Scorpion appeared in the first
Mortal Kombat as one of three palette-swapped ninja characters, along with
Sub-Zero and
Reptile. His early origins were revealed by the series' original chief character designer,
John Tobias, in September 2011, when he posted several pages of old pre-production character sketches and notes on Twitter. Scorpion and Sub-Zero were simply described as "[a] palette swap for 2 ninjas—a hunter and the hunted," while Tobias also considered the concepts of either one of them fleeing their clan or a "revenge story" involving the then-unnamed characters being part of rival clans. In regards to the game's strict memory limitations, co-creator and programmer
Ed Boon recalled: "A lot of attention went into the economics of it, and so we knew that if we could take a character and change their color and use basically the same memory to create two characters, we'd save a lot of money and we'd have two characters." Scorpion yells one of two
taunts — "Get over here!" and "Come here!" — at his opponents when he hits them with his spear. They were voiced by Boon in the games and both feature films, but only one of them ("Come here!") was included in the home ports of
MK and
MKII due to memory constraints. According to Boon, the second of the character's phrases originated because he thought "it would be funny to have him yell out 'Get over here!' when he [threw the spear]," and he was thus encouraged to get behind the studio microphone and record the taunts. Twenty years after the first
MK game's release, Boon included creating the spear move as well as the character itself among his personal high points of the franchise's history, adding: "I remember people sitting in my office all day just doing this uppercut [on a speared enemy] again and again, like 'Oh my God, that feels so good.' It just became the cornerstone of [the game]."
MKII saw the debut of the phrase "Toasty!", which was voiced by series sound designer
Dan Forden during a variation of Scorpion's "Flaming Skull" Fatality or at random when any of the game's characters landed an uppercut. According to Tobias, it first originated as "You're Toast!", which was a taunt bandied among the designers during game-testing sessions.
Design Scorpion was given a yellow palette because the developers decided it symbolized fire in contrast to Sub-Zero's ice blue. Their similar appearance but opposite nature "prompted the story behind them being these opposing ninja-clan-type characters." A third ninja swap,
Reptile, was added in the third revision as a hidden non-playable character who was outfitted in green and used Scorpion's spear (along with Sub-Zero's freeze) as part of his offensive arsenal; he was devised by Boon as "a cooler version of Scorpion." The original costume was created from a modified ninja-like outfit bought at a Chicago costume shop This in turn made the other male ninja characters therein—Sub-Zero, Reptile, and hidden characters
Smoke and
Noob Saibot—palette swaps of Scorpion, with the latter two also using Scorpion's spear when players fought them separately in secret battles. Scorpion and the ninja characters were first played by
Daniel Pesina, who was replaced by John Turk for
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and the 1996 compilation
Mortal Kombat Trilogy, while Sal Divita played the character in
MK: Mythologies. While his ninja-outfit template from the first generation of games has remained relatively unchanged over time, the improved graphics of the post-
Mortal Kombat 4 three-dimensional releases have allowed more details to better differentiate the male ninja characters, and Scorpion's costumes were duly enhanced with objects such as two
katana swords strapped to his back and his spear attached to a rope tied to his belt in
Deadly Alliance, and a set of ornate shoulder
epaulets in
Deception, in which his alternate costume was a throwback to the two-dimensional
MK titles. Scorpion's
MK2011 costume was inspired by
his namesake, such as the character's abdomen-shaped shoulder pads, the two stinger-handled swords crisscrossed on his back, and the
exoskeletal pattern on his hard-shell face mask. Scorpion was included with Sub-Zero, Reptile, and
Ermac in a bundle of classic costumes from the first
Mortal Kombat that was released as
downloadable content for the 2011 reboot. For
Injustice: Gods Among Us, he received a new costume designed by comic artist
Jim Lee. In the original
Mortal Kombats fighter-selection screen, Scorpion had regular human eyes, as his identity as a resurrected specter was meant to be a mystery, but he was given solid yellow or white eyes for every release thereafter starting with
MKII, He was considered a lower-tier character by
GamePro in their 1993
MKII character rankings, rating him eighth out of the game's twelve playables and describing both him and Sub-Zero as "formerly a top-tier character [who] doesn't have much of a chance in
MKII since all of the male ninjas have some poor matchups," with Scorpion faring the worst against Jax and
Mileena. Ed Lomas of
Sega Saturn Magazine described the character as having "simple yet effective" special moves in
UMK3 that "make him good for beginners, [which] doesn't stop him from being a useful character," while his "trusty" spear was "perfect for setting up combos." They additionally described the spear as "useful as ever" in
Armageddon, adding, "Between [that and his] other special moves ... Scorpion pretty much has everything covered."
Prima Games'
MK2011 strategy guide considered Scorpion to be well-balanced with no distinct weaknesses or advantages, while winning more than half of his fights against the game's other characters. He is also a playable character for both the versus and story modes in
Shaolin Monks, where his move sets in this game are largely identical to Liu Kang's with some original techniques. Scorpion's signature finishing move from the original game up until
Mortal Kombat 4 was his "Fire Breath" Fatality, in which he removed his ninja hood and face like a mask to reveal a skull right before immolating his opponent. A variation of this finisher was included in
MKII: entering a different button/joystick combination added the spoken "Toasty!" phrase that simultaneously appeared on the screen. While the "Fire Breath" was brought back for
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe in 2008, his spear has otherwise served as his primary tool in his fatalities in the three-dimensional games, from impaling his opponents through the head and then decapitating them in
Deadly Alliance, using it to yank off their limbs in
Deception, and plunging it into their chest before kicking them through a portal that left nothing but a skinned corpse hanging from the spear's chain in
MK2011 ("Nether Gate"). His second Fatality in the reboot, "Split Decision", had Scorpion using one of his back-mounted swords to hack his opponent to pieces. Scorpion would indirectly play a role in the fabrication of the then-nonexistent character Ermac when
Electronic Gaming Monthly published a doctored screenshot of Scorpion from the original game in 1993. This subsequently spawned false player rumors of a
glitch that would turn Scorpion's
sprite red, with the name "Error Macro" appearing in the energy bar. Ermac became playable in
UMK3, in which he was a red palette swap of Scorpion who shared his Teleport Punch. ==Appearances==