Sonya Blade is a character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. She debuted in the original 1992 game as the roster's sole female fighter, a military officer with the Special Forces. In the storyline of the games, Sonya becomes involved with the eponymous Mortal Kombat tournament through the pursuit of her archenemy, the criminal leader Kano. She subsequently joins the warriors defending Earthrealm and establishes a government agency dedicated to battling otherworldly threats. The series' rebooted timeline also depicts her as the love interest to martial arts actor Johnny Cage and the mother of their daughter Cassie.

A mainstay of the franchise, Sonya has also appeared in various media outside of the games. Reception of the character has been generally positive, regarding her role as one of Mortal Kombat's primary female fighters. However, some of her outfits in the games have received criticism.

The original 1992 Mortal Kombat game initially featured six playable characters. According to series co-creator and programmer Ed Boon, a seventh was added by developers Midway Games after the president of Williams granted them an additional six weeks to "polish the game" following successful testing. The new character was named "Stryker" until the developers decided they needed a female character, which resulted in Sonya being added and given Stryker's storyline of a Special Forces agent pursuing Kano. Sonya was named after one of Boon's sisters, and was inspired by martial artist and actress Cynthia Rothrock. Rothrock later claimed that, following Midway's unsuccessful attempt to hire her to play Sonya in the original game, the company added her likeness and moves to the game without her consent. In a 1995 interview, series co-creator John Tobias compared Sonya to Street Fighter character Chun-Li in including her in the game, opining that regardless of character gender, "if you make them cool, people will play them."

According to Tobias, Sonya and Kano were chosen the least by players of the first game and were thus omitted from the 1993 sequel Mortal Kombat II, but were added as unplayable background characters as Tobias still wanted them in the game. Two female ninja characters, Kitana and Mileena, were added in her stead. Sonya and Kano returned as playable characters for Mortal Kombat 3 (1995). Tobias explained that Midway's objective was to make the game's characters equal in terms of playability, and believed that male players "aren't so macho that they're afraid to pick Sonya, because they know they can stay in the game with her and they can't with somebody else." The action-adventure spin-off game Mortal Kombat: Special Forces (2000) was to have Sonya as a selectable character along with Jax, but she was dropped due to deadline issues exacerbated by Tobias's sudden departure from Midway in 1999 due to his dissatisfaction with the game's production.

NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway Games) art director Steve Beran said of Sonya in the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot game, "When you look at the version of Sonya or Scorpion from the first Mortal Kombat, it's almost laughable how simple their costumes were. You have to give fans the recognizability of their favorite characters, but make it not look like Sonya's wearing a leotard and workout clothes". Tobias said in 2012 that he created "characters like Liu Kang or Shang Tsung, who represented the more mystical sides of the story" of the original series, "and Johnny Cage, Sonya or Jax, who came from places grounded more in reality...[Sonya and Kitana] were both important pieces of the game's fiction and archetypal structure of characters. But, player demographic was primarily a hardcore male audience and so the look and design of our female characters pandered to them back then just as they do today."

Sonya was played by fitness instructor Elizabeth Malecki in the first game, but she and several other actors from the digitized Mortal Kombat games later filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Midway over unpaid royalties from the home versions of the game and the unauthorized use of their likenesses. She was consequently replaced by Kerri Hoskins for Mortal Kombat 3. Hoskins, whose martial arts training consisted of "some Tang Soo Do and a past of WWF wrestling and gymnastics", had previously appeared in the Midway releases NBA Jam and Revolution X. She additionally played Sonya in the 1995-96 theatrical show Mortal Kombat: Live Tour, for which she underwent additional martial arts and gymnastics training. She explained in a 2010 interview that the show worked to emphasize getting young audiences into the martial arts, while she and the show's other actors would give motivational speeches to schoolchildren.

Motion capture for the character was provided by Hoskins in Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat 4, and by Midway graphics artist Carlos Pesina for the three-dimensional games Mortal Kombat: Deception and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. She was played by actress Lorrisa Julianus in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot, and Mortal Kombat X. Kara Davidson played the character in Mortal Kombat 11.

Sonya was voiced by Peg Burr from the original Mortal Kombat to Mortal Kombat 4. She was voiced by Beth Melewski for the beat-'em-up spinoff game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, by Dana Lyn Baron in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and the 2011 series reboot, and by Tricia Helfer in Mortal Kombat X. In Mortal Kombat 11, Sonya was voiced by mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey, and Bridgette Wilson, who played Sonya in the 1995 motion picture Mortal Kombat, provided her voice and likeness for a downloadable character skin inspired by the film.