Mortal Kombat (MK) is a fighting game, released in 1992 on arcade machines and developed by Midway. It was later adapted game consoles by Acclaim Entertainment. Originally, Mortal Kombat is a a martial arts tournament between Good (Kingdom of the Earth) and Evil (Outre-Monde). Shang Tsung, a powerful sorcerer, helped by Goro an anthropomorphic warrior with 4 arm, wins the tournament and plunges the world into chaos.

A handful of combatants among the best in the world are enrolled in the tournament in order to restore the lost balance of things. For the Kingdom of the Earth fighters are: Raiden, a sort of thunder God, Lui Kang, raised by Shaolin monks, Johonny Cage, a martial arts actor and Sonya Blade, Lieutenant of a special unit trying to capture a dangerous criminal named Kano. This latter is also in the tournament but on the Outorld side, along with Shang Tsang, Goro, Sub-Zero a cryomancian a warrior and Scorpion a spectrum warrior who wants to avenge his death (his killer is probably Sub-Zero).

Mortal Kombat has been adapted on many gaming platforms, from the Amiga Commodore to the Megadrive through SNES, Game Boy, Game Gear etc ... The series can also be found on more recent consoles such as PS2, the Xbox 360 and Wii.

It is amusing to note that the arcade version had a bug which allegedly gave rise to a so-called new character named Ermac: a mixture of Scorpion and Sub Zero, which was actually a display bug. Its name comes from the error ERorr MACro. He become a "real" playable character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat III.