Ever since it debuted in arcades, Mortal Kombat has put a multitude of secrets in their games, from hidden characters to cheat codes that drastically change the series’ gory fights. There hasn’t been one title in this violent franchise that hasn’t had at least one big feature for players to discover, even in “modern” iterations like Mortal Kombat X. Despite coming out a decade ago, MKXL holds a crucial secret in its roster that players are still getting surprised by.
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Mortal Kombat X approaches its fighters in a unique way, giving them three different variations that changes what moves they have access to. Although they retain their core attacks and some special techniques, these variations basically allow them to have three different forms that players can master separately. However, one character breaks the mold of this innovative feature even further, managing to hide almost a completely new fighter in the process.
Mortal Kombat X’s Triborg Has A Hidden Fourth Variation That Some Fans Have Never Seen
When Mortal Kombat XL released, it also came out with a second wave of DLC for the game, including four new characters. Alongside the guest characters Leatherface and Alien, Triborg was both a brand-new face and compilation of returning favorites through the game’s variation system. Through Triborg, players could adopt the moves of Mortal Kombat‘s fan-favorite cyborg characters from the past, including Sektor, Cyrax, and Smoke. While the core moves for Triborg were shared across variations, each form played in unique ways to match their cyber counterparts.
The bomb traps of Cyrax, the missiles and teleportation of Sektor, and the elusive vapors of Smoke made for one of the most popular characters in MKX. However, players often fail to recognize that Triborg was given a secret fourth variation. If you input a certain code while selecting the Sektor variation of Triborg, the character would transform into Cyber Sub-Zero, a new cyborg character who was once only seen in Mortal Kombat 9 back in 2011.
Cyber-Sub Zero basically makes four characters in one instead of three, highlighted even further by how far Triborg pushed the variation system with its existing branches. The blue-clad cyber ninja has just as many distinct moves as Sektor, Cyrax, and Smoke do, using beams of ice to freeze opponents. Never-before-seen ice drones also enhance Cyber Sub-Zero’s moves, pairing well with changed ice-based regular strikes that can poke and juggle opponents.
With other moves like Cyber Sub-Zero’s multi-angled divekick also being represented in the secret variation, many players are still dumbfounded by the character’s inclusion. In fact, as time goes on, those who try to pick up Mortal Kombat XL instead of MK11 or MK1 wonder why Triborg was gifted so many versions compared to other fighters.
Triborg’s Unique Easter Egg Calls Back To Iconic Secrets From Past Mortal Kombat Games
The inclusion of a hidden character in MKXL is nothing new to the series, which has been debuting its fighters through secret interactions for as long as it has been around. The most infamous example of this was the first Mortal Kombat arcade title, which allowed you to fight Reptile after meeting a variety of conditions. That version of Reptile was simply the combined move sets of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, but later became his own character in Mortal Kombat 2.
This trend extends to Noob Saibot, Jade, Ermac, and several other figures who later become fully fledged fighters in Mortal Kombat games. MKXL‘s example is slightly different, as Cyber-Sub Zero was already a character back in Mortal Kombat 9, but the depth of detail in that Easter Egg is far beyond just a nod to the franchise’s past.
The best comparison to Cyber Sub-Zero likely goes all the way back to Mortal Kombat 4, one of the last arcade games from the series that moved its graphics from sprite-based into 3D. This title had an alternate version called Mortal Kombat Gold, which only released for the Sega Dreamcast back in 1999. Unlike the edition of MK4 that most fans played, MK Gold has several exclusive characters hidden to “normal” version, including Sektor and Noob Saibot.
The MK Gold versions of Sektor and Noob were busted, easily becoming the most broken characters in any edition of MK4, so fans may have been relieved they weren’t more common. Thankfully, Cyber-Sub Zero doesn’t have overpowered techniques, existing more as a great secret character whose variation is incredibly fun to play. While it’s been 10 years since players discovered Cyber Sub-Zero’s existence, the move back to older Mortal Kombat titles has been surprising players again, highlighting the quality of that secret even after all this time.
Did you remember Cyber-Sub Zero was in Mortal Kombat X? Leave a comment below or join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum!
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools. -
Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
Courtesy of Saber Interactive
