Mortal Kombat 1 Mod Adds Ermac Early

Summary

Ermac, a DLC character in Mortal Kombat 1, has a surprisingly prominent role in the game's story, leading some fans to speculate that he was taken out to be sold as DLC.
A modder named ermaccer added Ermac to the game's playable roster early using a non-playable mod, revealing that his moveset is incomplete and borrowed from other characters.
Ermac and Quan Chi, who also has a major role in the story, were not included in Mortal Kombat 1's base lineup of playable characters, but they were not pulled from the finished game. They will be added as DLC in the upcoming Kombat Pack 1.

The undead warrior Ermac won’t be playable in Mortal Kombat 1 until its first wave of DLC hits, but one modder has managed to add him to the roster ahead of time. Ermac was first introduced in 1995’s Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as a minion of Shao Khan made from the souls of people destroyed in Outworld’s wars. He gets a similar backstory in Mortal Kombat 1, where he is instead created by Quan Chi from the spirits of the Living Forrest to serve him and Shang Tsung in their bid to conquer Outworld and re-establish the power they had in the old Mortal Kombat timeline.

Because he was announced as a DLC character to be added after the game’s launch, many fans were surprised to see Ermac have such a prominent role in Mortal Kombat 1’s story - to the point where players actually fight him at multiple points. Ermac arguably has a bigger role than many of Mortal Kombat 1’s base fighters, which has led some to worry that both he and the similarly important Quan Chi were taken out of the finished game to be sold as DLC. Thankfully, one talented modder has deduced that this isn’t the case.

This modder, who works under the Twitter and YouTube handle ermaccer, recently demonstrated how Ermac’s Mortal Kombat 1 story mode character model works by adding him to the game’s playable roster early in a non-playable mod. According to him, Ermac’s moveset in this state is a placeholder that combines some of Shang Tsung’s attacks with those of Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat 11. Sure enough, the only moves he doesn’t borrow are his signature slam attack and a basic green fireball projectile. Due to this moveset being incomplete, Ermac also lacks any Fatalities or Brutalities.

Ermac isn’t the only surprisingly prominent Mortal Kombat 1 character to not be included in the game’s primary roster, as Shang Tsung was sold as a pre-order bonus and the aforementioned Quan Chi is part of the upcoming Kombat Pack 1 DLC. This round of post-release content will also include the ninja warrior-in-training Takeda, as well as a trio of guest characters in the form of Homelander from The Boys, Omni-Man of Invincible fame, and the DC antihero Peacemaker fresh off the success of his titular HBO Max TV series.

It remains a mystery why Ermac and Quan Chi weren’t included in Mortal Kombat 1’s base line-up of playable characters given the major role both play in its single-player story campaign, but fans can be reassured that they weren’t pulled from the finished game. Twitter user ermaccer’s latest Mortal Kombat 1 mod proves this and provides a fun look at how Ermac might play when he does come to the game in the Kombat Pack 1 DLC. At the very least, he will likely have a different set of attacks than he does in his story mode appearances.

Mortal Kombat 1 is available now for PC, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X/S.