Its story centers on the revival of the Dragon King Onaga, who attempts to conquer the realms featured in the series after defeating the sorcerers Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, the main antagonists in the previous game, and the Thunder God Raiden, defender of Earthrealm.

Series co-creator Ed Boon designed Deception to be an unpredictable fighting game, and included new features such as the minigames as surprises.

The "Krypt" returns from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and serves as an interface to access extra content hidden in "koffins" (actual coffins named with the series' trademark misspelling).

[3] Deadly Alliance's action role-playing game-style training mode — called "Konquest" — returns in Deception and is greatly expanded from the previous version.

In Konquest, a young Shujinko meets Damashi, a being who requests his assistance in collecting six powerful items, the Kamidogu, to send to the Elder Gods.

It features super deformed versions of the MK characters that attack each other once a player gains an advantage in the game.

It served as the perfect distraction to defeat their enemies while they simultaneously claimed enough souls to resurrect the Invincible Army.

Quan Chi has no time to enjoy his victory before he sees that the Dragon King Onaga, the former emperor of the realm of Outworld, has been resurrected too.

[7] Onaga now seeks to use six artifacts called the Kamidogu (literally "Tool of God" or "divine clay"), which are able to destroy the realms.

The latter include the forces of Edenia, now led by Mileena in the titular theme of deception as she masquerades as her sister, Princess Kitana.

[11] The 2006 PlayStation Portable version of the game, Mortal Kombat: Unchained, includes Goro and Kahn along with Deadly Alliance returnees Blaze, Frost, Jax, and Kitana.

Once again appearing youthful rather than his depiction as a septuagenarian in Deadly Alliance, Sub-Zero sported a "grandmaster" armor set that was often likened to Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

[citation needed] Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon wanted Deception to be an unpredictable fighting game that gave players new features "they could never imagine".

In order to do so, the Midway staff listened to fans on bulletin boards to know what to work on for Deception, such as the playable characters.

[12][13] Boon and John Podlasek supervised the staff, which was divided into teams to work on different areas of the game.

[18] The Midway staff focused on the designs and functions of the backgrounds, wanting to make them as influential to the outcome of the battle as the fighting between the characters.

[2] Because of popular demand and favorable reception of Deadly Alliance, the number of finishing moves, known as Fatalities, increased to two per character.

[22] Some time after the game's release, Boon commented that he was disappointed that the GameCube version did not feature online gameplay as he regarded it as "the best in the business".

When Midway Entertainment was asked if Mortal Kombat: Deception was the official title, the developers gave no answers at that time.

[26] Mortal Kombat: Deception was released for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and Xbox in North America on October 4, 2004,[27] and in PAL territories on November 19, 2004.

[28][29][30] In France, the game was renamed Mortal Kombat: Mystification after it was found that "deception" in French could be translated to "disappointment."

[41] During its release week, Mortal Kombat: Deception shipped one million units, surpassing sales of the previous MK title and becoming the fastest-selling game in Midway's history.

[45] The PlayStation 2 version was a runner-up in IGN's PS2 Best of 2004 Awards in the best fighting game category, and won the Readers' Choice.

[63] Louis Bedigian of GameZone praised the interaction with stages as one of the best parts of the game, commenting that it adds more strategy to the combat.

[6] However, he called character designs in Deception "robotic" in comparison to other fighting games such as the Dead or Alive series or Virtua Fighter 4.

Although he stated the fights were not perfect and noted they could end in a few seconds due to the interaction with the arenas, he liked how painful and funny some moves looked.

[56] TeamXbox's Dale Nardozzi praised the characters' animations and movements, adding that the soundtrack: "sets the tone perfectly for your basic, disembowelments, decapitations, and impalements.

[61] Conversely, Kasavin commented that the Konquest Mode "is the weak point from the game" and described it as "ugly", lacking good voice acting and graphics.

[65] Bedigian complained that the Konquest is the biggest flaw of the game, criticizing the storyline, the trainings, and voice acting.

It has been criticized for the lack of an online mode and pixelated picture quality on the unlockable videos & cutscenes, though 1UP.com still praised it.