The launch of the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection has brought back a long-lost piece of gaming history: the WaveNet Edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. This version was never officially released, and its revival has excited long-time fans of the franchise, allowing them to experience content that has remained hidden for decades.
Originally developed by Midway, Mortal Kombat had multiple iterations during its early years, notably in the 1990s. The original game had at least six variations due to ongoing updates and tweaks. Among them was the Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, which saw its first release in 1995. A planned upgrade, the WaveNet Edition, was intended to introduce online multiplayer capabilities, but it was never viable due to high operational costs.
Arcade operators faced substantial expenses when attempting to implement the WaveNet system that required dedicated T1 lines. Thus, this edition was tested only briefly in select arcades in Chicago and San Francisco, and it faded into obscurity as no public ROMs were ever released.
The team at Digital Eclipse, led by production head Stephen Frost, initially believed that retrieving the WaveNet Edition was a pipe dream. “We didn’t think that WaveNet was going to be even remotely possible,” Frost explained in an interview. The company’s focus was generally on preserving older games, which had often been poorly archived.
The breakthrough came when Stephanie Brownback, a quality assurance lead at NetherRealm Studios, inquired if Digital Eclipse would consider exploring the possibility of reviving the WaveNet Edition. Her inquiry prompted Frost’s team to investigate further. They connected with Mike Boon, the brother of Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, who had stored old arcade equipment, including the elusive ROMs for the WaveNet Edition.
With access to these ROMs, the team enlisted the help of emulation programmer Daniel Filner. He evaluated the files and found that while the audio and video ROMs were identical to previous versions, the main program contained unique changes. His task involved getting the updated program running on his emulator, known as Moo Emulator.
Filner described the initial challenge of identifying the ROM files. He noted that arcade boards resemble complex maps filled with various chips. “What I got was a dump of about 25 or 26 ROM files,” he stated. “The first thing was to identify, see if the file names matched up with existing known file names for the way MAME organizes their file names.”
The main hurdle was understanding how the WaveNet network functioned. Fortunately, Filner discovered that if the game could not connect to the old servers, it would still boot up normally, functioning much like the standard version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
As players experience the WaveNet Edition, they are greeted with a boot sequence that attempts to connect to the WaveNet service. However, due to the absence of any existing server data, the game defaults to a standard gameplay mode. Filner explained, “It’s not that exciting of a story,” but the graceful fallback ensures that players can still enjoy the game.
The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection not only offers access to this previously lost edition, but it also presents an opportunity for fans to engage deeply with its distinct features. While the WaveNet Edition was never officially completed, its unique bugs and adjustments provide a fascinating glimpse into the game’s developmental history.
Frost expressed excitement about the potential for the community to dissect the differences between WaveNet and other versions of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. “Playing it, we notice differences, but it’ll be very interesting when this goes out in the wild for people to start collating the differences,” he remarked.
Despite the challenges of reconstructing lost content, the revival of the WaveNet Edition illustrates the dedication of developers and fans alike to preserving gaming history. As players delve into this forgotten chapter of the Mortal Kombat saga, they join a community effort to uncover its mysteries, bridging the gap between the past and present in the ever-evolving world of video games.
