Mortal Kombat: Deception

Mortal Kombat: Deception is a 2004 fighting game developed and published by Midway. The sixth main installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise and sequel to Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002), it was released for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and Xbox in October 2004, the GameCube in March 2005, and for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) as Mortal Kombat: Unchained in November 2006. Following on from the events of Deadly Alliance, the game’s plot centers on the recently revived Dragon King Onaga, who upon defeating the Thunder God Raiden and sorcerers Quan Chi and Shang Tsung attempts to conquer various realms, meanwhile surviving warriors from prior MK titles join forces in a bid to stop him. In addition to online play and new chess and puzzle minigames, a revamped Konquest Mode from Deadly Alliance features a secondary plot line following the life of Shujinko, a warrior deceived by Onaga into finding artifacts to increase his power.

Designed by series co-creator Ed Boon, the game was created with the intent of surprising MK fans with surprising new and returning content, as well as providing a more realistic combat experience in order to preserve the series signature gory violence. Several parts of the gameplay, such as combos and arenas, were redesigned to accommodate the new style of realism as well as be more interactive for players. In addition, the game was designed with the online play in mind, which had yet to be established into a fighting game.

Upon release, Deception was positively received by critics, who praised the reworked combat and plethora of new features, but criticized the revamped Konquest Mode due to its poor story and voice acting. The game managed to sell more than 1 million units by the end of 2005 and was nominated as the best fighting game of 2004 by several game publications. It has since been regarded as having been the first fighting game to incorporate online multiplayer, which later became an industry standard for the genre moving forward. A sequel to Deception, Mortal Kombat Armageddon, was released in 2006.

The game's arenas are similar to those in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, but include new features. Some have weapons that may be picked up and used. Others are now branching, meaning you can knock the opponent out of the fighting area in certain locations and continue the fight in a new area. Most levels now have deathtraps, killing any player who gets knocked into them. The game also introduces the "Combo Breaker", a system which allows players to interrupt combos up to three times per match. In contrast to Deadly Alliance, in which characters had only one Fatality, the Deception characters have two Fatalities and a hara-kiri suicide move. The latter is used when the phrase "Finish Him/Her" is shown on the screen and the player is about to lose.

Deception introduces two minigames that use MK characters, "Chess Kombat" and "Puzzle Kombat". The Konquest mode returns, but has been expanded into a roaming adventure game with its plot.

The "Krypt" returns from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and serves as an interface to access extra content hidden in "koffins" (actual coffins named with the series' trademark misspelling). In Deception, the size of the Krypt was reduced from 676 koffins to 400 koffins. Some koffins also have locks requiring keys only found in the Konquest mode. The Krypt in Mortal Kombat: Deception includes twelve bonus characters (which was cut down to six characters in the GameCube version).

Deadly Alliance's action role-playing game-style training mode — called "Konquest" — returns in Deception and is greatly expanded from the previous version. Set before the events of the main game, Deception's Konquest mode explores the history of Shujinko, starting before his training with Bo' Rai Cho and ending with the beginning of Deception's main story. While mostly an adventure game, the combat elements occur in the normal Deception fighting mode. Mastering each character's moves is now a minor mission, and it is unnecessary to beat all of them to beat the game mode. In Konquest, a young Shujinko meets Damashi, a being who requests his assistance in collecting six powerful items, the Kamidogu, to send to the Elder Gods. By the time he collects the six Kamidogu, Shujinko is an old man, having spent 46 years on his mission. However, Damashi is revealed to be the Evil Dragon King Onaga, who deceived Shujinko to obtain the six Kamidogu. Players seeking to unlock much of the bonus content in Deception must play through the Konquest mode. Even after completing the mode, players can continue exploring the worlds for additional items to unlock.

"Chess Kombat" is a minigame similar to classic chess. Each piece type is represented by a character of the player's choosing. As with regular chess, the quantity and movement of each piece are determined by its rank. The game only ends when one player takes another team's 'Champion' (or King in traditional chess). The biggest difference is that all attempts to take a square are literally contested. Players will engage in one round of combat, with the winner taking the square.