Through the 1990s, the developer and publisher Midway Games kept their single-styled fighting moves with four attack buttons for a different array of punches, kicks and blocks. Characters in the early Mortal Kombat games play virtually identically to one another, with the only major differences being their special moves.

The arcade cabinet versions of the first two used a joystick and five buttons: high punch, low punch, high kick, low kick, and block Mortal Kombat 3 and its updates added a sixth 'run' button. The original three games and their updates, Mortal Kombat (1992), Mortal Kombat II (1993), Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), and Mortal Kombat Trilogy (1996), are 2D fighting games. Mortal Kombat II arcade cabinet's control board Entertainment and reestablished as NetherRealm Studios. Following Midway's bankruptcy, the Mortal Kombat development team was acquired by Warner Bros. Early games in the series were noted for their realistic digitized sprites and an extensive use of palette swapping to create new characters. Controversies surrounding Mortal Kombat, in part, led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) video game rating system. The series has a reputation for high levels of graphic violence, including, most notably, its fatalities, which are finishing moves that kill the defeated opponents instead of knocking them out. Mortal Kombat has become the best-selling fighting game franchise worldwide and one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. Mortal Kombat, the original game, spawned a franchise with several action-adventure game, a comic book series, a card game, films, an animated TV series, and a live-action tour. Mortal Kombat is a media franchise centered on a series of fighting video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992.

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