Mortal Kombat 1 has finally revealed the Jean-Claude Van Damme Johnny Cage skin that was always meant to be, and it's come at the expense of series head Ed Boon and his poor, torched taste buds.
Boon recently appeared on Hot Ones, the YouTube Q&A hosted by Sean Evans of First We Feast. Evans asked Boon about the "full circle moment" of finally bringing Van Damme into the Mortal Kombat universe through Johnny Cage, and Boon, already sweating from the increasingly spicy buffalo wings that are key to the show, explained its origins.
"When we – oh, man," Boon begins, briefly faltering under the hot sauce which will later decimate him as he and Evans enter the higher end of the Scoville scale. "When we made the very first game, our original intention was to make Van Damme: The Arcade Game. We wanted to see the word Van Damme up there. We called his people and we're like, 'We want to make a game based on Van Damme.'
"I don't know if he declined or never got to it, but again, this is a couple of 20-something-year-old kids who wanted to make a video game. I can see how Van Damme would go, 'No, we're not doing this.' We tried a number of times going back and forth with him. This time we hit the lottery and we got him. We actually have his voice, he's gonna be the Johnny Cage character. It's the absolute full-circle moment."
You can briefly see the skin in motion around 5:51 in the video embed above. This is a brief look, and we haven't heard the authentic voiceover yet, but Johnny Cage looks to be living up to the Belgian martial artist's persona.
It was recently revealed that Mortal Kombat 1 is also bringing Nitara back after 17 years, and this time she's played by Megan Fox.
Here's how the Mortal Kombat 1 roster is looking so far.
