Raiden (, ), is a fictional character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. Based on the Japanese deity Raijin, he is depicted as the god of thunder who possesses control over lightning. He debuted in the original 1992 game and has appeared as a playable character in every main installment except Mortal Kombat 3 (1995) and its first update. In the storyline of the games, Raiden is the protector of Earthrealm. He fulfills his duty by selecting and training the warriors who defend Earthrealm from various threats, while also participating directly in the realm's defense. Raiden generally serves as a mentor figure to the franchise's heroes, although he sometimes assumes a darker role in the story, which sees him become more ruthless in his protection of the realm. In Mortal Kombat 1, the new main playable Raiden is depicted as a human who was raised at a farmland and becomes Earthrealm's current Mortal Kombat champion in Liu Kang's timeline, while his previous godly counterpart also exist as a Titan of his own timeline.
One of the franchise's central characters, Raiden has appeared in various related media outside of the Mortal Kombat games, including guest appearances in NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995), NFL Blitz (1997), Unreal Championship 2 (2005), and Injustice 2 (2017).
The character was inspired by multiple Japanese game designer John Tobias explored in the making of the franchise. However, Raiden's biggest inspiration came from the Western film Big Trouble in Little China. Raiden has generally received a positive reception and is among the series' most popular characters for his design and special abilities. Though his role has been called repetitive, multiple journalists reviewing the games' narrative have welcomed his transformation into the more ruthless Dark Raiden.
Creation As designer John Tobias was seeking inspiration for more characters in Mortal Kombat, he visited the Field Museum of Natural History and in their Japanese artifacts display of the Asian antiquities wing, he found a statue of the Raijin, and decided that the game needed a Japanese thunder god. On his research of the Raijin, Tobias decided to take in the deity's alternate spelling of Raiden, and seeing that the traditional Shinto Raijin was usually portrayed as a small, red-skinned demon-like creature that beats a drum to create thunder, opted to employ a different design. Tobias took inspiration from the character Lightning from the film Big Trouble in Little China, a warrior who can conjure lightning and wears a conical hat.
Raiden's name was spelled "Raiden" in all of the original arcade games and in every game since Mortal Kombat 4. However, the PC and console ports released until Mortal Kombat Trilogy, along with both movies and the TV series, changed the name to "Rayden", fearing the original spelling would lead to trademark issues from Seibu Kaihatsu's shoot 'em up game also named Raiden. Ed Boon personally hated that Acclaim spelled it with a Y.
In an interview featured in Deception, Ed Boon said that the hat that actor Carlos Pesina wore to portray the character in the earlier Mortal Kombat games was ruined as a result of Pesina repeatedly performing falls during production. Raiden was voiced by Midway employee Jon Hey in the first two games. He became well known for yelling randomly while performing his "Torpedo" move (aka "the Superman move"). Fans originally believed that he was yelling in Japanese, while others believed it to be mangled English phrases such as "Your momma's from LA", or "Santa Monica!". Tobias revealed that Raiden was merely speaking gibberish and not actual Japanese, as it was originally intended.
Raiden was originally going to use his staff as a weapon already in Mortal Kombat II, but Midway was forced to scrap it due to memory constraints.GamePro 58 (May 1994), p.30. He was unplayable in Mortal Kombat 3 where he appeared in the attract mode to state that he was forbidden from participating in the game's conflict. He also appeared as part of Nightwolf's Friendship, which saw Nightwolf transform into Raiden alongside a Mortal Kombat II arcade cabinet. The Friendship would include one of two quotes, "I've never seen a Kano transformation", or "No, But I Can Do a Raiden Transformation", both of which were based on false reports that Kano was secretly playable in Mortal Kombat II and Raiden likewise in Mortal Kombat 3. After Raiden became playable in the update Mortal Kombat Trilogy, the Nintendo 64 version changed the Friendship.
Appearances Mortal Kombat games Midway games In the original Mortal Kombat, Raiden is invited to compete in the titular tournament by its grandmaster sorcerer Shang Tsung. Raiden accepts and takes on a human form to compete. In Mortal Kombat II, watching events unfold from above, Raiden realizes Outworld emperor Shao Kahn's intentions. He warns the surviving members of the original tournament, Liu Kang and Kung Lao, of Shao Kahn's threat before venturing to Outworld. Despite Shao Kahn taking almost every soul on Earth as his own, Raiden was able to protect the souls of Liu Kang and other chosen warriors. Initially unable to participate due to the merger of Outworld and Earthrealm, Raiden sacrifices his immortality in order to help his chances against the Kahn after the Elder Gods refuse to assist him in Mortal Kombat Trilogy.
In the spin-off, Raiden sends Sub-Zero to the Netherealm to find a divine amulet. In Mortal Kombat 4, following Outworld's failed invasion, Shinnok, with the aid of Quan Chi, again sought to rise from the Netherealm and conquer the other realms. However, with Liu Kang again uniting Earthrealm's warriors, Raiden's Forces of Light emerge successful. Now granted the status of Elder God, Raiden turns over his position as Earthrealm's protector to his brother, the wind god Fujin. However, Raiden returns to the battlefield in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Raiden could not interfere when the titular alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi kill Liu Kang due to his Elder God status. Disgusted by his fellow Elder Gods for their refusal to intervene, Raiden relinquishes his position and gathers his allies to stop the sorcerers.
In Mortal Kombat: Deception, Raiden is defeated by the Deadly Alliance himself. When Onaga awakens, Raiden releases his godly essence, resulting in an enormous explosion that kills the alliance, but fails to harm Onaga. Raiden's essence soon gathers again in Earthrealm, albeit corrupted and reformed into a darker variant of himself. Raiden has become furious with the way Earthrealm's inhabitants had treated their realm, which increases once he learns that Shujinko had foolishly unleashed the Dragon King. With his patience exhausted, Raiden chooses to take matters into his own hands. Exhuming Liu Kang's corpse, he takes it to an underground temple that belonged to the Houan, an ancient sect of necromancers whom he had destroyed centuries earlier, and revives his former ally.
Despite being aware of the former's deceptive nature, Raiden accepts in an attempt to secretly uncover Shinnok's plans.Raiden's bio from Armageddon . Official Mortal Kombat Armageddon website . Retrieved on 2007-01-23. Raiden's role in Armageddon is further expanded in the Konquest mode of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, when he encounters Taven and reveals to him that he had struck a deal with Shao Kahn, agreeing to let the Emperor conquer and rule all other realms so long as Earthrealm was left alone. In return, Raiden agreed to hunt and eliminate Taven for the Kahn so that he could claim Blaze's godlike power for himself. Raiden confronts Taven, only to be defeated. Raiden would later fight against Shao Kahn when the two became the last surviving warriors. The latter emerged victorious, but the former was able to send a message to his past self before Shao Kahn could finish him off.
In the crossover fighting game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Raiden fights Shao Kahn until the former sends him into a portal that causes the latter to fuse with Darkseid and turn them into Dark Kahn, which in turn fuses the Mortal Kombat and DC Universes. Despite clashes with members of the Justice League, Raiden works with Superman to defeat Dark Kahn and undo the fusions; later imprisoning Darkseid in the Netherrealm. In his arcade ending, Raiden returns to his realm to find that exposure to his world's sun has weakened him greatly. Quan Chi offers him a jade amulet of unknown origin that can restore his powers.
Netherealm Studio games In the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot, Raiden's past self receives an ominous vision from his future self and works to avert the events of Armageddon. Although he succeeds and kills Shao Kahn with the assistance of the Elder Gods, his decisions resulted in many of Earthrealm's defenders, including Liu Kang, being killed and turned into Quan Chi's undead revenants.
In Mortal Kombat X, Raiden and Fujin join forces to defend the sky temple from Shinnok, Quan Chi, and the revenants. In the process, they manage to defeat the fallen Elder God and trap him in his amulet as well as revive the fallen Jax, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion. Twenty years later, Raiden discovers Shinnok's amulet was stolen and works with Earthrealm's new defenders to retrieve it. However, he fails to stop Quan Chi from releasing Shinnok, who takes Raiden prisoner so he can corrupt Earthrealm's Jinsei. After Cassie Cage defeats the Elder God, she helps Raiden purify the Jinsei by drawing Shinnok's energy into him, though he becomes corrupted in the process. Following this, Raiden confronts the Netherrealm's new rulers, Liu Kang, and Kitana, and presents them with Shinnok's severed head to prove he will show no mercy to those who threaten Earthrealm.
In Mortal Kombat 11, having used Shinnok's amulet to become Dark Raiden once more, he leads an assault on the Netherrealm with the Special Forces to destroy their cathedral and succeed. In doing so however, he unknowingly angered the keeper of time and Shinnok's mother, Kronika, who decides to rewrite history to undo his interference. She creates a time storm that erases Dark Raiden from history, but brings a younger version of him from the past due to his being immortal. The present Raiden works with the Special Forces to defeat Kronika, only to learn that the Elder Gods had been killed. As a result, Raiden slowly gives into his dark impulses and uses Shinnok's amulet to empower himself like his future self did. When his version of Liu Kang tries to stop him from attacking Scorpion, Raiden sees visions of other timelines where they fought and realizes Kronika manipulated them all because she fears his and Liu Kang's combined power. Once Kronika learns of this, she kidnaps Liu Kang. Along the way, he confronts Liu Kang's revenant and merges with him and the past Liu Kang to become Fire God Liu Kang, who goes on to defeat Kronika. Once he does so, a mortal version of Raiden joins Liu Kang to advise him on forging a new history since the battle took them to the beginning of time. In the DLC story expansion, Aftermath, the mortal Raiden attempts to stop Shang Tsung after he approaches them and claims they cannot use Kronika's Hourglass without her Crown of Souls, though Liu Kang allows the sorcerer to go back in time to retrieve a past version of it. Shang Tsung betrays them and steals their souls. The story has two endings: One with Liu Kang managing to stop Shang shortly afterward and begins rewriting history, and one with Shang winning, absorbing Liu Kang's power, and making Dark Raiden his servant.