The original Mortal Kombat was the first fighting game to introduce a secret fighter, reached if the player fulfilled a set of requirements. Still the developers paid homage to him with Johnny Cage, a fictional film star whose personal style resembles Van Damme's. The development of the first game was originally based on an idea that Ed Boon and John Tobias had of making a video game starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, but as that idea fell through, a science fantasy-themed fighting game was created instead. Mortal Kombat is an American media franchise centered on a series of video games, originally developed by Midway Games in 1992.
