In "Deadly Alliance" character designer Allen Ditzig's early concept sketches, the character was called "the Kenshi" and was described as a "spirit hunter." During development, Kenshi was unofficially named "Blind Gi" by Midway, which was changed to "Blind Kenshi" before the "Blind" was dropped altogether, thus changing "Kenshi" from a title to a proper name. "Mortal Kombat" co-creator Ed Boon explained to Playstation.Blog in 2011 that he was "personally always a big fan of Kenshi, as were many of the guys on the "MK" team" as the reason for including him as a downloadable character in "MK2011."