Kombat Trilogy. As a palette-swapped character, he was physically identical to the Mortal Kombat games' other male ninjas, save for his red coloring and darker skin tone. For Mortal Kombat: Deception, which marked Ermac's return to the series as a playable character after an eight-year absence, he was given a distinct redesign by Steve Beran, the series' lead character designer and art director. Beran explained that his objective of remaking old characters was to greatly differentiate them from their previous incarnations. His Deception design was maintained for the 2011 reboot game, but with an increased black palette. For Mortal Kombat X, Ermac was designed with a slimmer figure and his mask exposing more of his face, revealing decaying skin. According to NetherRealm Studios, his emaciated appearance is the result of his losing control of the souls inside his body, with a metal talisman modeled after his chest design from Deception affixed to his chest in order to keep his physical form intact. The talisman initially covered his face, "securely nailed deep into the skull", in concept artwork by character artist Justin Murray. Early designs by Murray had Ermac unmasked with a stockier figure and a solid black palette. Ermac's "Inner Workings" Fatality (a finishing move that executes defeated opponents) in the game has him levitate his opponent, break their spine in midair, and then telekinetically pull their gastrointestinal tract out from their mouth. The finisher was conceived by the game's lead designer, John Edwards: "I remember sitting in the pitch meeting for it. People were like, 'That's hilarious and disgusting.' I'm pretty proud of it." Sound effects used in depicting the graphic violence of his finishers were created with slime and a plunger. Gameplay Ermac was the lone player character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 who had not appeared in any previous Mortal Kombat games, and he was one of three hidden characters who were selectable after they were unlocked by players. As a palette swap, Ermac had a standard projectile attack, while sharing Scorpion's teleport-punch move and Smoke's uppercut-decapitation Fatality. His characteristic special move is the "Telekinetic Slam", which has him levitate his opponents and then slam them onto the ground; it has become his signature attack in the Mortal Kombat series. Ed Boon considered Ermac one of the strongest characters in UMK3 on the basis of the maneuver, and GamePro opined that it was best used on downed