At Comic Con today, executive producer Kudo Tsunoda from EA's Chicago studio shined a bit more light on his team's just announced, still untitled Marvel fighting game. After Tsunoda took the opportunity to make a few lighthearted jabs at EA's coolly received Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, the man partially responsible for Fight Night Round 3 and Def Jam ICON vowed that the team would do its best to break the fighting game mold with their head-to-head brawler.

Tsunoda—wearing sunglasses indoors—told the crowd that EA Chicago wouldn't simply be retrofitting an established fighting engine for the game, instead focusing on using the game's environment as a key component for battles. That doesn't mean that you'll see the beat bouncing, cracking environments from Def Jam ICON, though. Tsunoda said "ICONs a totally different game, but the basic premise in trying to incorporate the environment is a good one. I don't think we'll be going with a "Marvel beats" soundtrack, obviously. We're trying to open up the environment."

He also revealed that characters will be balanced in a fashion true to their Marvel Comics heritage, not simply "using three dials to balance them out." I assume that means that, in a one on one fight, Spider-Man would probably get his ass handed to him in a fight with the Hulk, but taking advantage of his surroundings will determine who is more powerful. "Debris", he says, "will need to be used in creative ways."

Visually, Tsunoda said of the game "We want high end next gen detail, but we want to have its own unique Marvel art style" adding that it "it's not going to look cel-shaded or anything like that." Expect "plenty of detail", but with a Marvel comic book art flair.

Asked by an attendee if the game would be similar to the PlayStation 2 game War of the Monsters, Tsunoda said that that "was a good analogy" but that the giant-monster scale of the new Marvel fighting game didn't apply. Instead, we'll see more street level battles populated with normal bystanders.

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