Exclusive interview with Vincent Proce, the genius behind the Mortal Kombat reboot art

Awhile back ago we were graced with some incredible concert art for a Mortal Kombat reboot pitch that was made by Midway artist Vincent Proce.  For some unfortunate reason Midway decided to pass on Vincent’s pitch which is a great injustice as it was the type of reboot MK fans are waiting for.

Vincent was nice enough to take some time out of his schedule to discuss his MK concept art, Mortal Kombat and what it was like working at Midway.

Ian Fisher - If given the opportunity, would you be interested in using your concepts within a theatrical release of the MK franchise?

Vincent Proce - Yes absolutely! I would love to be involved at any capacity. The previous movies didn’t do the license justice.

What was the main inspiration behind the MK reboot concept art you did? Was there anything in particular like a film or comic that inspired you to take that direction or was it all natural and pure brilliance on your end?

Mortal Kombat is a part of history. The MK team is a pretty tight knit group and they have been very successful doing what they do with the MK franchise. I didn’t want to mess with that machine even if I could. Besides, there really wasn’t any opportunity to innovate within that group. So in my pitch I figured I would just take a completely new perspective on the game as a whole.

I had a burning desire to redesign the characters for a long time and finally, I just did it. I looked at it as an alternate view of the same universe, sort of like what the Marvels Ultimate Universe is within Marvels multiverse. I also wanted to reinvent the fighting game genre to possibly expand the MK fan base. I took the characters the way they originally appeared in MK 1. Their color, silhouette and weapons are essentially the same (with a few more deadly weapons added of course) and just redrew them the way I saw them in my head.

What is your favorite Mortal Kombat game to date and why?

MK 2, because when I was going to the arcade when I was a kid I was blown away by the skull and spine being ripped out of a character, it seemed so…taboo. There was always a line at the MK game in the arcade and you would have to stand in that line looking over shoulders waiting to play the guy that has been beating everyone to a pulp with Raiden.

If Midway were to develop a new Mortal Kombat game, what would you focus on or change from previous installments?

I would make a spin off universe that reboots the entire franchise into a different branch. Everything would be rethought and adjusted, from how the arenas are laid out to how the fight mechanic works in relation to the controllers, to the back story of all the characters.

Has MK ever considered returning to it's 2D roots? Perhaps in a format similar to Street Fighter IV?

I am not privy to what is on the creators minds, so not sure.

With the ownership changes that have happened recently at Midway are there plans to reboot the series from scratch or are we going to see more of the gradual "evolution" that we've seen in the past few releases?

I left Midway before it changed hands. I am fairly sure that Ed Boon and company will come out with a smash hit game whether they are owned by Warner Brothers or anyone else for that matter.

Sub-Zero: Origins was great idea that didn't get executed to it's fullest potential. Shaolin Monks was a blast and proved MK could make a great adventure game. Was there any talk of releasing another Origins style game? Perhaps for the bad ass looking Scorpion you drew?

There was talk a few years ago and then recently while I was there, but I don’t know if it went anywhere. I think that would be great if they decided to make another origin story, especially if I was able to write it. What I had in mind for the reboot pitch would have covered that. I do not believe they will be using this version of Scorpion I drew for anything, but who knows.

Do you think with Warner Brothers owning Midway and the MK franchise that we’ll see the franchise become the multi-media beast that it once was? By that I mean do you think WB will try more to spread the MK franchise across different media formats like films, TV and anime? And if that happens do you think that will be beneficial to the franchise or will it
become diluted a bit?

If anyone can leverage the strength of the Mortal Kombat franchise it would be Warner Brothers. They did a pretty awesome job with Batman.

During the later stage of your time at Midway was the feeling at the studio glum since many didn’t know the fate of the company?

Yes, it was extremely glum, but exciting also. The company became a little more open to new ideas and there was a lot of opportunity to explore old franchises and discover new ones. I was extremely productive in the final days. Besides doing concepts for MK 9 characters, I created an awesome pitch for a Joust reboot which I had one of my concept artists (Michelle Hoefener, http://www.raingate.net/ ) create a beautiful image for. I was leaning toward a more anime feel for that franchise and Michelle’s work was perfect for it. With Joust I had also completely rewrote the history and world. I was also working with a team on an awesome multiplayer with a super deep CAP system as the lead writer and visual director. Needless to say both games didn’t get made and most of the people got laid off…so I moved on.

What was the general reaction amongst the MK team and the folks at Midway when it was announced that the first MK game on the HD consoles would feature DC characters?  Based on interivews many seemed happy at this news since it allowed them to work on comic characters they loved but was there ever a feeling of this being the wrong decision and one
based solely on trying to sell units instead of taking the franchise in a new and truly original direction?

Yeah, that was the truth in the general reaction. People love DC and they love MK, the problem was that you couldn’t kill a DC character. They essentially had to take the “Mortal” out of the Kombat to satisfy the DC folks. The CEO at the time was really into the idea so the team had to do it; it’s as simple as that. Midway at the time didn’t just need the regular numbers that MK did; they needed MK to save the company. It had already been floating the company for five years because Midway couldn’t seem to make a hit game. Stranglehold sold over a million units but the budget had been blown out because of the development of a new engine, which would have been a great move if Midways finances could have held out for a few more years so that engine would have time to pay itself off. I think the MK franchise is a pretty sturdy one; I don’t think adding DC characters or not will sell more units. MK fans are sort of like Star Trek fans in a way, just a little more sadistic.

What do you think went wrong at Midway? The company seemed to provide solid titles like Stranglehold, The Wheelman and MK vs. DC but for some reason none of those games really caught on and became the massive hits they sought out to be. Do you think the company perhaps focused too much on making big budget titles like Stranglehold and The Wheelman, which were rumored to have hefty budgets, and not enough on original IP that may have been a bit more affordable to produce.

There is a multitude of things that went wrong with Midway and my information is as good as anyone else’s. Everyone has their own opinions including me. What I think is that Midway took its entire surplus of money and blew it on low end C+ third party studio’s to make it look like it was expanding and healthy. They put faith in team leads and their crappy idea’s blindly back in the late 90’s (Freaky Flyers, Dr. Muto, and Haven) because they thought nothing could bring down the Midway behemoth. They didn’t build off great idea’s that were creating a decent fan base (Psi Ops) and instead made a license that nobody knows, cares about or remembers. The Midway establishment was also plagued with marketing problems.

I remember for Psi Ops they blew a gigantic portion of their budget to get the band Cold to write an original song and show up to play it at E3. They also ignored anything production ever had to say, never using internal art and design talent until the last few months that Midway was in existence, and by that time it was too late. Midway had some of the strongest most talented people in the industry with more experience than 90% of the company’s out there, it seemed like the executive direction was more about chasing the dollar then making it…which in some ways seems to be a mid-western mentality. It’s not really about leveraging your talent to do what they do best, it’s more about seeing what the other guy is doing and trying to imitate that.

Was there ever a desire amongst some of the developers at Midway to perhaps go back to their roots and resurrect old arcade franchises in the form of HD remix games on the PS3 and 360?  This was something many gamers wanted to see Midway release but sadly it never happened.

Yes of course, Midway owned a huge library of licenses. Some developers wanted to remake old titles (myself included), the problem was that Midway wouldn’t have the internal teams with all the talent make them. They would go to third party developers (2002 Defender, Rampage, LA Rush). The first Area 51 made in the Austin studio (before Midway acquired it) did pretty good numbers but their direction was to make a game similar to Halo (alien first person shooter) and hopefully ride its wave to success. The game being available on the PS2 was also a factor in its selling fairly well.

From the start, Area 51 should have leveraged the built in brilliance of the licensed name. Everyone knows Area 51, but nobody (that isn’t old school) knows the game. Area 51 could have been more popular than the actual site if it was marketed right. They even used David Duchovny’s voice in the game (instead of using a less costly actor and trying to leverage an X-Files tie-in with the money they saved). Area 51 also had the iconic image of the grey alien head that (before Alienware computers) was an open icon that could have become very popular in the game market. Think about it, whenever you see that alien head you think of Alienware computers because they have commandeered the icon that has been around in the back of the public’s mind since the fifties. Area 51 could have had a longer legacy if it was marketed right and the second installment was at least as good as the first...and stayed away from politics.

What was your favorite memory during your time at Midway? Was it working on a particular piece of art and seeing it brought to life in a game or was there an internal joke or late night development crunch moment that really stood out for you?

I was at Midway for a long time. There were a lot of moments that were memorable and fun. It was very much like a family reunion every day. You like some you don’t like others, cousins come and go and others you will know forever. I am all about doing art and creating, when I am not doing it I jones for it like a junkie. My last couple of months at Midway was by far my favorite. Like most creative’s I am a bit of a control freak. By that time people had started to recognize what I could bring to the table and I was able to start really making decisions on how things should look and what kind of stories we could be presenting to the world. MK trusted me to handle all the arcade endings for MK vs DC, I was working on pitches, running the concept team, visually directing, writing, doing some light game design and doing concept, I had never felt more fulfilled. Alas, it was short lived.

Lastly what can we expect to see from you in the future. You're a talented artist and I think you have a new fanbase with your MK concept sketches so is there anything particular you have lined up that you can discuss? Or is there a particular studio/franchise you would like to work on if given the chance?

Currently I am doing contract art work for various studios. I was working at Vogster games for most of the year on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse license. 4H was a game that 3DO had dropped years ago, when they closed down. Vogster unfortunately couldn’t make it either because the company’s other shipped games didn’t generate the dollars they needed to sustain the Chicago and Ukrainian studios. In the end at Vogster it was similar to Midway, right when everything started going great the money got pulled out from under us. That was back in August and I have been contracting since. I just got through working on a top secret project with Epic Games and I am currently doing some Magic the Gathering cards and a few other smaller gigs that pay the bills. I am considering doing some internet web comics that focus on the origins of the MK characters the way I see them, but I am not promising anything. I am not sure what the future holds, right now I have been keeping my options open, if the right project with the right studio comes along I would jump at the opportunity. Whatever I do, as long as I am creating I’ll be cool with it.

I would like to thank Mr. Proce for taking time out of his schedule to discuss his art and his time at Midway. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is excited to see what amazing art Vincent does next, especially for that top secret Epic Games project.