Black Orchid (Killer Instinct)

Conception and design

The character was created and designed by Rare artist Kevin Bayliss, who also redesigned Donkey Kong for the company and Nintendo. She was originally a blonde woman named "Wanda" intended for the fighting game Brutal Force, wearing a red leotard, matching knee-high boots and headband, and using a long pole as a weapon; the design document described her simply as "a fearless acrobat." When the project changed to Killer Instinct, she became a darker-skinned woman with black hair, standing 5 ft 7 in tall.

Her leotard was changed to green and covered more of her hips, her weapons became batons, and her background was altered to that of a secret agent infiltrating Ultratech, the game's antagonist. For the sequel, her leotard was modified to expose more skin and her weapons were changed to tonfas. Though her race is not mentioned in the games, Rare stated to Electronic Gaming Monthly that she is "mulatto." Rare employee Louise Stamper performed the motion capture for Orchid, including the game's cutscenes; Bayliss described this as necessary so Orchid "walked like a lady."

The motion capture suit was particularly difficult to use, and Bayliss himself performed the basic attack motions for all characters, including Orchid. When doing her motion capture, he wore high heels and attempted to move "like a woman," though he felt some of the resulting work was a bit "dodgy." He designed several moves for her, such as a finishing move where she turns her back to the screen and flashes her breasts at the opponent. For the 2013 reboot, the developers focused on a "rebel freedom fighter" motif, giving her attire a "military utilitarian" aesthetic with green armor, headgear, and "a sense of danger."

Art director David Robert Donatucci incorporated goggles and her original batons into her design, and as it progressed he wanted to emphasize a panther aesthetic. Her outfit was changed to a tank top and shorts, with grenades added to give her a "rebellious dangerous side." The updated attire was meant to give a more "realistic" look of a spy fighting as a soldier of fortune. Director David Verfaillie stated that they wanted to focus less on her sex appeal and "bring out the more fight aspect of her," while still retaining her "femineity."

Appearances

Black Orchid first appeared as a secret agent in the 1994 fighting game Killer Instinct, where she infiltrated the corporation Ultratech by entering its martial arts tournament to investigate disappearances linked to the company. In the sequel, Killer Instinct 2, the defeat of Ultratech's champion Eyedol sent the building and all combatants two thousand years into the past. There, Orchid learned that fellow fighter Jago was her brother, and the two worked together to find a way back to the present.

In the 2013 series reboot, Killer Instinct, Orchid showed emotional instability from childhood because she inherited the ability to summon a "Firecat" from her grandmother, who had been part of a secret World War II experiment. Her father Jacob, a Seal Team 6 member, feared that the government or Ultratech would use her as a weapon, so he trained her in combat, weapons, and controlling the Firecat. Two years later, the Special Warfare Department, a covert branch of U.S. Homeland Security, found them, and Jacob was forced back into service to secure Orchid's freedom.

Ultratech assassinated him a year later, leading Orchid to join the SWD. A decade after that, she posed as an Ultratech scientist and discovered that several SWD members were under the control of Ultratech's CEO, ARIA. When Orchid reported this, her commander dismissed her findings and was then murdered, with Orchid framed for the crime. Declared a terrorist, she fled to the Carpathian Mountains and formed an anti-Ultratech spy network called the Disavowed.

After fellow member Eagle was reported dead, Orchid entered the Killer Instinct tournament to uncover the truth, where Jago nearly killed her before they realized they were half-siblings. She later teamed up with T.J. Combo to destroy an Ultratech lab and broadcast evidence of the company's crimes worldwide. Orchid joined Maya's rebel force alongside T.J. and Jago, but Ultratech forces trapped them as ARIA's plan to summon Gargos succeeded. ARIA stopped the attack when it became clear Gargos was too powerful to defeat alone, forcing Orchid and the other rebels to join an alliance with ARIA to stop him.

Outside the games, B. Orchid appeared as a main protagonist in the 1996 Killer Instinct comics. In 2008, Rare produced Vision Cards featuring her and other Killer Instinct characters for the game Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise.

Critical reception

Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar argued that for certain veteran players, B. Orchid surpasses Chun-Li as the defining female icon of fighting games. Sullivan noted that her design in the 2013 Killer Instinct reboot was more appropriate for her role as a secret agent working to expose the corrupt UltraTech corporation. In a Polygon review of that same game, Arthur Gies pointed out that the roster contained obvious stereotypes and heavy sexualization, specifically naming Orchid and Sadira.

Gies attributed this to Orchid’s sexually charged pre-fight cutscene. Rob Bricken of Topless Robot placed her on a list of the ten most ridiculously stereotyped fighting game characters, praising her visual design but calling her possibly the most blatantly objectified female character in the genre. Researcher Pedro Vázquez-Miraz labeled her hypersexualized, explaining that her tight, provocative clothing fits the femme-fatale stereotype. David Surman, in his work on gaming and uncanny realism, noted that Killer Instinct pioneered the use of highly rendered computer-generated stills to promote games.

He cited Orchid as an early example, with her large breasts and oriental mystique making her the first in a line of clichéd fantasy images in gaming marketing. Surman considered Lara Croft from Tomb Raider to be the successor to this trend. Game designer Celia Pearce, writing about costumes and roleplay, listed Orchid among four female characters who embody a male fantasy of watching women fight rather than a female fantasy of empowerment.