Mortal Kombat 3 PS1, PC (Win95) and MKT N64 source codes released on 4chan.

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

Yeah, so it looks like someone anonymously released many different source codes for MK3 PS1, MKTrillogy N64 and the Windows 95 MK3 port on 4chan:

[ Link removed, do a search for the /VR/ section at 4chan for the thread. ]

I am about to undertake the preservation of stuff. Important stuff. Before we go and preserve it publicly, I wanted to make sure it's quietly available elsewhere so if we burn to death, it's not gone forever.

And so, I give you this:

This giant 900 MB compressed file contains the following sub-compressed archives:

MK3_sound.tar.gz
MKTRILOGY_source_N64.tar.gz
MK3_source_windows_RC2.tar.gz
MK3_source_windows_final_7_29_96.tar.gz
MK3_runtime_windows_7_9_96.tar.gz
MK3_build_windows_1_4_96.tar.gz
MK3_source_playstation_4_8_95.tar.gz

What are these things? Think about it.... What do you think they are? I got these from the original developer. We'll be doing a more formal preservation, but I want everyone to grab em and spread em so they don't get lost.

Want to build this stuff? Gonna need a system no later than Windows XP and an old ass version of Visual Studio.... If someone can get me a working XP code, I can get these built in a VM.

Oh, and I don't know how to build N64 games, so MK Ultimate might be tough to do.

Don't make me mad I did this. Do something cool with these assets. The sounds alone should yield some sort of awesome song.

[Alternate archive.org links also removed for legal reasons]
(Look at 4chan /vr/ thread thread for links.)

Some people also claim that the Doom 64 source code is there as well. But I am not sure if that is true.

Wulfric · Oct 23, 2018

Are these legit? Just wanna make sure before you go around downloading random junk from a 4channer.

JigglesBunny · Oct 23, 2018

Not the preferred way for this to happen and not the ideal place to dump it but it's fantastic that it's out there now to be preserved forever.

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

Wulfric said:
Are these legit? Just wanna make sure before you go around downloading random junk from a 4channer.

I downloaded some of the files from the archive.org link, and they look legit. People in the thread also claim that they have compiled some of the code and it is apparently real. There are some beta builds in there too.

dom · Oct 23, 2018

You know this is piracy, right?

Nostremitus · Oct 23, 2018

This reminds me... I had MK2 for PC. It came on a whole stack of 3.5 floppy disks. Never got it to finish the install process, lol. It always locked up during one of the 7 disk swaps.

Wulfric · Oct 23, 2018

domthybomb said:
You know this is piracy, right?

It's on the Internet Archive though. Seems like fair use/educational.

TubaZef · Oct 23, 2018

That doesn't look legal... (still pretty cool for study purposes)

J75 · Oct 23, 2018

WB games bout to knock on some doors.

Poimandres · Oct 23, 2018

I hope something cool comes from this.

Regulus Tera · Oct 23, 2018

This is probably not legal but it's actually very interesting from an archiving standpoint.

vestan · Oct 23, 2018

domthybomb said:
You know this is piracy, right?

Yeah, it is. I think it's alright to have a thread about this but you should probably remove this links OP.

Kapryov · Oct 23, 2018

Fascinating.
How was the MK3 PC port?

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

Wulfric said:
It's on the Internet Archive though. Seems like fair use/educational.

Well, just about anyone can upload content to Archive.org, so yeah, I guess this would be piracy. These are source code leaks, and since WB purchased Midway, these would belong to them.

Syriel · Oct 23, 2018

Wulfric said:
It's on the Internet Archive though. Seems like fair use/educational.

Something doesn't magically become "fair use" just because a rando uploaded it to Internet Archive.

Internet Archive has plenty of legit stuff.

Internet Archive has plenty of pirated stuff.

Both statements are simultaneously true.

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

vestan said:
Yeah, it is. I think it's alright to have a thread about this but you should probably remove this links OP.

My fault, I removed the links. You can just go find them yourselves.

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

Regulus Tera said:
This is probably not legal but it's actually very interesting from an archiving standpoint.

Somebody actually built the MK Trilogy source for the N64 and found an earlier build of the game from May 1996 with some differences. The final build was released November 1996.

battleborn27 · Oct 23, 2018

Hopefully someone can get Khameleon to work on PC

sibarraz · Oct 23, 2018

Does this have some of the original source code of MK3?

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

sibarraz said:
Does this have some of the original source code of MK3?

I always thought that MK3 on the PC was built off the arcade source code, but apparently it's not and is based on the PS1 port.

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

Kapryov said:
Fascinating.
How was the MK3 PC port?

The Windows 95 port of MK3 is probably the closest to the arcade game, without being 100% perfect. It does have more animation than the PS1 port and the Shang Tsung morphs are not broken as the game does not freeze to load the morphs like the PS1 and Saturn ports. From what I understand the PC and PS1 ports were based on the same code base and developed at the same time. I have no idea how much of the arcade code is being used.

Though, from what I understand, the PC/ DOS versions of MK1 and 2 are based on the arcade source code. But I an uncertain about 3. I bet someone could make some changes to the MK3 PC source code and get it to work on modern OS's with better controller support.

Interestingly enough, as I said above, the DOS versions of MK 1, 2 and 3 were released on GOG many years ago and run on DOSBox, but the Windows ports of 2 and 3 were never re-released.

giancarlo123x · Oct 23, 2018

So what can come of this?

TheMadTitan · Oct 23, 2018

giancarlo123x said:
So what can come of this?

Fan made MK3 port with both Chameleon and Khameleon probably.

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

TheMadTitan said:
Fan made MK3 port with both Chameleon and Khameleon probably.

I don't really see much coming from the N64 and PS1 source codes. The N64 source code is not final release, so that is more of a morbid curiosity for those who want to see a source code for a beta of the N64 game. I doubt much will come out of the PS1 source codes either (there are multiple builds leaked). I guess both of those can be looked at as preservation and something to explore.

The Windows 9x build may be of some interest. This one claims to be final build, and could perhaps lead to some sort of rebuild, or used as the base for an open source engine based on MK3.

TheMadTitan · Oct 23, 2018

MrCunningham said:
I don't really see much coming from the N64 and PS1 source codes. The N64 source code is not final release, so that is more of a morbid curiosity for those who want to see a source code for a beta of the N64 game. I doubt much will come out of the PS1 source codes either (there are multiple builds leaked). I guess both of those can be looked at as preservation and something to explore.

The Windows 9x build may be of some interest. This one claims to be final build, and could perhaps lead to some sort of rebuild, or used as the base for an open source engine based on MK3.

Would it even need to be a final release for people to comb through it all and port what's necessary to whatever thing they're messing with at the time?

I mean, all of the games are running on the same engine, so I would assume that regardless of the state for the N64 build, there's enough common code for someone to figure out how to plug all of the Trilogy characters into MK3 Windows, turn bosses playable, and whatever else.

MrCunningham · Oct 23, 2018

TheMadTitan said:
Would it even need to be a final release for people to comb through it all and port what's necessary to whatever thing they're messing with at the time?

To be honest, I am not really sure with the N64 game. The build that was leaked came from May 1996, but the final release came out in November 1996. MK Trilogy was a launch window game for the N64 in North America. There is a 7 month gap between the unfinished and final builds, so I really don't know what level of completion the N64 port was at. I don't know if anyone compiled it, either. You never know, there could be something in the N64 source code that could be usable.

TheMadTitan said:
I mean, all of the games are running on the same engine, so I would assume that regardless of the state for the N64 build, there's enough common code for someone to figure out how to plug all of the Trilogy characters into MK3 Windows, turn bosses playable, and whatever else.

Does the N64 game use the same engine? To be honest, I am not that familiar with the N64 port of MKT. MKT was also ported to DOS and Windows as well, if there is any compatibility between the N64 and PC source codes, maybe it can be combined with the Windows Trilogy sprites?

Shaneus · Oct 23, 2018

Some fascinating little notes in the readme files and such. Like this one in one of the N64 subfolders:

Ed,

This build contains all of the fixes from you last memo
except for the Aggressor Shadow Effect. I am working on
that today. Please take a look at the brutality move for
kung lao as well as the brutality work effect. Also the duck kicks
as well as the combos should be fixed. I believe I found the problems
and have corrected them. Also, any progress on locating the axe frames for
nightwolf?

David

It sounds like there might've been quite a bit of input/interaction from Midway, which I didn't think was a thing with ports (I thought they just gave them the assets and left them to it). Ed obviously being Ed Boon, I'd imagine.

rawhide · Oct 23, 2018

N64 Trilogy has a lot of little system changes not present in the other versions that a lot of people seem to think are deliberate, so the source code may be useful in shedding some light on the nature of those changes.

Filipus · Oct 23, 2018

Pretty cool, probably not the ideal way to do it but certainly accomplishes the purpose.

For fans of the games this are great news.

MrCunningham · Oct 24, 2018

Shaneus said:
It sounds like there might've been quite a bit of input/interaction from Midway, which I didn't think was a thing with ports (I thought they just gave them the assets and left them to it). Ed obviously being Ed Boon, I'd imagine.

I think Midway did the N64 port in house themselves, while the PS1 and other ports were outsourced to other developers. Pretty sure Midway made every one of their N64 game's internally and didn't outsource them to other developers. Maybe it had something to do with the cost of N64 dev kits?

Also, the Nightwolf missing axe frames comment is pretty funny.

One person in that 4chan thread also found bits and pieces of text for Doom 64 mixed in with MKTrillogy.

Which is interesting, because Doom 64 was released a whole year later.

MrCunningham · Oct 24, 2018

Also, people claim that they have found Assembly language source code for the arcade version of Mortal Kombat 3 in one of the PC release candidates:

bangai-o · Oct 24, 2018

giancarlo123x said:
So what can come of this?

Preservation for the future.

Shaneus · Oct 24, 2018

MrCunningham said:
I think Midway did the N64 port in house themselves, while the PS1 and other ports were outsourced to other developers. Pretty sure Midway made every one of their N64 game's internally and didn't outsource them to other developers. Maybe it had something to do with the cost of N64 dev kits?

Also, the Nightwolf missing axe frames comment is pretty funny.

I know Sculptured Software did the SNES/MD ports, maybe they had something to do with it? A cursory Google search shows that Acclaim acquired them in Oct. 1995.

It's also worth noting (dunno if you've had a poke around or not) but there's more than one file in the N64 code that contains a zipped ".rom" file. I wonder if that could be the compiled code, ready to be tested on a devkit? In that case, the source may not need to be compiled to see what stage it's at.

Edit: That Doom stuff is super interesting. I didn't even know that Midway had anything to do with it, but Wikipedia says Midway developed it. So there you go!

BTW I think someone said it in this thread, but yeah it does seem the Win95 MK3 is identical to the PS1 version. Don't know about MKT though, but it is weird all these came out at the same time. I'd love to see a good version of MKT for PC that works without needing a VM, I still have the CD and it's a pain to get working :/

rawhide · Oct 24, 2018

Midway definitely didn't do all their N64 games in-house--Eurocom did a bunch of them including MK4 and War Gods, for one.

Shaneus · Oct 24, 2018

I don't know if this borders on stalking or not, but there's a file called "PETCHEY.TXT" talking to a "Dave" about creating the installer for the Windows port. Sure enough, there's a David Petchey and on his LinkedIn is this:

Mortal Kombat III – Port from arcade code to Windows/DirectX
Ported the original Mortal Kombat code from hybrid code source from the arcade system
Creating a emulation library to support the playstation OS

The company listed is "aRt & D" though, and I've never heard of them. Probably contractors? There aren't any other games listed that he's worked on except for porting Descent 1 and 2 to Windows.

MrCunningham · Oct 24, 2018

Shaneus said:
It's also worth noting (dunno if you've had a poke around or not) but there's more than one file in the N64 code that contains a zipped ".rom" file. I wonder if that could be the compiled code, ready to be tested on a devkit? In that case, the source may not need to be compiled to see what stage it's at.

Interesting. I can't try it now because I am not at my PC.

Shaneus said:
Edit: That Doom stuff is super interesting. I didn't even know that Midway had anything to do with it, but Wikipedia says Midway developed it. So there you go!

Mobygames credits two main teams that worked on MKTrillogy on the N64. Midway and Williams. David could either be David Lee Michicich who worked at Midway or David Schwartz who worked at Williams. I'm guessing the first one, since it was addressed to Ed Boon.

rawhide said:
Midway definitely didn't do all their N64 games in-house--Eurocom did a bunch of them including MK4 and War Gods, for one.

Oh, that's right. Though I guess Midway did a lot of the earlier N64 released in house and outsourced the later stuff.

Shaneus said:
The company listed is "aRt & D" though, and I've never heard of them. Probably contractors? There aren't any other games listed that he's worked on except for porting Descent 1 and 2 to Windows.

Maybe he was sub-contracted to port the game from DOS to Windows? Seems like my best guess given that he did the same for Descent 1 and 2.

Shaneus · Oct 24, 2018

MrCunningham said:
Maybe he was sub-contracted to port the game from DOS to Windows? Seems like my best guess given that he did the same for Descent 1 and 2.

But the DOS version of MK3 is completely different to the Windows one (which was apparently ported din the PS1 version), isn't it? I have no idea, but that's what I kind of gathered.

MrCunningham · Oct 24, 2018

Shaneus said:
But the DOS version of MK3 is completely different to the Windows one (which was apparently ported din the PS1 version), isn't it? I have no idea, but that's what I kind of gathered.

Oh, you're right. To be honest, I have never played the Windows version of MK3, only the DOS one. And also, I fail at reading that the game was a hybrid of the arcade source code. But I guess this guy was still sub contracted to work on the windows version, regardless.

Daniel Westlake · Oct 24, 2018

Damn I wonder who released it?

Shaneus · Oct 24, 2018

MrCunningham said:
Oh, you're right. To be honest, I have never played the Windows version of MK3, only the DOS one. And also, I fail at reading that the game was a hybrid of the arcade source code. But I guess this guy was still sub contracted to work on the windows version, regardless.

Neither have I. Only have it via GOG (which is the DOS one) and the MKT PC CD which I'm pretty sure was only ever Windows.

Dr. Caroll · Oct 24, 2018

Neato.

TheMadTitan · Oct 24, 2018

MrCunningham said:
Does the N64 game use the same engine? To be honest, I am not that familiar with the N64 port of MKT. MKT was also ported to DOS and Windows as well, if there is any compatibility between the N64 and PC source codes, maybe it can be combined with the Windows Trilogy sprites?

Given how little changed between MK3, Ultimate, and Trilogy, I would assume that they would all share similar engine bases and assets that would allow someone who had access to source code to do some porting over.

Granted, I'm not coming at this as a person familiar with the ends and outs of mid-late 90s game engines.

Corporal · Oct 24, 2018

That's pretty cool. Hope this allows legit conservation without the need to sneakily distribute this sourcecode and assets until the end of times, like what was just done. I mean, obviously there will always be someone willing to take the risk for the greater good, but I wish that wasn't necessary.

JeTmAn · Oct 24, 2018

Looks like the PS1 version is on Git already, I took a look.

That's a lot of case statements.

FreDre · Oct 24, 2018

Holy shit.

Lets see how WB lawyers will react to this.
I mean, these are ports for unsupported OS/platforms. But they are still valid IP assets.

For how much could they sue the guy who leaked this?

UshiromiyaEva · Oct 24, 2018

MrCunningham said:
Somebody actually built the MK Trilogy source for the N64 and found an earlier build of the game from May 1996 with some differences. The final build was released November 1996.

I really love screenshots like this, especially ones that show select screens in development. Really stresses how much it was a last minute thing integrating Johnny Cage into MKT was

jacket · Oct 24, 2018

Ed Boon.....

Wulfric · Oct 24, 2018

FreDre said:
Holy shit.

Lets see how WB lawyers will react to this.
I mean, these are ports for unsupported OS/platforms. But they are still valid IP assets.

For how much could they sue the guy who leaked this?

Well, they would need to find the person first. Who knows how many people would have had access to this over the years.

Deleted member 20297 · Oct 24, 2018

I like these things.

jacket · Oct 24, 2018

c0de said:
I like these things.

Me too, very, very much.

Mortal Kombat 3 PS1, PC (Win95) and MKT N64 source codes released on 4chan.

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