A day after Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon used an episode of Hot Ones to debut Johnny Cage’s long-anticipated Jean-Claude Van Damme skin, a new trailer has dropped today that dives deep into the actor’s fun cameo in Mortal Kombat 1.
Since the Belgian action star is appearing as a cameo skin for the already-existing MK legend Johnny Cage, the trailer focuses on things like Van Damme’s pre-fight dialogue with several fighters, an exhibition of the skin in action, and one of the best Fatalities we’ve seen yet.
The game is not only using Van Damme’s likeness for Cage, but he fully voices the character and has his own unique dialogue when players equip the special skin.
Even Van Damme’s fighting attire is a call-back to Johnny Cage’s appearance in the original Mortal Kombat game from 1992. In the arcade game, Cage wore black fighting shorts and shoes with a red sash around his waist, and Van Damme’s outfit matches it perfectly.
The trailer shows Van Damme talking smack with Johnny Cage, Raiden, and Geras, before revealing a new Fatality for him and Cage, which includes super-kicking the foe into a car and then slamming the butterfly door down on their torso to rip them in half before sending the car driving off and dragging them by their intestines. Mortal. Kombat.
The collaboration between MK and Van Damme is over 30 years in the making, according to Boon, who said he tried “a couple of times” over the years to link up with the Bloodsport actor but finally got it done for 2023’s game, calling it “a full-circle moment” for him in his career.
“When we made the very first game, our original intention was to make Van Damme: The Arcade Game,” Boon said on Hot Ones with Sean Evans. “We actually wanted to see the words ‘Van Damme’ up there. And again, Bloodsport was big, and Universal Soldier. So, we called his people and were like, you know, ‘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 was a couple of 20-year-old kids wanted to make a video game, I could see how Van Damme would go ‘no, no, we’re not doing this.”
Mortal Kombat 1 launches in early access next week on Sept. 14 but will be fully released worldwide for all on Sept. 19. The Van Damme skin is only available in the Premium Edition.
