"This isn't really something we talk much about, but we've put hooks in the game to let us balance things even after the game is launched," says Ed Boon, one of the creators of the original Mortal Kombat and creative director at Neverrealm. "So there are basically global rules with all of the detailed numbers, and we can tweak that even after the game is launched. So if suddenly we find out that somebody's uppercut can be repeated, we can turn this knob down and fix it after the game is out--and it doesn't need a patch or anything."