Noob Saibot isn’t the first character you think of when someone brings up Mortal Kombat, but as one of the first major evolutions to an established character as well as one of the first hidden fighters, he actually represents some of the most fundamental pillars of the franchise’s identity.
NetherRealm Studios just welcomed Noob into Mortal Kombat 1 as Khaos Reigns DLC, and though he’s already got callbacks to earlier appearances, players have discovered what looks like a training mode glitch seems to turn the character into his original Mortal Kombat 2 iteration.
Though the first hidden character in Mortal Kombat was Reptile in the franchise’s first entry, Noob Saibot was part of a trio of hidden characters featured in Mortal Kombat 2. Narrative-wise he was the evolution of first Sub-Zero (named Bi-Han) who was killed in the first Mortal Kombat game and technically returned as Noob in the second.
As a wraith version of the palette swap ninjas, Noob’s model really wasn’t textured in his debut and thus he looked much more like an actual shadow. His design would be developed over his numerous subsequent appearances, but he was originally just a black silhouette.
With Noob having joined Mortal Kombat 1’s roster earlier this week, players have had a few days with him and have only just discovered a glitch that appears to revert Noob visually back to his original self.
A player named MadMike has posted footage of the apparent glitch on X. According to Mike, if you quick reset while Noob is performing the latter portion of his Fatal Blow in training mode, the character will suddenly become an un-textured shadow a la MK2:
There’s a glitch where Noob Saibot gets darker if you reset on training mode after the last few seconds of his fatal blow#MK1_Noob#MortalKombat1 #MortalKombat1KhaosReigns pic.twitter.com/9S91mnGpVY
— MadMike (@mikejones_mad) September 26, 2024
Mortal Kombat has a long history of turning rumors and glitches into actual features, perhaps most famously in the creation of Ermac, and tends to be jam-packed with Easter eggs and clever nods.
As such, it can be hard to tell when something like this is intentional or a happy accident. If the requirements to access this “skin” were conspicuously related to the way you unlocked the Noob fight in MK2 (win 25 Versus matches in a row) that might reveal intention, but a simple reset during a cinematic feels more like happenstance.
It also might be that this is a glitched way of accessing an intentional skin, as in perhaps developers did create shadow Noob for MK1, but intended for players to access him in some other way. Either way, the result is a fun bit of nostalgia that we’re happy to see.