Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat was an arcade fighting game from Midway in 1992, created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, and it stood out for digitised photographs of real actors and for violent finishing moves called Fatalities. The violence caused a political row in the United States that helped lead to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board in 1994.
About Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat was an arcade fighting game from Midway in 1992, created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, and it stood out for digitised photographs of real actors and for violent finishing moves called Fatalities. The violence caused a political row in the United States that helped lead to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board in 1994. The series has continued for more than thirty years, moving to Warner Bros. after Midway's bankruptcy in 2009, with films in 1995 and 2021. Its ninja characters were originally the same sprite in different colours, which is why so many of them share a silhouette.
The game's violence helped prompt the creation of the ESRB rating system in 1994.
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Key eras
| Era | Years | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Arcade | 1992–1996 | Digitised actors and the first Fatalities. |
| Films | 1995– | Mortal Kombat (1995) and later adaptations. |
| NetherRealm | 2010– | Warner Bros. revives the series after Midway's bankruptcy. |