Mortal Kombat 11 Dev Reveals he was Diagnosed with PTSD
Mike Sanders / 6 years ago
Mortal Kombat 11
Following the release of Mortal Kombat 11, as far as I can ascertain, the jury is still very firmly out as to whether we (the gaming community) like it or not. Specifically, issues with the online play and the clear evidence that (surprise, surprise) the PC port wasn’t exactly the top priority for Netherrealm Studios.
In a report via RT, however, one of the developers who worked on the game has shocked the industry by claiming that their work on the game directly caused them to be diagnosed with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).
PTSD
Firstly, we should point out that this is nothing to do with the working conditions or ‘crunch hours’. The person, who has chosen to remain anonymous, has said that the condition resulted from literally days of being surrounded by the team painstaking looking to recreate all of the moves and fatalities.
“You’d walk around the office and one guy would be watching hangings on YouTube, another guy would be looking at pictures of murder victims, someone else would be watching a video of a cow being slaughtered.”
“I’d have these extremely graphic dreams, very violent. 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.”
Following this, they went to visit a psychiatrist who reportedly confirmed and diagnosed them with PTSD based on his work.
Netherrealm Studios
At the time of writing, Netherrealm Studios has yet to comment on this specific report. They did, however, release a statement acknowledging that the long-hours and ‘crunch time’ necessary to get to the game ready in time may have led to the imagery used having a more profound effect than expected.
We do not either, incidentally, rule out this story being put out there for a bit of PR. You get the idea – ‘the game so gory it make the developers ill’. If true, however, it’s certainly more than a little worrying and another indication that life in the industry may not be as glamorous as many would think.
So, I guess if you are enjoying Mortal Kombat 11, just remember that someone probably had to watch some form of real world approximation to get your graphically artificial one accurate.
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
