Mortal Kombat introduced Scorpion and the series’ signature fatality moves.
Midway released Mortal Kombat in arcades in 1992. The game was created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, and its roster included fighters such as Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, and Liu Kang. After winning a match, a player could perform a character-specific finishing move known as a Fatality.
The game used digitized images of human performers rather than the hand-drawn sprites used by many earlier fighting games. Its graphic finishing moves and violence attracted major attention and contributed to debates about video-game content.
Mortal Kombat is sometimes confused with later entries when discussing specific Fatalities, since the move lists changed from game to game. The original arcade release established both the series and its central finishing-move concept.