Game-Art-HQ

Baraka is a character from the Mortal Kombat fighting games and debuted in Mortal Kombat II (1993).

He is from Outworld and a very wild and strong warrior from the race of the Tarkatan nomads there, in his original story from Mortal Kombat II, Shao Kahn himself was impressed by his skills.

In later games, Baraka continued to work for the main villains while he often planned to overthrow and kill them as seen in his arcade mode endings. A notable exception is Onaga in MK Deception who is described as a powerful master by Baraka in one of his official Bio’s

His special moves are mostly related to the blades attached/growing out of his arms, be it a projectile, using them to stab the opponents, or using the blades like a sword.

His latest appearance in an MK game was in 2011 as part of Mortal Kombat 9, where the official art of Baraka to the right is from.

Baraka in Mortal Kombat (2011)

Baraka was the first playable Mortal Kombat character who is not a human or looks like one (Reptile), he was played by Richard Divizio in MK II.

In Mortal Kombat Deception he uses the martial art styles of Silat and Hung Gar as well as his blades as the weapon style. In the later MK vs DC and MK9, his style was changed again though to a moveset of fast and wild attacks not based on martial art styles.

His Blade Lift Fatality is probably one of the most brutal-looking finishing moves in Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat II

MKGold

MK Deception

MK D Alt

MK vs DC

Mortal Kombat 9

MK9 Alt.

 Shao Kahn (His Emperor)

Onaga (His Emperor)

Like many fighting game characters, Baraka changed a lot during the process of the first concepts and the final character design.

Baraka as an example was initially planned as a bald fighter using Hookswords. This concept was changed multiple times till the final version of Baraka was found and accepted for the game. The hook sword was given to another character years later.

You might know him under the name… Kabal.

I don’t know what came first (the concepts shown here or the ideas for Baraka through finding that mask), but some of the MKI developers were visiting a costume shop, stumbled upon a Nosferatu (Vampire) mask, and changed it by painting it and adding false fingernails to the mask to enlarge the fangs.

Click on the scanned pages which show his early concepts to enlarge them.

Here you can see his final look from Mortal Kombat II when Richard Divizo played Baraka and wore the mask which made him to the outworld warrior.

Back in 1993, MK II was graphically very advanced looking and fans loved how realistic the characters would look.

You can see more MK II Character artworks made for the MK “Superbook” here

Baraka Cover Art

by Scott Christian Sava for an MK II Comic

 Art by Patrick Rolo

for the Mortal Kombat Superbook

(Collector’s Limited Edition) by BradyGames (1994)

Baraka MK Gold Official Illustration

While Baraka returned in the home console versions of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and MK Trilogy, it was only his MK II sprites reused and nothing was changed to his design. He made his first “real” return in Mortal Kombat Gold on the Sega Dreamcast, this version was MK 4 with a handful of characters like Baraka, Kung Lao, and more added.

In MK Gold, his backstory was that he got killed by Kung Lao who sliced him in half with his hat. However, he got to put together and revived somehow and wants to get his revenge on Kung Lao now.

He also serves Quan Chi (yeah..Baraka always serves the main villains..) and helps him to kill basically everyone…in the end, Baraka realizes that it’s crazy to rule an empty realm and he attacks Quan Chi. This does not go well though.

His Versus Screen Pose in MKG

Baraka Promo Art for MKD

To the anger of his fans, Baraka did not return in Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance but got a big spotlight in 2004’s Mortal Kombat Deception when the first trailers showed him fighting Mileena and demonstrating not only his new look which would revert the MK Gold design and also show the new weapon and death traps elements of the new game.

MKD Concept Art for Baraka, found in the Krypt of the Game

In MKD the scars are gone and his unlockable alternate costume almost looks like his old school MKII design.

He can use his blades now as his weapon style while a few of the blade-based special moves were removed for his MKD / MKA appearances.

Below you can see additional art of Baraka in MK Deception:

Official Baraka MKD Wallpaper

Baraka MKD Bio

Baraka Alt. MKD Bio

The official MKSM Baraka Art

Only one year after MK Deception, the Mortal Kombat beat’em up Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks with Liu Kang and Kung Lao as the main protagonists got released. Baraka is one of the bosses in the game, but he can also be unlocked for the versus Mode. You unlock him through finding a Token in the “Soul Level” btw.

IN MKSM, the events of MK II are retold and Baraka returns in his oldschool design, new are only a few moves and he is a pretty cool and funny villain there.

Only 11 Mortal Kombat characters made it into MK vs DC Universe back in 2008, but Baraka got the honors to be among other fan favourites like Scorpion in the game.

He could change from fist to fist to weapon based moves as the only character in the game, making him relative special to play with a nice arsenal of quick and slower moves.

Promo Render of Baraka in MK vs DC

While his clothes were mainly the same as in MK Deception, his blades seemed to be a bit longer than before and especially his face and head got redesigned, making him looking like an alien.

Back to the roots:

Baraka’s standard costume in MK9

2011, Mortal Kombat 9 was released and catapulted MK back to being one of the most popular fighting game series and making it relevant again for the scene of competitive players.

The game retells the events of MK 1-3 and so it is no wonder that Baraka returned and looks a lot like his first playable design again. Nearly all his moves from the past were made available for him, and added were more normal moves using his blades, making him a very fast and aggressive character, just like he is portrayed in the big story mode of the game.

New ideas combined with older ones:

Baraka’s alternate costume in MK9

His alternate costume seems to be a mix of his MKD and MKvsDC designs.

You can see more artworks of the other Mortal Kombat 9 characters here

Baraka MK II Zbrush Sculpt

by Gabriel Melendez

Scary Baraka Portrait Art

by Sergey Svistunov

Baraka Painting

by Eduardo Domínguez S.

Baraka from MK9

by Esau Murga

Baraka from MK9

by Samuel Johnson

Beautiful Baraka

by Flavio Luccisano

Classic Baraka

by Mark Nosler

Baraka is a quite popular character among the Mortal Kombat fans, but relative rarely drawn, compared with other MK characters like Jade, Scorpion or Sub Zero.There are however some true highlights and “Outstanding” artworks made by fans which need to be shown here.

Thanks @ the artists for sharing your talent with us!

Speaking about fan art…It was a meme for a while to merge Baraka with the American President Barack Obama which lead to some funny images 🙂

Baraka based on first Concepts

by Jhonatas Batalha

Classic Baraka

by Edgard Machiavello

Baraka in MKD

by Jacob Paul

Baraka in MK vs DC

by Filipe Aguiar

Baraka Concept Art

by Filipe Aguiar

Baraka Redesigned

by Kilian González Gómez

Baraka redesigned

by Maxim Verehin

I always loved Baraka and his scary look from MK II on forward, his moveset was brutal and impressive, his design really creative and very fitting to the dark mood of the game and the idea of the “Outworld races”. I did not like his look in MK Gold and while his gameplay was almost the same as in MK II /MKT before, i was glad they changed his design again a lot and removed the Kung Lao storyline in MK Deception and making him hunt Mileena. His hand to hand fighting styles there really sucked and did absolutely not fit to Baraka but at least his weapon style with the blades was relative well done. His special moves looked really bad in 3D though in both MKD and MK Armageddon.

Midway changed his design again in MK vs DC and beside the Joker he was my favourite character there, i totally liked that he could fight with his fists and also his blades there, and his new moveset was fitting to his wild and unpredictable nature.

They really improved just everything about him in Mortal Kombat 9 though, i only dislike his alt. costume there but the moves, his fast gameplay and especially the weapon sounds of his blades are amazing and make Baraka one of the coolest characters of the game. Just wish he would not always lose in the story mode. I hope Baraka or a very similar character will be in the next Mortal Kombat. Like the big names (Scorpion, Raiden, Sub Zero) he is an absolute must for me in the MK series!

Review by the GA-HQ Admin Reinhold “GBK” Hoffmann

Baraka for me after the inital “cool, he has long claws” is quite a bland character. the design is simple and the guy looks like a truck ran over his face. In Mortal Kombat II his swipe attack gave him some good range on bosses with nice damage and his legs had unusually good range.

I did not get the chance to try him in Mortal Kombat Gold  as i didn’t get the enhanced version. In Mortal Kombat Deception he had a nice basic combo, and a decently gruesome fatality. But the awkward combo linker in deception was annoying. The game says you don’t mark it until you quit in failure then it says you’ve completed the link of styles, so this made him a bit more annoying in the training with Shujinko. In Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe , though his armor design was nice, the character seemed somewhat awkward as he does in Mortal Kombat 9 as well. Not terrible, more then likely a mid tier fighter, but not one of the best or a first choice.

And honestly, in MK vs DC i would have preferred characters like Mileena, Reptile, or Kung Lao in the game as opposed to Baraka. (then again, he’s still a better choice as compared to Jax who was actually boo’d when he was announced.)
So while his design offers some mild amusement, the character is lacking in character beyond being a monster. Here’s hoping Mileena does dump his ass and choose Scorpion officially. She can do so much better then garbage compactor face.

Review by GA-HQ Contributor Mortalshinobi