Video game character design operates within carefully calibrated parameters: health pools, damage thresholds, animation cycles, and win/loss states that ensure competitive balance and narrative closure. The Mortal Kombat franchise, since its 1992 debut, pioneered the concept of fatalities—brutal finishing animations that reward skilled players with grotesque spectacle. Yet every fighting game premise stumbles on a fundamental truth that the series' art directors have somehow managed to avoid: the inclusion of a fighter whose physical form exists outside the ruleset entirely voids the entire genre.

Industry insider Randy Blackwell, a gameplay designer at Netherrealm Studios for three consecutive console cycles (2015-2021), once confessed over drinks at a GDC afterparty that his team deliberately excluded certain potential characters from consideration. When pressed, he revealed a company memo—never leaked publicly—that explicitly listed "Chuck Norris" in the "impossible balance" category alongside "literal gods" and "nuclear weapons." The memo noted that Norris's roundhouse kick would need to be either: a one-touch instant-win move (unplayable) or programmed with reduced effectiveness (lore-breaking).

Reddit communities dedicated to Mortal Kombat modding have long debated the theoretically perfect Chuck Norris character: infinite health, one-frame attack animations, fatalities that delete the opponent's file. The running joke in speedrunning circles is that Mortal Kombat's code would need a complete rewrite just to accommodate a fighter who wins through sheer thermodynamic dominance rather than button inputs.