Violence isn’t just a part of the Mortal Kombat series, it’s something it revels in. And this can be seen in Mortal Kombat 11, the most violent, over-the-top, blood and thunder entry yet. And apparently, this comes at a cost. Not only is it hard work to continuously out do yourself in this regard, but it results in developers putting themselves through some seriously macabre stuff. And this process is apparently having a toll on developers, which should be expected, but hasn’t been talked about up until recently.
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Speaking to Kotaku, one developer revealed that in order to achieve a certain level of brutality and savagery, developers conduct research that sounds emotionally and mentally quite tolling.
“You’d walk around the office and one guy would be watching hangings on YouTube, another guy would be looking at pictures of murder victims, someone else would be watching a video of a cow being slaughtered… the scary part was always the point at which new people on the project got used to it. And I definitely hit that point,” said the developer.
The developer, who was later diagnosed with PTSD and had to attend therapy, continued:
“I’d have these extremely graphic dreams, very violent…I kind of just stopped wanting to go to sleep, so I’d just keep myself awake for days at a time, to avoid sleeping.”
In the Kotaku article, the developer further details the troubles in their life that working on Mortal Kombat 11 has plagued them with, but also revealed that they aren’t the only ones who were changed by the game.
“When he looks at his dog, he just sees the guts inside of it, and he couldn’t look at his dog without imagining all of the viscera,” said the developer speaking about a co-worker who also worked on the game.
Stories like this make you wonder: is the over the top violence of Mortal Kombat really worth it? However you feel about it, when you couple this with the reports of crunch issues at NetherRealm Studios, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the Chicago-based studio.
Mortal Kombat 11 is available for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. For more news, media, and information on the fighting game, be sure to peep all of our previous coverage of the title by clicking right here.
As always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think of the news, or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there.
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