Ed Boon Explains The Reasoning Behind Mortal Kombat's "Palette Swap Ninjas"

thegamer.com:

Ed Boon has shared a behind the scenes look at the filming of the original Scorpion in Mortal Kombat, as well as detailing the story behind the "pallete swap ninjas".

It's Mortal Kombat's 35th anniversary this year and to celebrate, series creator Ed Boon has been sharing special looks at the series' early history. The latest piece of history that Boon has shared is a behind the scenes video of the original Scorpion, showing how the team decided to give Scorpion and Sub-Zero different fighting stances to make them feel unique.

Related: Wrestling Games Don’t Need To Be So Boring

The video is from 1992 and shows the actor for Scorpion posing to be photographed and put into the game. Ed Boon suggests to Mortal Kombat co-creator John Tobias that the team should have two different fighting stances, calling Sub-Zero the "cold guy" and saying it'll cost them seven frames to feel much more unique.

Boon continued to detail the history behind the so-called "palette swap ninjas" in a Twitter thread. Boon said, "As the most recognizable Mortal Kombat characters, the origin of "palette swap ninjas" came from both a fantastic story rivalry and a technical solution we needed to fit the game in the limited amount of space (memory) we had. One reason we made them ninjas was to get two fighters out of the same motion shoot & memory footprint. But we did have some unique frames made exclusively for one ninja. For example, we felt giving them different stances was worth the 7 extra frames of animation it cost us."

Boon continued, "Since we thought of the idea during the shoot, the next step was to come up with a unique fighting stance for each ninja. They had to be different (to stand apart) but still work with all the attacks (punches and