Error is always part of every creation. Even more so in video games. Bugs or glitches in the mechanics lead to interesting ideas that developers decide to keep. And on more than one occasion, when something goes wrong and reaches the public, it is they who ask the developers not to change it. That the game is more fun, more interesting, or better overall, that way. Something that has also happened with Mortal Kombat.
NetherRealm Studios has announced the fourth character in the franchise’s history that will be included in Mortal Kombat 1 through the Kombat Pass. This will be Ermac, a fearsome ninja with psychic powers. And in addition to his first trailer, Ed Boon, the franchise’s creator, has decided to comment on the origins of this peculiar character.
According to Boon’s comment on a Twitter thread, the name Ermac comes from an error in the first Mortal Kombat. Ermac is an abbreviation for Error Macro, a list of every error in the code that was found in the arcade machine while it was in use. In the case of the Mortal Kombat arcade, Ermac appeared after each game listed after Reptile, a hidden character within the game. This made many players think that, like Reptile, there was a character named Ermac that had yet to be discovered.
Although NetherRealm Studios was aware that fans believed there was a secret character, they did not introduce it immediately. It wasn’t until Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 that they included Ermac, even though many players insisted for years that they had fought against the character in previous versions of the game. Something impossible, since Ermac did not exist until that moment.
This is not something that only happened in Mortal Kombat. In Street Fighter II, something similar happened as well, because, due to a translation error, Ryu said among his victory phrases that “You must defeat Shen Long to stand a chance.” This made many players think that there was a character named Shen Long, but in reality it was a bad translation of shoryuken. Except that Capcom, in Street Fighter: The Movie, made Shen Long canon, turning him into Akuma’s brother and Ryu and Ken’s master, even if he didn’t appear as a playable character until Street Fighter IV as Gouken, and as a character under the name of Sheng Long until Street Fighter 6.
Curiosities aside, Ermac will have its first playable trailer this same week. And although it doesn’t have a release date yet, it is expected to be announced at the same time as the playable trailer.
