Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live action children's television series that premiered on August 28, 1993, on the Fox Kids weekday afternoon block. The show is about a group of teenagers who were chosen to protect the world from a group of alien invaders and were given the ability to "morph" into super-powered warriors and to pilot giant robots called "Zords." It was adapted and used stock footage from the Japanese television show Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, which was the 16th installment of Bandai Visual and Toei Company's Super Sentai franchise. Both the show and its related merchandise saw unbridled overnight success, becoming a staple of 1990s pop culture in mere months. Under the original name, "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers," the series ran from 1993 to 1995 and spawned the feature film Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. The second and third seasons of the show drew on footage and elements from the Super Sentai series Gosei Sentai Dairanger and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger respectively, though the Zyuranger costumes were still used for the lead cast. Only the mecha and the Kiba Ranger costume (worn by the White Ranger) were retained from Dairanger for the second season, while only the mecha from Kakuranger were featured in the third season. However the Kakuranger costumes were later used for the title characters of the mini-series, Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers. The series was produced by MMPR Productions, distributed by Saban Entertainment, and aired on Fox Kids. The show's merchandise was produced and distributed by Bandai Entertainment. In 1996, the series was rebranded as the Power Rangers franchise, renaming the series every year after, and using costumes, props, and footage from subsequent Super Sentai series, as well as changing the cast and story line. While an overarching story line would continue until Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, subsequent series after MMPR are not sequels or spin-offs in the traditional sense. In 2010, a re-version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, with a new logo, comic book-referenced graphics, and extra alternative special effects, was broadcast on ABC Kids, and Bandai produced brand new toys to coincide with the series.

Mortal Kombat (commonly abbreviated "MK") is an American video game franchise series created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. The first four renditions and their updates were developed by Midway Games and initially released on arcade machines, and later to home consoles. The arcade titles were later picked up by Acclaim Entertainment for the home console conversions. Beginning with Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Midway Games exclusively created home versions of Mortal Kombat up until Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Following Midway's bankruptcy, the franchise was picked up by Warner Bros. in July 2009 and became a part of the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The development of the first game was originally based on an idea of making a video game (according to Ed Boon, the game was originally meant to be a fast experiment) starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, but that idea fell through and Mortal Kombat was created instead and released in 1992. The original game has spawned many sequels and has been spun off into several action-adventure games, films (animated and live-action with its own sequel), and television series (animated and live-action). Other spin-offs include various comic book series, a card game and a live-action tour. Along with Capcom's Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat has become one of the most successful and influential fighting franchises in the history of video games. The series is known for its high levels of bloody violence, including, most notably, its Fatalities—finishing moves, requiring a sequence of buttons to perform, which, in part, led to the creation of the ESRB. The series name itself is also known for using the letter "K" in place of "C" for the hard C sound, thus intentionally misspelling the word "combat", as well as other words with the hard C sound within later games in the series. Early games in the series were especially noted for its realistic digitized sprites (which differentiated it from its contemporaries' hand-drawn sprites), as well as an extensive use of palette swapping to create new characters.

Mortal Kombat 3 (MK3) is a fighting game developed by Midway Games and first released into arcades in 1995 as the third game in the Mortal Kombat series. As in the previous games, it has a cast of characters that players choose from and guide through a series of battles against other opponents. The game avoids the tournament storyline of its predecessors, as various warriors instead fight against the returning Shao Kahn, who has resurrected his bride Sindel and started an invasion of Earthrealm. The third installment of Mortal Kombat retains the blood and gory attacks that defined the series. It introduces new types of the Fatality finishing moves, including Animalities. Other features new to the series were combos, predefined sequences used to perform a series of consecutive attacks. A "Run" button was also added, allowing players to briefly dash toward the opponent, as were "Kombat Kodes", an unlockable content system using various symbols that can be entered before two-player matches to achieve certain effects. Some characters from the previous games returned and new characters were introduced into the series. Mortal Kombat 3 notably omitted popular characters from previous games, some of whom were added in an update, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, released later in 1995. The home console-exclusive Mortal Kombat Trilogy (1996) added even more characters, as well as other new features.

Primal Rage is a versus fighting game developed and released by Atari Games to arcades in 1994. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of Earth called "Urth". Players control one of seven large beasts that battle each other to determine the fate of the planet. Matches feature many of the conventions of fighting games from the era, including special moves and gory finishing maneuvers. Various ports were released for home consoles and personal computers. Efforts to perfectly emulate the arcade original have as yet been unsuccessful, due to an unusual copy protection method developers used. Toys, comics, a novel (Primal Rage: The Avatars by John Vornholt) and other merchandise tie-ins were also produced.

Rise of the Robots is a 1994 fighting game developed by Mirage Studios and published by Time Warner Interactive. It was ported to numerous home console and computer formats, and was also released as an arcade game cabinet. The game is very similar in style and gameplay to other fighting games popular at the time, such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, but with pre-rendered CGI sprites rather than pixel art or digitized sprites. The game's characters, including the player, are all robots, and the plot borrowed heavily from the cyberpunk genre, specifically such movies as Blade Runner, Metropolis, RoboCop and The Terminator. Rise of the Robots was announced early in development, and generated considerable buzz for its advanced graphics. On release it became notorious in the video gaming industry for myriad crippling gameplay problems. Today it is generally considered one of the least successful and most critically reviled fighting games of its time.