Street Fighter was established in 1987 by Capcom. It was the first game of the franchise that started it all as a pioneer. You only play as Ryu and fight through non-playable characters in a one player mode, but in two player mode, player two controls Ken Masters. The first of the series started out as a pioneer. Then in 1991, Street Fighter II came out on arcades as the sequel to the first Street Fighter. Street Fighter II marks the start of having a roster of multiple characters to play as. Upon release on the home consoles, the fighting game genre was popularized, leading to other companies to make their own fighting games and try and be the competition for Street Fighter.
A brand new company has stepped up to the fighting game genre to be the competition for Street Fighter in 1992. Enter Midway Games, led by creative director and comic artist and graphic designer, Ed Boon and John Tobias. They went ahead to develop their newest fighting game, Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat is known for its digitized sprites accompanied by brutal fights, extreme violence and gory finishing moves known as Fatalities. They only work when Finish Him/Her appears when in match point, unlike in Street Fighter, which has little to no blood.
Midway partnered up with Acclaim Entertainment to begin porting the first Mortal Kombat to 16-bit home consoles. Once that happens, things took a turn for the worse. Mortal Kombat's home console release sparked controversy. That move sparked hearings on video game violence held by Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl and the creation of the ESRB. Mortal Kombat's home console release wasn't just the source of sparking controversy. It became the titan of fighting games like Street Fighter was.
In 1994, Street Fighter has their live action movie directed by Jean Claude Van Damme, which received a negative reception from fans of the franchise due to its lack of special moves. While the film is met with negativity, the fight between Chun-Li and Vega was the only good thing in the film. It recreates and dates to the iconic battle in Street Fighter II. The film industry also had a bit of a competition between Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat in the mid 90s as New Line Cinema made a live action movie aptly named Mortal Kombat.
the 1995 film directed by Paul Anderson became a competition for the live action Street Fighter film, but unlike the games, the violence in it was toned-down due to its PG-13 rating. It was praised for special moves, but criticized for toned-down violence. When a sequel, Mortal Kombat Annihliation, came out, oof, it became a mess of a movie. Let's not talk about it.
The animated series for Street Fighter premiered on the same year on USA's Saturday morning block. The cartoon received generally positive reception due to the inclusion of special moves, the satisfying cast of characters and plot. Then Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm also premiered on the same year on USA and has toned-down violence to make it suitable for younger audiences, but lasted for only one season. The animated series department created the competition between two games also.
In 1997, Mortal Kombat enters the 3D space and does away with the digitized sprites from the first three games with the entry of Mortal Kombat 4. The installment puts the series in a 3D arena space, introduces throwable objects and the use of weapons, marking it the first game of the series to ever take place in a 3D space.
In 2002, as we move on to the next generation of gaming, Mortal Kombat has kept the 3D space from Mortal Kombat 4 and brought in fluid animations and introduced new things, like switching between three fighting styles in game, color-coded coins, breakers and interactive gimmicks. Armageddon in particular, has the half-baked create your own Fatality feature and the roster's everyone is here approach to have every character introduced in previous titles, which became a chaotic mess. One person went on to say that they were working on the 3D era trilogy of games and during development of Armageddon, Midway could not condone to returning the series to the 2D space and wants to keep it in a 3D space going forward, up until 2008 when Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe came out on the PS3 and Xbox 360.
It does away with switching between fighting styles the 3D era trilogy has, but keeps the simple combos and have gimmicks of stage transitions on some stages and two finishers for each character. While the 8th game of the series, it is not canon to Armageddon. The violence and the Fatalitles in it were toned down for all of the Mortal Kombat side and the DC villains with the exception of Shao Kahn and Darkseid, who don't have finishing moves. But not the DC heroes as they have Heroic Brutalities. It's due to the inclusion of DC Comics characters. That's why they wouldn't want fans to see Batman murdered.
That would be the final game of the series to ever be published and released under the Midway umbrella. Then the series went on a hiatus for two years as Midway Games filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to pave the way for Warner Bros. to acquire all of Midway's assets, including Mortal Kombat and close out the Midway Games structure on July 10, 2009.
Warner Bros. went out to close most of Midway's Chicago headquarters and its San Diego and Newcastle studios, leaving the Chicago studio alive and intact to rename the studio as WB Games Chicago several days later. Over a year later, WB Games Chicago was rebranded and reincorporated into NetherRealm Studios. And guess what? This was their first game they have ever made since Warner Bros. owned the rights of Mortal Kombat. This resulted in the creation of their very first game under the NetherRealm Studios umbrella aptly called Mortal Kombat.
As the first game published by WB Games under the NetherRealm Studios umbrella, Mortal Kombat serves as a sequel to Armageddon and a 2011 reboot of the franchise. It takes away the ability to switch between the fighting styles in game and complex combos and replaces it with simple combos and returns to a 2D fighter format the first three games have. The character roster became fleshed out within the story that entails a modern take on a classic story that involves Shao Kahn as the main antagonist of the story rather than making the roster a chaotic mess. Each character has two Fatalities and takes away the half-baked create your own Fatality mechanic from Armageddon.
Here are the new things that were never introduced in any of the games under the Midway umbrella. Mortal Kombat introduces the super gauge. It holds up to three bars and fills up when taking damage or your opponent blocks. Enhanced special moves deal more damage than the regular version of special moves. They consume one bar of the super gauge. Breakers from the 3D era trilogy also returned to consume two bars of the super gauge.
And here's someting new to the series, X-Ray attacks. X-Ray attacks were introduced to consume all three bars of the super gauge. They deal a lot of damage and come with effects of breaking bones. The feature continues in Mortal Kombat X, which of course, became the starting point of introducing brand new faces that never appeared in the Midway era. Then Mortal Kombat 11 changed how we use supers. Instead of through the gauge, they are only used when HP is low. They are called Fatal Blows. Then the series was rebooted again to a fresh new timeline in Mortal Kombat 1. It has the return of the three-bar super gauge, but Fatal Blows are still available when HP is low and has the return of x-ray effects.
Warner Bros. owning Mortal Kombat would pave the way for a planned movie that had to be R-rated to match the games' extreme violence. It resulted in the creation of 2021's live action Mortal Kombat movie reboot directed by Simon McQuoid. The film introduced an original character named Cole Young, an MMA fighter who was given a dragon symbol to represent he is chosen for Mortal Kombat, making him the film's main character, which created a plothole. He is not supposed to be the main character when he never appeared in any of the games. Thankfully, a sequel is coming.
The sequel titled Mortal Kombat II, fixes the mistakes the first movie had made. More familiar faces are coming and Raiden dons his look seen in the games. Now, this movie is gonna feature a Mortal Kombat tournament on the big screen like the 1995 film and feature Shao Kahn as the main antagonist. After its theatrical release, Mortal Kombat II became a flawless victory that critics believed that the sequel has fixed several mistakes like making an original character the main protagonist, a lack of the Mortal Kombat tournament and the divisive Arcana thing and the fights became more brutal than the first film.
To make it exciting, not only we're waiting for Mortal Kombat II because we're also waiting for a brand new live action Street Fighter movie, which is coming out in October this year. The trailer shows that Paramount and Legendary has nailed the Street Fighter movie reboot. Unlike the 1994 movie by Jean Claude Van Damme, the movie features iconic special moves, like Ryu's Hadokens, Ken's Shoryuken, Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick, Guile's Flash Kick and E. Honda's Thousand Hands Slap, just to name a few. It is gonna feature a tournament as well like Mortal Kombat II did. We now have two live action movies based on the popular fighting game franchises coming out this year that will feature a tournament. This creates a competition between two praise-worthy films.
Not only Warner Bros. owning the rights of Mortal Kombat unlocked new experiences. It also allowed NetherRealm Studios to take what they learned from the toned-down violence in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Ed Boon knew that with the right resources, they have an idea that would fit perfectly. A fighting game based on the DC Universe, so there it is, their original IP, Injustice.
Injustice tapped back into the toned-down violence they learned from Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and made a fighting game based on DC Comics. While Injustice was developed by the same studio behind the 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat, it does away with the use of Heroic Brutalities for the DC heroes and toned-down Fatalitles for the DC villains. Superman was the main antagonist, not Darkseid. And in 2013, Injustice: Gods Among Us was released. NetherRealm Studios now has two legendary IPs all polished up and ready to go. That unlocks experiences we'd experience in Sonic SatAM.
See, WB owning Mortal Kombat would've brought some Mortal Kombat characters to the ill-fated free-to-play platform fighter, MultiVersus. However, that will never happen now that support on the game has been sunset. That allowed Warner Bros. to bring their collaborations to Fortnite for characters to be used as skins, including, guess what? Mortal Kombat.
2011 was when Mortal Kombat was taken to the fresh new level with the return to its roots of a 2D fighter, a fleshed out roster bound with the story, simple combos and two Fatalities on each character. 2026 marks the 15th anniversary of the 2011 reboot that serves as the 9th entry of the franchise and the first entry under the WB umbrella and the 16th anniversary of establishing NRS.
The 2011 reboot didn't dethrone Street Fighter. It allowed Mortal Kombat to be the face of the revolution that changed the series forever following Warner Bros' claiming of the rights of Mortal Kombat and making the games developed under the NRS umbrella. Warner's victory wasn't just a victory for the series. It was a victory for a new way of thinking about the series. It was a victory for new ideas for the remainder of the series. And Warner Bros. is the company to pave the way for future Mortal Kombat and Injustice projects.
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