Gavin and Rubin were quickly persuaded by the prospect of games made for a large and readily produceable format, thus bypassing the cartridge-printing decisions encountered with Rings of Power, and accepted Hawkins's proposal.

[1][2] After agreeing to create a game for the 3DO, Gavin and Rubin began development in 1993 without an attached publisher, and self-funded production with the money made from Rings of Power, amounting to $80,000.

[2] While they still lacked a business plan, Rubin insisted that designing instinctively was the "appropriate way to make games", while Gavin added that self-funding without the oversight of publishers pushed them to devote their time and resources more wisely.

[1] Around the start of Way of the Warrior's development, fighting games such as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Samurai Shodown had become popular in arcades and on home consoles.

Gavin and Rubin aimed to create an over-the-top and "slightly more comedic" Mortal Kombat, primarily inspired by a number of Hong Kong kung fu films they had watched together.

[1][3] The game's costumes were thrown together and purchased from a single store in Boston's Chinatown, with Gavin and Rubin not knowing what a given character would look like until the uniform was at the register.

[6] In particular, the costume of the secret character Gulab Jamun (portrayed by Vijay S. Pande) consisted of a pillow case for his loincloth, a sheet for his turban, and a gem from a secondhand Jasmine dress-up kit.

[1][3] Although Gavin and Rubin intended to replicate Mortal Kombat's visuals with a digitized approach, their restricted budget disallowed a chroma key system or any kind of motion capture backdrop.

[1] Rodney Brooks, at the time the head of the MIT's Artificial Intelligence lab, provided the voice of "Shaky" Jake Querious.

[9] Although Gavin was being paid $14,000 a year to go through the MIT’s masters program, his and Rubin's financial and living situation deteriorated during production, and they sold their remaining belongings to get by while finishing the game.

However, critics were quick to point out Way of the Warrior as an inferior clone of Mortal Kombat, panning its poor controls, character design, loading times, sound effects, and the timing of pulling special moves, as well as its shallow mechanics, with some negatively comparing it to Mortal Kombat as well as other games in the genre such as Primal Rage and Killer Instinct.

[12] GamePro gave the game a negative review, citing dull character design, long load times, small sprites, weak sound effects, and shallow challenge.

[13] Next Generation reviewed the game, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "Way of the Warrior only proves that no amount of music, 3D rendering and gore can make up for the basics like gameplay and good character design.