Mortal Kombat 1 is an absolutely stunning game visually. NetherRealm Studios always outdoes themselves when they put out a new fighting title and they always seem to push the limits of just how good and realistic a fighting game can look on the latest hardware.
While there are a lot of customization options and skins for characters on the MK1 roster currently in the game, some of the most popular faces on the main roster don’t have their iconic classic looks available for fans to purchase and use. As always, the PC mod community has gone ahead and done the work instead, creating classic skins for Smoke, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero, and not only do they look great, but they look even better thanks to the artistic styling of TQT’s screenshots.
If there’s one thing that fans love in modern fighting games, it’s callbacks to their roots. Having classic or retro costumes and skins for legacy characters is nearly a standard by this point, and we’ve seen games like Street Fighter 6 oblige fans with outfit 2 for most fighters being heavily inspired by their original looks.
Mortal Kombat 1 has done that to some extent as well, though the biggest callbacks can be found among the Kameo Fighter roster. Combatants like Jax, Sonya Blade, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero all look like their original iterations, while the main roster fighters have a modern design for the new era.
One such legacy character who received a brand new visual design in Mortal Kombat 1 was classic ninja, Smoke. Fans were accepting of this new look, though it wasn’t one that was a big hit, and we often saw people asking for and wanting him to return back to how he looked in past games like Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat 9.
This mod that TQT showcases, however, does make Smoke appear much closer to what fans know him for — and he looks great. He’s got his classic ninja hood and face mask with his gray and black getup, and everything is beautifully detailed.
Scorpion also receives a classic glow up here, and though it mainly uses assets from the Kameo Fighter version of Scorpion, there are some subtle differences. For one thing, main roster Scorpion with this mod retains his pupils while the Kameo version has fully white eyes like a specter.
Sub-Zero‘s mod follows the same idea as Scorpion’s, bringing the classic design of the Kameo version to the main roster version.
While these all look amazing, it’s probably worth mentioning that the main roster version of Sub-Zero and Scorpion likely won’t ever be given this exact look as a legitimate skin option due to the Kameo Fighters already existing. Things could get very confusing and it would be hard to differentiate between the Kameo and the main fighter should someone select a team of both Sub-Zeros, for example.
Regardless, these mods look fantastic, and you can see them in all of their glory in TQT’s screenshots below.
Click images for larger versions
