It's no secret that the Mortal Kombat franchise is extremely violent. In fact, Mortal Kombat's gore is extreme enough that the game has actually been discussed in Congress as part of the debate on video game violence, and how it may or may not impact those who play the games. There's been plenty said about the potential impact or lack thereof when it comes to people playing violent video games, but rarely do hear about the people making these violent games. While it seems most developers are able to stomach this kind of violent content, at least one Mortal Kombat 11 developer has been diagnosed with PTSD after working on the game.

This Mortal Kombat 11 developer, who chose to remain anonymous, spoke to Kotaku about their experience working on the ultra-violent fighting game. This individual worked on the Mortal Kombat 11 cinematics team, and as a result, had to spend large portions of their day constantly watching violent and gory animations. This person was also surrounded by "bloody real-life research material" that the animators referred to when recreating gore in Mortal Kombat 11.

As it turns out, having to deal with the kind of graphic violence seen in Mortal Kombat 11's Fatalities and elsewhere had a profoundly negative impact on this particular developer. "I'd have these extremely graphic dreams, very violent," he said. "I kind of just stopped wanting to go to sleep, so I'd just keep myself awake for days at a time, to avoid sleeping."

Some of the real-life research material included YouTube videos of people being hanged, photos of real-world murder victims, and videos of animals being slaughtered. "The scary part was always the point at which new people on the project got used to it. And I definitely hit that point."

This particular Mortal Kombat 11 developer decided to seek mental health counseling, and it was then that they were given a diagnosis of PTSD. It's unclear if this individual is still working at NetherRealm Studios in some capacity, but it's implied that they left the company at some point in 2018.

This isn't the first disturbing story about Mortal Kombat 11's development process to come about. MK11 was also accused of having excessive crunch time, which also had a negative impact on the health of NetherRealm's employees. Perhaps the crunch combined with the disturbing imagery is what ultimately led to the PTSD diagnosis for this particular developer, and it will be interesting to see how NetherRealm responds to the situation. At the time of this writing, NetherRealm has not issued a statement on the matter.

Mortal Kombat 11 is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

Source: Kotaku