Mortal Kombat was created by a small four-person team at Midway, who built the entire game in under a year, utilizing real actors and digitized footage to deliver a gritty, realistic fighting style. The team originally planned a game starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, but when the idea fell apart, they shifted their focus to creating the world of Mortal Kombat, with its iconic characters and brutal finishing moves. They filmed actors in simple studio setups, capturing hundreds of frames that would