The reportage (which IвЂ™ll point out was retweeted by Anagostakos) pushes the reader to think, вЂњOh, Mortal Kombat is making an effort to objectify its women less.вЂќ Read by people who are aware of Gamergate this sounds a lot like вЂњ Mortal Kombat is appeasing Social Justice WarriorsвЂќ or вЂњ Mortal Kombat is listening to feminists.вЂќ Other, smaller game commentary sites took this suppositional angle and ran with it, straight-up yellinвЂ™ вЂњ NetherRealm promises realistic woman for Mortal Kombat XвЂќ to вЂњ Mortal Kombat X Will Feature More Realistically Proportioned Women,вЂќ and this little baby cry (right), from some particularly devoted strokers. The illustrations, unsurprisingly, are not identical. Gamespot chose to illustrate this point by comparing a 2011 illustration of Mileena to a 2015 illustration of Kitana. This month, via a stream on Twitch, he gifted this world with the news that in his game the design team has striven for вЂњrealism.вЂќ He says that his co-worker is вЂњexactlyвЂќ right when they suggest that this means that the women in the game will look вЂњmore like women do.вЂќ Mortal Kombat X, currently in promotional pre-sales, has a production manager named Spiro Anagostakos. Through my life, every time we have met, Mortal Kombat has stolen my environment and used it as laurels for its stroking hand. ItвЂ™s how the franchise, aged twenty-two this year with Mortal Kombat X, presents women. Maybe for you.ДЇor me (track your own journey in comments), the source of my instinctive fighting stance is not the joy in cartoon harm. Your average fan will say вЂњthe fatalities are too ridiculous to really be disturbing.вЂќ And indeed, they were, and remain, ridiculous. Fatalities were a gruesome, fantasy element of a fantasy game, and they were probably intended as parody or for sub-ironic enjoyment the character Johnny Cage is a parody of Van Damme, and the first game as a whole is a pastiche of imported Asian martial arts cinema (the franchise continues as an Orientalist fantasy). Even rcthin Mortal Kombat, these deaths werenвЂ™t necessarily part of the вЂњcanon eventsвЂќ of the game, or even of the personal plot special to the playerвЂ™s character. The fighting game norm, even now, is for the opponent to fall down when defeated, as if tired or unconscious, but appreciably alive. I was five when the first game was released, and I was seven when the ESRB rating system was introduced in response to parentsвЂ™ response to the gameвЂ™s вЂњfatalities.вЂќ This means that parents were alarmed by characters murdering their opponents, often by removing parts of their bodies, in exaggerated on-screen victory. It must have happened, but I donвЂ™t remember a time before I felt encroached upon by Mortal Kombat.

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