Shaggy Makes His Fighting Game Debut As A Playable Character
Fine, fighting game fans. You asked for it and you got it. You all wanted Shaggy from Scooby-Doo in a fighting game, and while that's still not happening for Mortal Kombat 11, you're at least getting to see Shaggy join the cast of another big-name title. We present to you: Shaggy in Jump Force.
Before you get overly excited and run to your PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, we have some bad news for you. Shaggy can only become a part of Jump Force thanks to a PC mod, which means that, not only is Shaggy a super unofficial and unsanctioned addition to the game, but he also can't be added to either of the console versions. But should you be fortunate enough to own Jump Force on PC, you can absolutely download the Shaggy mod and bring those dreams of playing with this Scooby-Doo character to life.
The Shaggy mod comes courtesy of two people: BeatzYT3, a game modder; and Vaanrose, an artist. Both combined their skills to create Shaggy, building a faithful representation of the cartoon character in a 3D world. And perhaps the best part: Shaggy is a fully voiced fighter, tossing out the occasional trash-talk line while battling various anime fighters.
Is it all perfect? Not by any stretch. The Shaggy mod actually replaces Vegeta as a fighter within Jump Force, which is why Shaggy is wearing those oversized white gloves. It's also why you won't be able to find Vegeta in the game's roster after installing this mod, and why other characters will call you Vegeta during in-game cutscenes. A sacrifice had to be made in order to fit Shaggy into the game's lineup. It seems here that Vegeta was that sacrifice.
Shaggy is also missing the facial animations that other characters in the game boast. You might notice that characters in Jump Force can have many different facial expressions, and when they speak, will actually emote and animate along with the words being spoken. Because Shaggy is being modded into Jump Force as a sort of replacement character — and because BeatzYT3 wasn't sure how to get the animations working — Shaggy will have one single facial expression at all times. It's a kind of minor setback for what otherwise is a fantastic Shaggy mod, and honestly, there's a good chance that you'll forget about it entirely once you've played with Shaggy for a while. But it's still something that might remind you: this is not an official character. This fighter was grafted onto Jump Force by a fan.
The inclusion of Shaggy does raise an interesting question, though — will someone ultimately attempt to squeeze Shaggy into Mortal Kombat 11?
There will definitely be a PC version of Mortal Kombat 11, which opens up the possibility for mods somewhere down the line. And really, seeing Shaggy in the very game he was originally requested for — via that Change.org petition that got this whole thing started — would feel right. It remains to be seen if Mortal Kombat 11 on the PC will even have mods, or if fans will have any interest in developing mods for it. But given the amount of attention this Jump Force mod is getting, the chances are pretty good that someone will want to do the same thing in MK 11.
And goodness, we can't wait to see Ed Boon's Twitter feed should that happen.
You might remember that Ed Boon — who serves as the director of Mortal Kombat 11 – initially rolled his eyes at the possibility of putting Shaggy into the upcoming MK game. Over the course of a few days, however, Boon seemed to openly flirt with the prospect. He shared some mock-ups of Shaggy in the game. He retweeted others who created fan art depicting Shaggy as a Mortal Kombat character. He really made it appear as though Shaggy in Mortal Kombat 11 wasn't an entirely outrageous idea.
Of course, it didn't happen, and those who petitioned felt a little heartbroken about it. But the good news is, Jump Force has come along to fill that void. And who knows? In just over two months, we'll get our hands on Mortal Kombat 11. And so will all of the modders, which means the Shaggy dream might not be dead after all.