MDK (video Game) - Meaning of MDK

Meaning of MDK

While the actual meaning of the title's TLA is not revealed within the game, the gaming press and fans adopted Murder, Death, Kill, which was coined as a neologism in the film Demolition Man. Yet another possibility is documented inside the game manual, where Kurt's mission is named Mission: Deliver Kindness. In the readme for the MDK demo, it is stated that nobody is quite sure what "MDK" means; it means whatever each person needs it to mean on that given day. Since the readme was penned on Mother's Day, the meaning for that particular day is "Mother's Day Kisses".

In the European version of the game, the background images of the installation program present many possible meanings for the letters; some silly, some believable, with one of them being "Murder, Death, Kill". In the Japanese version, on the back cover it says in bold yellow letters: "My Dear Knight". The "Making of MDK" booklet that came with the "Limited Edition" of the game says that the term was actually the game's code name; when Shiny attempted to come up with a final name for the game, they simply chose to stick with the codename.

In the installation screen for MDK2, various meanings are shown scrolling down as a backdrop to Kurt diving through, or to, an unknown destination with "Murder, Death, Kill" highlighted.

In an interview with David Perry in NowGamer, Perry revealed that the original meaning of "MDK" from the company's initial promo video was in fact "Murder Death Kill". However, because the toy company that was supposed to make toys based on the game did not like to have those words printed on the toys, the words were removed and replaced with "MDK". At the time of the game's release, Perry's official line on the game's title was that it stood for the first initials of game's characters Max, Dr. Hawkins, and Kurt.