oh man yeah oh man fight [Music] hey what's going on everybody for first week Feast I'm Sean Evans and you're watching hot ones it's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings and today we're joined for a very special edition interview with video game Legend Ed Boone he's the programmer voice actor and director best known as co-creator of
the iconic Mortal Kombat fighting Series in his latest game Mortal Kombat 1 is set to release on September 19th Ed Boon welcome to the show very happy to be here a little nervous but uh it looks like fun all totally normal reactions you know everybody that comes in here they're always nervous but before we get started how are you around spicy food
like do you reach for hot sauce naturally no I am at the lowest end of the spicy food and it's not like I dislike it I just have a uh a very low tolerance so this should be interesting [Music] [Music] okay foreign supposed to um hit in right away or just just the lowest end I think you were a hot sauce guy all along Ed you know you just didn't know no no no no no no
it's good so when we had actor kumal nanjiani on the show he put forth this theory that video games are the only medium and entertainment that get better year over year because of the technological advancements is somebody who's had their hands so deep in the video game honey pot since the 1980s does that at all resonate with you it does um
the first Mortal Kombat game [Music] we started in 1991 was four people right um all right uh it was four people one programmer two artists and an audio guy the newest one is literally in the hundreds technology has created an opportunity for us to make the most elaborate sets we have actors directors animators audio Engineers it just it
just goes on and on so the scope is a hundred times I'd say maybe as big as the the very first one and it's all Technology's fault for better or worse For Better or Worse yeah is there anything that you miss most about the old days and then what are you so happy that you don't have to deal with anymore what I miss them most about the old days is if you have an idea
later that afternoon you can see the idea you know come through fruition right you can just see it done now if you have an idea six month lead oh oh at least at least it's like it's like you know steering the Titanic you know you want to take a turn you you plan a month ahead and then you start turning uh so it was uh there's something about having
an idea off the top of your head and be able to do it now now it affects you know 30 people and you have to borderline get permission to do it before you uh when you do it even in my position [Music] and here on the five-wing gauntlet we're doing some time travel here all right we're going from number one to number five yeah this is the one I'm getting
the nervous about oh that's nothing no no I'm sure it's gonna okay they do taste good it is nice and I'm kind of hungry you know I don't always come in here hungry but when I do it it's kind of nice you know to have the meal here okay I'm uh suspicious because I I thought I thought I'd be cracking on the second one for sure you're gonna be good you're gonna
make it all the way through with not an ounce of sweat on you all right I can see her already yet I'm kind of regret this you got it you know I'm fascinated by guest characters you know having Robocop on there having a Terminator on there spawn Freddy Krueger what kind of characters do you look for when deciding to bring a
character from Another Universe into the Mortal Kombat world that's actually um it's it's a lot more it's not technical it's just childish we all that's why I like it that's why we all we all grew up uh watching movies from the 70s 80s and 90s from our standpoint it is wouldn't it be cool to see Terminator fighting scorpion wouldn't it
be cool to see RoboCop fighting uh Sub-Zero and it says as as basic and simple as that there's no science to it at some point um there's legalities can we get the license to it can we do this but but in terms of where the idea comes from it's it's it's a bunch of adults who are still trapped in the 70s watching tough guy movies exactly exactly and want to see
who would win in a fight instead it's that simple so this one is the spicy shark here uh-oh [Music] again am I oh okay yeah okay no so this is one you answered my question it's kind of sweet up front and it almost makes you think oh did I grab the wrong Wing yeah yeah it does and then the second you think that the door slams yeah yeah yeah but still
going back in I love it I love it so one of my favorite things that's come out about the new game is that you'll actually have a Jean-Claude Van Damme skin for Johnny Cage can you talk about how that came to be because I imagine that this is a very validating full circle moment you know 30 years in the making it is when we uh oh um uh when we made the very first game
our original intention was to make Van Damme the arcade game right we we actually you know wanted to see the words VanDam big there and again Bloodsport was big and universal Soldier I think was um so we we called his his people and we're like you know we want to make a game based on Van Damme and um I I don't know if he declined or or just
never got to him or something like that but again this is this is a bunch of you know a couple of 20 year old kids 20 something year old kids wanted to make a video game I could see how Van Damme would go no no we're not doing this and not knowing that so we tried a number of times going back and forth with him this time we we hit the lottery and we
got him and we actually have his voice and he's gonna be the Johnny Cage character and it is like you said it's the absolute full circle moment that we had what do you see as the significance or the role and narrative in a fighting video game like this so that's actually one of the hardest things about writing the story is you know we're going to
give the player like 30 fights so you have to come up with 30 confrontations that'll be um that'll be uh enough for a reason to fight and we've we've kind of gotten we've we've stumbled a couple of times like we'd have you know Johnny Cage is hitting on somebody and and Jax is like you know hey cut it out hey I'm just hitting on her okay let's
fight about it you know that's not a really good reason to to well listen fights happen that way fights happen yeah at a bar or something like that but but uh so we've had some really kind of silly ones and we have to but yeah the stories main function is to create conflict and let the player resolve the conflict by beating the crap
out of the other okay the other character it's only right yeah all right Ed are you ready to move on here this is the bomb Beyond Insanity oh man so this one is crazy okay I'm just okay I'm letting you know okay off the bat time [Music] it'll be pretty immediate you won't have to wait for this one oh man yeah oh man all right whoa finish it and uh by the way
wow that yeah that's the spiciest thing I've ever had in my life so like me you're an Alum of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign we were talking about it a little bit outside I know that you graduated with a degree in mathematics and computer science I'm curious where did you think you would go next I can't imagine you thought like in 1986 that
you're gonna be a video game developer what'd you say um no no in 1986 I absolutely knew I was going to be a video game you know for yeah I knew wow I knew um I think when I was like 15 years old or something a game called defender came out and um Defender Pac-Man [Music] and um it was um God it actually gets hot I know it doesn't stop and then you talk you talk
um you know it provides uh some oxygen to the fire you know and at the time um Apple had released you know the Apple II so so people first got computers in their hands I had this this Atari 800 oh my God it's even hotter and um and uh and once I put a pixel on the screen and moved it over you know to me it was like you know hitting a note on a piano and
realizing you can hit three of them and make a chord you can do this and you can compose and it was a big moment of like wow this is what I wanted to do and I always I always assumed that um I would be working at a bank right writing you know some kind of software and then making games by myself you know on a uh as a hobby or something like
that and it turned out that it was um I lucked out and I got a job in a pinball company that was also making video games and that was I've had one job my whole life right out of school I made one resume in Champaign Illinois and I've not made one since which is crazy yeah yeah my lips are burning foreign [Applause] [Music] [Music] you don't have to eat anything else you
did it you know you walked in here a little bit nervous oh my goodness okay oh but to close things out mortal kombat's made such an indelible imprint I mean and so many in my generation and here we are 30 years later still galvanizing players all over the world so close things out with your brain on fire mouth Ablaze I'm gonna hit you with a Mortal
Kombat rapid rapid fire okay where did the get over here catchphrase come from over here we were in the studio literally off the top of my head I was like hey let's have the guy throw a spear and as I was kind of miming it out I had said you know then he pulls him in and he says get over here you know and at that point we did we weren't thinking
of it oh that's that'll be a catchphrase but later in the um in the audio uh recording I was there doing some Grunts and groans and and decided to yell out get you know get over here that's my voice and then um that's basically where it came along do you have a favorite piece of uh Mortal Kombat memorabilia or a Keepsake that you've collected over the years
that's most treasured too yes um I didn't know it existed but when they made the first Mortal Kombat movie for some dangerous reason they made a Kano knife this gigantic not safe knife and they branded it and they put it and they sent me one and I'm the opposite of somebody who uses knives but it's it it's really cool looking and so
uh that's my favorite one off the top of your head without thinking about too much do you have any sort of an idea for a hot sauce fatality um this one and uh I I would say you know just Force feeding it to uh to the loser well you know what Ed we could not finish him today because he took on the wings of death lived to tell the tale and now there's nothing left to
do but roll out the red carpet for you this camera this camera this camera let the people know what you have going on in your life um we have uh September 19th we have Mortal Kombat one that is coming out it is the 12th version of Mortal Kombat that we are calling Mortal Kombat one because we've reset our story telling it from the actual big bang and
you will see a brand new origin brand new timeline of a Mortal Kombat universe and uh as many cool features as we've ever added and we can't wait for players to check it out can't wait to play good job [Applause] oh wow man my nose is starting to to run I'm glad I'm glad uh we finished just in time yeah yeah yeah I was gonna oh man Flawless victory foreign