With the still-nonexistent Ermac now visualized as a red ninja, players claimed sightings of a random glitch that would cause the game's ninja characters' graphics to flash red, with "Error Macro" or "Ermac" replacing their name in their energy bar. Reader responses printed two issues later contained varying complex instructions for accessing the character. Unbeknownst to the magazine, the photo was a doctored image of yellow ninja character Scorpion in a victory pose on the "Warrior Shrine" stage from the Super Nintendo version of the game, tinted red and with a superimposed center-screen phrase that read "Ermac Wins".
#MORTAL KOMBAT SHAOLIN MONKS ERMAC UPDATE#
Midway removed the ERMACS listing from the game's fifth and final update in March 1993, but speculation about the character intensified after Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) published a submitted screenshot from the first Mortal Kombat game and a letter from "Tony Casey" that claimed he had played against a red ninja named Ermac and taken a Polaroid of the screen as evidence. However, when Boon added the hidden character Reptile into the third revision, ERMACS was listed on the menu below the counters "Reptile Appearances" and "Reptile Battles", which provoked players into searching for a second secret character called Ermac. In early revisions of the game, it appeared on the audits screen beneath a counter titled " Shang Tsung Beaten" (in reference to the game's final boss fight). It was spelled as ERMACS-a pluralized contraction of error macro-as in the number of times the program would execute.
#MORTAL KOMBAT SHAOLIN MONKS ERMAC SERIES#
This practice had been employed by series developer Midway Games since their 1990 arcade release Smash TV. In the diagnostics menu of the 1992 original Mortal Kombat game, an audits screen displayed a macro that had been created by Mortal Kombat co-creator and programmer Ed Boon in order to catch coding errors. He has received positive reception for his special abilities and Fatality finishing moves, while his origins are considered among the most memorable legends of general video gaming. Although the rumors were false, growing interest led to him becoming an official playable character.Įrmac has appeared in other Mortal Kombat media, including the 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and the 2011 web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy. The character's name was derived from a diagnostics menu in the 1992 original game that displayed the text ERMACS, spawning fan rumors alleging that he appeared as a glitch in the game, which were perpetuated by video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly ( EGM). Debuting as an unlockable character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), he is an amalgam of the souls of deceased warriors and possesses telekinetic abilities. Ermac is a fictional character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios.