The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
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.
Story
The setting begins immediately after the events of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. The Deadly Alliance (Shang Tsung and Quan Chi) was successful in their plan. Raiden's warriors, who were meant to protect the six fictional universes (named "realms"), were killed during their tournament. It served as the perfect distraction to defeat their enemies while they simultaneously claimed enough souls to resurrect the Invincible Army.
As the sole survivor, Raiden attempts to fight both sorcerers but is ultimately defeated. The Deadly Alliance quickly dissolves as the two sorcerers turn on each other for Shinnok's amulet, which allows them to control the army. Quan Chi has no time to enjoy his victory before he sees that the Dragon King Onaga, the former emperor of the realm of Outworld, has been resurrected too. Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and Raiden join forces to stop Onaga.
Development
Mortal Kombat (MK) series co-creator Ed Boon wanted Deception to be an unpredictable fighting game that gave players new features "they could never imagine". To do so, the Midway staff listened to fans on bulletin boards to know what to work on for Deception, such as the playable characters. Wanting to surprise fans and make the game deeper, they added the puzzle and chess minigames (the chess minigame had first been considered for Deadly Alliance, but the developers lacked time to implement it). Boon and John Podlasek supervised the staff, which was divided into teams to work on different areas of the game. One of their concerns was to maintain the traditional feel of the MK series as they wanted the game's violence to make it a more realistic fighting game, rather than "a fighting simulator".
Character appearances were improved to make their moves "more responsive" to the player's input. They also wanted to bring back several characters they felt were absent for too long — including Sindel, Nightwolf, Baraka, and Mileena — and an arena with several weapons which players could use to fight; however, it was remade to become the Liu Kang's Tomb arena. Characters' combos were redesigned to be distinctive so that they would be more important; as Boon noted, they were necessary for any move the player would use to inflict more damage on an opponent. The Midway staff focused on the designs and functions of the backgrounds, wanting to make them as influential to the outcome of the battle as the fighting between the characters.
Reception
During its release week, Mortal Kombat: Deception shipped 1,000,000 units, surpassing sales of the previous MK title and becoming the fastest-selling game in Midway's history. 1 year later, the game had shipped 1,900,000 units worldwide.
Before the game's release, GameSpot named it the best fighting game of E3 2004. It was also the winner of the 2004 GameSpot Top Spike TV Video Game Awards in the category of best fighting game. In GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004, Deception received the award for best fighting game. The PlayStation 2 version was a runner-up in IGN's PS2 Best of 2004 Awards in the best fighting game category, and won the Readers' Choice.
