Sonya Blade and later claimed her likeness was used without her consent?
Cynthia Rothrock
Cynthia Rothrock says Midway first tried to hire her to play the part and, when the deal fell through, put her look and her moves into the game anyway.
Q 07Mortal Kombat's Johnny Cage is a parody of which action star?
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jean-Claude Van Damme was Midway's first target: it cut a demo reel to woo him into a Bloodsport-style fighting game, and when that fell through, the spoof kept that film's split-legged punch.
Q 08Which green-clad hidden opponent could only be met on The Pit stage of the original Mortal Kombat arcade game?
Reptile
Reptile was finished in a single evening by blending the game's two existing ninjas, then slipped into a later revision of the cabinet with only cryptic on-screen clues that he existed.
Q 09Which cheat code, a nod to a 1981 Genesis album, unlocked the blood in the Sega Genesis port?
ABACABB
ABACABB is Abacab, a 1981 album by the band Genesis, plus one more B, a pun on the console sharing the band's name; until it was entered, Sega's version hid its blood as well.
Q 10In the censored Super NES port of the first Mortal Kombat, the red blood was recoloured to look like what?
Sweat
Sweat was Nintendo's condition for a family-friendly cartridge: the blood was recoloured grey and most Fatalities were softened, and Sega's gorier version comfortably outsold it.
Q 11Which US senator led the December 1993 hearings on video-game violence targeting Mortal Kombat?
Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman took up the cause after an aide, whose young son had asked for the game, showed him how violent it was; he announced the hearings beside Bob Keeshan, TV's Captain Kangaroo.
Q 12Which Sega CD full-motion-video game joined Mortal Kombat as the target of the 1993 Senate hearings?
Night Trap
Night Trap sold some 50,000 copies in the week after the hearings, by its maker's count, before Toys 'R' Us and Kay-Bee pulled it from their shelves two weeks before Christmas.
Q 13Mortal Kombat II introduced a joke finishing move that turns the defeated opponent into what?
A baby
Q 21Which resurrected 'Dragon King' is the main villain of Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004)?
Onaga
Onaga spends the game's Konquest mode in disguise, tricking the warrior Shujinko into a decades-long errand to collect six powerful relics that he then takes for himself.
Q 22Because of the DC licence, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008) was held to which ESRB rating?
Teen
Teen was the ceiling the DC licence allowed, so two finishing moves were toned down for North America and Sub-Zero's spine rip was left out altogether.
Q 23Which Sony character was the PlayStation-only guest fighter in the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot?
Kratos
Kratos brought a God of War arena with him; Twisted Metal's Sweet Tooth had been considered for the slot first, and the Xbox-only guest the team wanted never happened.
A baby, crying on the floor, is the punchline of the Babality; it arrived with the equally silly Friendship as the sequel's answer to the outcry over the first game's violence.
Q 14Which finishing move, new to the third Mortal Kombat game in 1995, required first granting a 'Mercy'?
Animality
Animality began as a playground rumour about the previous game, and fan demand got it built for real: the winner morphs into a beast, but only after sparing the loser once.
Q 15Whose face pops up shouting 'Toasty!' after a well-timed uppercut, starting in Mortal Kombat II?
Dan Forden
Dan Forden, the series' sound designer, is even credited in the games as Dan 'Toasty' Forden; the cry grew out of the 'toast' trash talk he aimed at colleagues during game sessions.
Q 16After 'Toasty!', which falsetto shout did the third Mortal Kombat add for freezing a nearly beaten foe with Sub-Zero?
Frosty!
Frosty! was recorded by the same staffer who pops up for 'Toasty!'; the game's Ultimate update added a third cry, 'Crispy!', for both players holding High Punch after a stage Fatality.
Q 17Which of Scorpion's two spear taunts was cut from the first two games' home ports?
Get over here!
'Get over here!' was dropped from the first two games' home ports to save memory, leaving only 'Come here!'; Ed Boon voiced both and was still at it when Guinness recognised his long run in 2008.
Q 18Which act originally recorded 'Techno Syndrome', the track widely known as the Mortal Kombat theme?
The Immortals
The Immortals were the duo behind Lords of Acid, given a month between tours to write the album; this track was finished by one of them alone on an Atari ST while his partner sat in a label meeting.
Q 19Which red ninja began as a playground rumour about a hidden fighter before Midway made him real?
Ermac
Ermac takes his name from ERMACS, an 'error macro' counter on the first game's audit screen that players took for a secret character; the rumour grew until he joined the roster in 1995.
Q 20What was NetherRealm Studios' first console game outside the Mortal Kombat series?
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Injustice: Gods Among Us set DC's heroes on one another in 2013; the Chicago studio is Midway's old Mortal Kombat team, kept on when Warner Bros. bought the bankrupt company's assets in 2009.
Q 24What is the three-bar super move introduced in the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot called?
X-ray
X-ray moves cut to an inside view of the victim's bones and organs breaking; they cost all three bars of a meter that could instead buy stronger specials or a combo breaker.
Q 25Who is the main villain of the 2019 Mortal Kombat game?
Kronika
Kronika is spurred to act when Raiden beheads her son, an Elder God; she sets out to rewind history and erase the thunder god, dragging past versions of the cast into the present.
Q 26Which Mortal Kombat entry was the series' best-seller by 2022, with more than 15 million copies sold?
Mortal Kombat 11
Mortal Kombat 11 ends with Liu Kang becoming a god and restarting history, the clean slate on which the 2023 reboot was built.
Q 27What is the assist-partner system in the 2023 game Mortal Kombat 1 called?
Kameo Fighters
Kameo Fighters keep veterans who missed the main roster in the fight: Sonya, Kano and Goro are not playable in the game, but each can still be called in for an assist.
Q 28In the new timeline of the 2023 game Mortal Kombat 1, which long-running character takes up the mantle of Scorpion?
Kuai Liang
Kuai Liang had been the series' Sub-Zero since 1993, taking the blue after his brother's death; the 2023 timeline hands him the rival ninja's fire and name instead.
Q 29What is the name of the original 1992 Sub-Zero, the elder brother killed by Scorpion?
Bi-Han
Bi-Han dies at Scorpion's hands after the first tournament and comes back as the black-clad wraith Noob Saibot, while his younger brother inherits the blue costume.
Q 30What is the human name of the original Scorpion, the undead ninja avenging his family and clan?
Hanzo Hasashi
Hanzo Hasashi matters enough that the 2021 film opens with him in 1617 Japan and hangs its plot on the survival of his bloodline.