How Mortal Kombat Changed the Gaming World – Intermediate

General English

How Mortal Kombat (and moral panic) changed the gaming world

Level: IntermediateTime: 60 minFocus: Dependent Prepositions

TEXT:

📋 Overview

1Warmer

2Key Words

3Comprehension

4Key Language

5Discussion

6In Your Own Words

Article

HIGHLIGHT:

Gaming & Culture

How Mortal Kombat (and moral panic) changed the gaming world

On its release in 1993, Midway's gore-filled fighting game ushered in a new era of hyperviolent gaming that continues to influence the industry to this day

Keith Stuart03 November, 2025

1On 9 December 1993, Democratic senator Joe Lieberman sat before a congressional hearing on video game violence. The focus of his ire was Mortal Kombat, Midway's bloody fighting game. "The game narrator instructs the player to finish his opponent. That player may choose a method of murder ranging from ripping a heart out or pulling off the head of the opponent, with spinal cord attached."

2Lieberman's aim with the congressional hearing had been to force the US games industry into creating a formal ratings system, preventing minors from buying violent titles. He succeeded in that, but he also boosted a moral panic that had quietly begun with the launch of the Mortal Kombat arcade game in 1992. This then took on more urgency following the high-profile home console release on 13 September 1993.

3It's interesting now to watch those hearings and then look at the game they were describing. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is an anthology of the first four titles in the series. The original titles are almost quaint relics of 1990s teen culture. The digitised visuals, created by filming actors performing martial arts moves then converting that footage into 2D sprite animations, are charmingly jerky and low-resolution, the controversial fatalities more bloodily amusing than horrifying.

4Midway had originally assembled a four-man team, including coder Ed Boon and John Tobias, to produce a combat action game starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. However, when that deal fell through, Boon and Tobias imagined a competitor to the hugely successful Capcom hit Street Fighter II. Boon's elevator pitch was "the MTV version of Street Fighter", and the fatalities emerged throughout the development process. Straight away, the company knew that blood and guts would mean notoriety, and no one was fazed. Talking to Polygon in 2022, Boon said, "If there was something that we would even say, 'Is this going too far?' our CEO was like, 'No, go even further.'"

5In effect, the moral panic over Mortal Kombat was to the early 1990s what the video nasty controversy was to the early 1980s. It also ensured the success of the series. Mortal Kombat became the biggest-selling game of the Christmas season and beyond, shifting six million copies across multiple machines.

6For the industry itself, the Mortal Kombat panic simply became a new front on which to fight the console wars. Sega courted the controversy, allowing Mega Drive owners to access the full gore of the arcade version by inputting a "secret" code. By contrast, Nintendo sought to bolster its family-friendly image by removing fatalities and turning the game's blood into grey "sweat". Unsurprisingly, it was the Sega version that sold best.

7There have been many media panics since this one. Doom remained a tabloid fixture for the entire 1990s. Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty were regular targets throughout the 2010s, and more recently, Fortnite has been accused of leading a generation of schoolchildren into addiction.

8This was a turning point for the games business – it was the era in which the focus shifted from children to teens, from abstract puzzlers and platformers to graphically rich shooters, bloody fighting games and adult-oriented action adventures. Midway set out to discover exactly what it could get away with. The answer shaped the entire industry.

📋

Lesson Overview

About This Lesson

This article explains the historical importance of Mortal Kombat and how it created a whole new market for video games.

Level: Intermediate (B1)
Skills: Reading, Speaking, Writing
Language Focus: Dependent prepositions (accuse of, begin with, force into, look at, succeed in, believe in, agree with, guess at, break into, think of)
Time: 60 minutes
Activities: Key words (match + fill-in) · Comprehension questions · Key language: dependent prepositions · Discussion · In your own words

👈 The article is on the left. Use tabs to navigate. Choose a highlight colour and select text to mark in the article — you can use all three colours at once. Click ✕ to clear all highlights.

Warmer

Discuss these questions in pairs.

🤔

Why are young people often attracted to doing what they are told not to do?

🎮

Which examples can you think of when young people do the 'wrong thing' for fun?

🛒

Which products appeal to young people by looking like they are the 'wrong thing' to do?

Key Words

a. Match the correct word to each definition

Find the words in the article to read them in context. Some of the words may appear in a different form in the article.

fatalitybloodycombataccuseboostconsolemoral paniccontroversialviolenceensureeragutshorrifyingopponenttabloid

fighting during a game or in a war —

a type of newspaper that focuses on exciting or shocking stories —

causing a lot of discussion or disagreement —

the organs inside a person's body —

the person or team you are playing against —

an electronic device used to play video games —

action that hurts people or damages things —

a death caused by an accident or violence —

to make sure something will happen —

10.

very shocking and making you feel afraid —

11.

a strong fear that something is dangerous for society —

12.

to help something increase or become better —

13.

something covered in blood or showing a lot of blood —

14.

to say that someone has done something wrong or illegal —

15.

a period of time in history with a particular quality —

Answer Key (a):

combat
tabloid
controversial
guts
opponent
console
violence
fatality
ensure
horrifying
moral panic
boost
bloody
accuse
era

b. Complete the sentences

Complete the sentences with words from part a.

1.One had a story about video games teaching kids to kill on the front page.

2.I prefer puzzle games and not games with and fighting.

3.She always feels great after winning a game and it can really her confidence.

4.The most popular fighting games often show military .

5.At the end of the fight, the game shows a short animation for each .

6.Parents hated the game because you could see the come out of the body.

7.She didn't want to her friend of cheating but there was no other explanation.

8.It is a very game and you can kill the other players in many different ways.

9.Some news programmes created a(n) by saying the games cause bad behaviour.

10.I don't like it when the computer is the because I always lose.

11.The big game companies sell a new almost every Christmas.

12.It is a really scary game with some sounds.

13.After playing for three hours, I pressed 'save' to I didn't lose my progress.

14.The 1980s was an important for computer games.

15.The scary scenes in the game were and some loved them but others really complained.

Answer Key (b):

tabloid
violence
boost
combat
fatality
guts
accuse
bloody
moral panic
opponent
console
horrifying
ensure
era
controversial

Comprehension Check

Answer the questions using information from the article. Write in complete sentences.

1.Which two ways of finishing an opponent were described by Joe Lieberman?

2.What did Joe Lieberman want the gaming industry to have?

3.How did Mortal Kombat create the animation of the fighting?

4.Which fighting game was popular before Mortal Kombat?

5.What do you think was meant by 'the MTV version' of a game?

6.How is Mortal Kombat compared to video nasties?

7.What were the console wars?

8.Why did Sega sell more copies of Mortal Kombat than Nintendo?

9.Which other games have been blamed for affecting young people negatively?

10.According to the article, how did games change forever in the Mortal Kombat era?

Key Language: Dependent Prepositions

a. Match the verbs to their dependent prepositions

Use the article to help you find the correct preposition for each verb.

1.accuse

2.begin

3.force

4.look

5.succeed

Answer Key (a):

d (accuse of)
e (begin with)
c (force into)
a (look at)
b (succeed in)

b. Complete the table with the verbs below

Place each verb in the correct preposition column.

believeagreeguessbreakthink

at	in	into	of	with

Answer Key (b): guess at · believe in · break into · think of · agree with

c. Complete the sentences

Complete the sentences using the verbs and dependent prepositions from tasks a and b in the correct form.

1.Before making your next move, the map at the bottom of the screen.

2.The games company signing a five-year contract.

3.I can't a better strategy than using long distance attacks.

4.After dozens of attempts, she finally defeating the final boss.

5.She was getting game ideas from the competition by her boss.

6.The game a practice of the main moves.

7.She truly using games in education.

8.To win the game, you have to the museum and steal the painting.

9.I your decision to let your child play this game.

10.Try to the best way to beat the final boss.

Answer Key (c):

look at
forced him into
think of
succeeded in
accused of
begins with
believes in
break into
agree with
guess at

Discussion

Discuss these statements. Give your reasons and refer to your own experiences where possible.

🎮

Video games should be for everyone, no matter how violent they are.

🚫

There is no positive way to use video games.

💡

Without Mortal Kombat, no one would have created games for teenagers.

In Your Own Words

a. Complete the table with the examples of controversial media

Place each item in the correct column: Mortal Kombat by Midway (1992) · The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988) · Big Brother by Banijay Entertainment (2000) · Fountain by Marcel Duchamp (1917) · WAP by Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion (2020)

Art	Books	Music	TV Programmes	Video Games

b. Add other examples

In groups, add other examples of controversial media to the table above.

c. Choose one example and describe its influence

Try to include verbs and dependent prepositions. Here is an example to help you.

Today, many artists and historians agree with the view that Fountain is one of the most controversial and influential artworks of the 20th century. When people first looked at the work inside an exhibition, many were shocked that an artist might believe in the idea of presenting an ordinary urinal as art. It was one of the first times that an artwork had made people think of art not as something technically brilliant or beautiful, but as an idea.

Your response

d. Present to the group

Present the piece of controversial media that you chose and explain its influence. Decide which example was the most influential in the group.

Presentation notes