Reptile's character concept was conceived by Mortal Kombat co-creator and lead programmer Ed Boon after the original 1992 game was released into arcades.

[9] Reptile was not selectable nor playable as his inclusion was originally intended as a marketing tool for the game due to the extreme conditions required for players to encounter him, with the developers in turn hoping word of mouth would spread rumors of the character's existence.

[11][better source needed] Reptile appeared in the three digitized Mortal Kombat fighting games as a palette swap of the two male ninja characters, with his green armor representing a combination of Scorpion and Sub-Zero's yellow and blue, respectively.

[7] He retained this design upon his playable debut in Mortal Kombat II (1993), with his true reptilian nature first revealed whenever his face mask was pulled down for his acid spit attack, or removed entirely for his tongue-grab Fatality and his arcade ending.

For the three-dimensional release Mortal Kombat 4 (1997), he was given a unique design for the first time with minimal body armor, his face fully exposed, and more of his true reptilian identity revealed, while he speaks in a sibilant tone in his arcade ending.

[6][14] With the palette-swap characters receiving distinct makeovers for the series' three-dimensional fighting games, Reptile was given a full reptilian design in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002) that included a long tail while he wore minimal gold and black armor,[15] a design that was maintained for his nonplayable appearance in the 2005 beat 'em up title Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks with the exception of black straps wrapped around his head that left his eyes and mouth exposed.

[19] Reptile's Fatalities in MKII consist of revealing his reptilian face and using his long tongue to devour the opponent's head, or turning invisible and severing their torso.

[9][22] In Mortal Kombat II (1993), Reptile is now a playable character with the storyline of his being a member of a reptilian race from the fictional dimension of Outworld that was enslaved by its evil emperor Shao Kahn.

In the second tournament, he is assigned to fight Sub-Zero but loses, and during the invasion of Earth in the retold events of Mortal Kombat 3, Reptile is beaten by riot officer Kurtis Stryker in combat.

[31] Reptile joins Ermac, Erron Black, and Ferra/Torr in serving Kotal Kahn as they conflict with Cassie Cage's military unit in their attempt to protect their home realm of Outworld from Shinnok's forces.

[32] In the rebooted storyline of Mortal Kombat 1 (2023), Reptile's race of the Zaterrans is no longer extinct, but he becomes an outcast among his people for his ability to assume a humanlike appearance.

[33] After Titan Shang Tsung and his forces are defeated at the conclusion, the newly crowned Outworld empress Mileena asks Syzoth to be her emissary to the Zaterrans, which allows him to return to his homeland free of shame.

[38] In the 1995 motion picture Mortal Kombat, Reptile appears as a computer-generated bipedal lizard ordered by Shang Tsung to keep Princess Kitana away from the Earth heroes.

Reptile was played by actor and martial artist Keith Cooke,[39] and was a late inclusion in response to focus groups being unimpressed with the film's original fights.

[40] An original character named Komodai, who bore a physical appearance to Reptile, was featured in an episode of the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996).

In 2008, GameSpot wrote that Reptile gives the series "an air of mystery" due to the circumstances behind his first appearance,[51] while CraveOnline listed the battle against him in Mortal Kombat as the fourth-greatest event in video gaming.