Do you think there’s a villain cooler than the T-1000? Get out of here, no you don’t. The T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day stands right on the intersection of early ‘90s cool, late 20th century technological advancements, visionary storytelling, and a perfect match of performer to role. One of the guiding lights we use to decide on which guest characters to incorporate in Mortal Kombat 1 is simply… who’s the coolest fit that we haven’t included yet? Enter the T-1000.
In contrast to the tank or trucklike brute-force-instrument qualities of the T-800, the T-1000 is a sportscar. Instead of the T-800’s towering, aloof, biker-jacketed demeanor, you get Robert Patrick’s gracile and intense police officer impersonator. The T-1000 fights, shoots, and sprints without wincing, blinking, or heaving for air. He walks and scans in a hawklike, inhuman way. But when needed, he’s a better social chameleon than his predecessor. Patrick’s T-1000 can plausibly question civilians as a friendly cop and demonstrates emotions like frustration and arrogance in places the T-800 would not. Surprisingly, extreme moments are when Patrick’s T-1000 seems most human (realizing you have a live grenade round implanted in your midsection qualifies as extreme).
That’s just talking expressions and demeanor. The kicker here is what the T-1000 is made of. While the T-800 is a solid cyborg—machine endoskeleton surrounded by living flesh—the T-1000 is an experimental android composed of a cloud of liquid metal material, described in the movie as a prototype ‘mimetic polyalloy.’ With a chrome flicker that ‘resets’ its surface to a reflective silver blank slate, it can reshape itself to mimic humanoids, objects, and simple weapons. It can pour through small openings or around obstacles like an evil molasses, it can flatten and extend its mass to blend into the floor or run along it like a live oil slick, and it can extrude and then harden portions of itself to act as improvised blades, bludgeons, or prybars depending on what the situation requires. The rule in the fiction is, if the T-1000 has touched something or someone, it has scanned for information and is now capable of impersonating appearances.
The upshot for us as developers is a faster, more flexible, and cunning infiltrator than the classic T-800 Terminator (itself a guest character in Mortal Kombat 11), with an abundance of reference material to draw from, and seemingly unlimited gameplay, special effect, and cinema potential. Spoiled for choice is the expression.
But flavor-wise, its lack of blood needed addressing. A T-1000 getting slashed up by Baraka wouldn’t send red matter everywhere. At best it would be small chrome drops of the goop it’s made of getting flung away from the main mass. And that stuff wouldn’t just sit wherever it splatted, either. After the initial shock of being scattered, pieces would dust themselves off and go looking for the main entity.
An even bigger issue: Mortal Kombat 1 is filled with dozens upon dozens of signature Fatalities, Animalities, Brutalities, Fatal Blows, etc., and each one of these finishing moves is a bone crushing cinematic moment with various unpleasant things happening in detailed X-ray and cross-sectioned ultra-HD views. Well, the T-1000 is a liquid metal android so you can imagine how pulling or slicing the machine apart might be sort of like ballistics tests through dense fluids. Dedicated attention was paid to every cinema to convey the T-1000’s unique viscous characteristics when meeting grisly ends as a losing kombatant.
Then there’s the limb and form morphing. It was decided early on gameplay-wise what the T-1000 would be about, broadly—as not just a Terminator but the most advanced Terminator, he should seem implacable, always steadily forward moving, and feature an arsenal brimming with every direct movie reference we can cram in, alongside fun extrapolations we can add.
Direct film references include numerous attacks where some or all of the T-1000 reforms. For example, forearms reshaping into large blades or hooks and fingers extending into thin needles, which you’ll see throughout most of the character’s arsenal of moves. And as a police officer imposter, it’s clear the T-1000 has acquired service pistols that provide a kinetic way to stand off at range or to slowly advance. A particularly strong enhanced special move combines the two, with the T-1000 sprinting while shooting, before lunging with extended spear-arms, just like in the hospital corridor scene in the 1991 movie. A couple normal combo chains feature bladed finger extensions that skewer like little spears or the T-1000 extending a portion of itself to use as a rebar-like bludgeon mid-combo, both callbacks to the iconic steel mill setting towards the end of the film.
Some moves take creative license, embellishing to open new gameplay avenues and display more of the T-1000’s capabilities. Taking inspiration from the character dropping through the ceiling of a ruined elevator in a poured-liquid form, it can quickly reform in midair and fall to the ground as a dense fluid droplet. And like after being frozen, shattered and thawed, the T-1000 can dive into a surging blob form low to the ground, closing distance before emerging with bladed attacks. For a move that’s in between a mid-range poke and a long-range projectile attack, it can melt halfway into the floor to send out a spiny tendril of liquid metal, quickly forming the base for a rising stalagmite-like spear. The most whimsy is displayed within the T-1000’s moveset that clues eagle-eyed fans it has faced familiar Outworld kombatants before, picking up a duplication trick or two along the way.
Implementing a character design isn’t always straightforward, depending on the nature of the fighter. Of course, most characters are complicated with different moves, animations, and FX, and T-1000 has just about every complication possible. Throw animations—anything where a grappler and their victim need to be synced up—are trickier to design, motion-capture, animate, and implement than typical strikes. Moving, warping, and morphing options set up all kinds of potential variables to account for. FX themselves can be complex, involving cross-discipline efforts to solve lighting, physics, and model issues that get in the way of coordinating the intended look and feel.
Doing justice to the T-1000 was a full-team effort, and we couldn’t be more excited to add this amazing guest fighter to the Mortal Kombat 1 roster. The T-1000 Terminator is available today on Xbox Series X|S as part of the Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns Expansion, or a la carte via separate purchase.
Mortal Kombat
1: Khaos Reigns Kollection
Warner Bros. Games
$89.99
$29.69
Includes instant access to the Base Game, Kombat Pack, and Dragon Krystals. Gain access to the upcoming Story Expansion, Kombat Pack 2 and more!
Khaos Reigns Story Expansion
Kombat Pack 2*
Khaos Reigns Fighters Available At Launch:
Noob Saibot
Cyrax
Sektor
Guest Fighters Available Post-Launch (includes 1 week early access)
Ghostface (Scream Franchise)
T-1000 (Terminator 2)
Conan the Barbarian
Kombat Pack (Available Now):
Omni-Man (Invincible)
Quan Chi
Peacemaker (DC’s Peacemaker)
Ermac
Homelander (The Boys)
Takeda Takahashi
Kameo Fighters (Available Now):
Tremor
Khameleon
Janet Cage
Mavado
Ferra
Jean-Claude Van Damme Skin for Johnny Cage (Available Now)
1250 Dragon Krystals (Available Now)
*Separate Kombat Pack 2 character bundle not available
MK1: T-1000
Warner Bros. Games
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