Mortal Kombat 1, the subsequent game in NetherRealm’s 30-year-old preventing game franchise, is touring again in time, centuries earlier than the occasions of the recognized Mortal Kombat timeline. Despite that point shift, sequence staple Johnny Cage will make his method to the roster alongside ye olde historical fighters like Raiden, Mileena, Kitana, and Kung Lao.
Even extra intriguing is the truth that actor Jean-Claude Van Damme will make an look as Johnny Cage in MK1, thanks to a personality pores and skin.
(*30*)Van Damme’s look in Mortal Kombat 1 closes a selected loop in MK’s historical past, as a result of the Belgian martial artist was partly the inspiration for the unique Mortal Kombat and its Hollywood hero, Johnny Cage.
“He was supposed to be Johnny Cage,” Mortal Kombat sequence co-creator Ed Boon stated in an interview with Polygon final 12 months. Developers at Midway pitched the concept to Van Damme, nevertheless it by no means panned out, Boon stated: “We took images of Bloodsport and talked about digitized graphics and how it’s going to be [Van Damme] in the game. At some point he passed. But we later inquired, maybe a couple of times, as recently as, like, [Mortal Kombat 9], if he wanted to be in a skin of the game. For some reason, it just never came through.” Apparently, Van Damme has modified his thoughts.
“The fiction behind Mortal Kombat was kind of already in development even prior to us chatting with Van Damme, and when he ended up not being involved, we just kind of marched ahead,” sequence co-creator John Tobias stated in 2019. “So the idea of his involvement was he was either going to play himself in the game, in the fiction of the game, or he was going to play a character in the fiction of the game. His character is eventually what became Johnny Cage.”
Cage would finally be performed by martial artist Daniel Pesina within the first two Mortal Kombat video games, and by Linden Ashby within the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie adaptation. (Ashby would later reprise his function as Cage in Mortal Kombat 11, thanks to NetherRealm’s Klassic MK Movie pores and skin pack.) Actor Karl Urban will reportedly embody Cage within the sequel to 2021’s Mortal Kombat film.
How will Johnny Cage, or some ancestor of his, discover his method lots of of years into the previous? That stays to be seen — and whether or not Van Damme will voice a model of Cage — however will likely be revealed when Mortal Kombat 1 launches this September.
Van Damme’s Cage pores and skin will likely be included with the game’s Kombat Pack add-on, which is included with the Mortal Kombat 1 Premium Edition (priced at $109.99) and Kollector’s Edition (priced at $249.99). The customary version of Mortal Kombat 1 will value $69.99 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
