Mortal Kombat Nitro Developer Remembers the Faster, Bloodier SNES Version That Never Was
From its debut in 1992 through April 1995, the Mortal Kombat franchise generated over $1 billion in revenue between coin-op machines and cartridges for home systems. That figure accounts for the first two games; their sequels earned billions more. At a moment’s notice, hardcore fans and collectors can scour Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist for any of those versions and browse page after page of listings, giving them plenty of time to find the best deal on MK games and merchandise.
Mortal Kombat Nitro will never appear in those listings. Only two copies exist, and their owners have no plans to part with them.
Over the winter and spring of 1993, Sculptured Software and Acclaim struggled to meet Nintendo’s stringent demands for a sanitized version of Mortal Kombat on Super NES. By release, blood had been changed to sweat, and tamer finishing moves had replaced their grisly arcade counterparts. Early on, however, the Super NES port looked markedly different.
“There were versions from Sculptured that had blood,” says Rob Holmes.
Jeff Peters was the project manager at Sculptured Software charged with leading a small team in converting the arcade game to the 16-bit console. While he understood Nintendo looking out for its family-friendly reputation, he thought MK’s violence wasn’t worth all the fuss.
“The blood and guts were so over the top that they were cartoonish,” says Peters.
While Sculptured Software’s engineers translated the arcade version’s code to the Super Nintendo and their artists processed characters and arenas, Peters spent much of his time on the phone. He would show the latest builds to managers at Acclaim, who sent them to Nintendo for approval. Nintendo would get back to Acclaim, and Acclaim would pass their
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