Update [Sat 9th Sep, 2023 02:00 BST]:
NetherRealms has released an official trailer for Jean-Claude Van Damme in Mortal Kombat 1, following the first look teaser. The trailer reveals that Jean-Claude Van Damme will be available as a Johnny Cage skin in the premium edition of the game. Pre-orders for the game are now live.
“After 30 years, the man, the myth, the legend finally arrives in Kombat. Jean-Claude Van Damme becomes Johnny Cage in #MK1.”
Original article [Fri 8th Sep, 2023 01:00 BST]:
As the launch of Mortal Kombat 1 approaches, series co-creator Ed Boon has been making the rounds in the press to promote the game. In a surprising move, Boon appeared on the YouTube show ‘Hot Ones’, where guests answer questions about a particular subject while doing a hot sauce challenge.
During this appearance, fans of Mortal Kombat got a “first look” at the Jean-Claude Van Damme skin for the character Johnny Cage. Boon expressed how monumental it was for the series to have Van Damme in the game, as the original intention of the creators was to make a game based on the actor:
Ed Boon: “When we made the very first game our original intention was to make Van Damme the arcade game, we actually wanted to see Van Damme, and again Bloodsport was big and Universal Soldier I think it was, so we called his people and we’re like we want to make a game based on Van Damme, and I don’t know if he declined or it just never got to him or something like that but again this a couple of 20 something-year-old kids who wanted to make a video game, I could see how Van Damme would go “no, no we’re not doing this”… so we tried a number of times going back and forth with him, this time we hit the lottery and we got him and we actually have his voice and he’s gonna be the Johnny Cage character…”
If you’re interested in seeing the full reveal on the Hot Ones’ YouTube episode, you can find it around the 5:50 mark of the video.
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Boon’s appearance on Hot Ones follows the recent reveal of Megan Fox as the Outworld vampire Nitara. You can learn more about this returning character and Megan’s involvement in Mortal Kombat 1 in our previous coverage here on Nintendo Life.