Mortal Kombat is a brawler video game series started by Ed Boon and John Tobias in 1992 with the game Mortal Kombat. ¹⁾

Ed Boon, a programmer, and John Tobias, a comic book artist, paired up to develop a fighting arcade game that would be ready in 10 months. Artist John Vogel and sound designer Dan Forden joined Boon and Tobias' team. ²⁾

The game was based originally on Universal Soldier starring Jean Claude Van Damme. According to Tobias, the game began when Universal Soldier's creators approached Midway Games and asked them to develop a game based on the film. This plan was eventually rejected, but the inspiration remained in creating Johnny Cage to look like Van Damme. ³⁾

For more than half of the production time, Mortal Kombat lacked a name; any title idea was reportedly rejected by at least one of the four creators. “Kumite” (a hand-based section in karate training), “Dragon Attack,” “Death Blow” and “Fatality” were among the names that didn't make the cut. ⁴⁾

The big boss Goro (a four-armed human-dragon hybrid influenced by the lore of Sinbad the Sailor) was the product of stop-motion capture photography of a clay statue modeled by sculptor Curt Chiarelli, unlike his human-portrayed predecessors. ⁵⁾