Jade debuted in "Mortal Kombat II" as a green palette swap of Kitana with darker skin and gold-tinted duplicates of her steel fans. Ed Boon said she was initially just "an evil version of Kitana, in a sense." While the game was in development, the team wanted to add a secret character based on Katalin Zamiar, who had already been filmed performing as Kitana and Mileena; Jade was created in what Zamiar described as a mostly "on the spot" fashion. Zamiar's outfit used for filming the female ninja characters was blue, and presented some challenges for the actress during filming, such as the bottoms of the leggings being a bit too slippery for moves such as jump kicks and the tops having to be held up with rubber bands, while her mask was taped to her nose to keep it in place. Zamiar did not return for "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" due to brewing legal issues with Midway, and was replaced by Becky Gable. At that point, Jade was given a staff weapon to further separate her from Kitana and Mileena. In "UMK3 "and subsequent titles where the three of them appear, while Mileena's skin color is sometimes mildly darker than Kitana's, Jade's skin is consistently the darkest of the three. In the 2011 reboot game, Jade can have classic palette-swapped outfits from the 1990s as some of her alternate costumes; there is even a secret special encounter battle against her wielding Kitana's fans just like in "Mortal Kombat II".