Injustice: Gods Among Us - pitting the Batmobile against Superman

This isn't the first time Mortal Kombat big cheese Ed Boon has flirted with the DC Universe. One thing made clear by Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, though, was that you can't very well have Superman snapping off Lex Luthor's fingers and feeding them up his nostrils. If Injustice: Gods Amongst Us is going to succeed, it can't rely on all of the elements that made last years MK reboot so successful - crunching X-ray moves and sticky fatalities are definitely out.

This time it's just DC characters, fighting on their own broadly family-friendly terms, so NetherRealm needs a few new gimmicks to keep things interesting. The biggest one revealed so far is the switch from static backgrounds to fully interactive environments. Boon wants every location to feel like a character, stuffed full of weapons and hazards that can be turned to your advantage.

Take the Batcave - lob someone into Bats' weapons rack and grenades will tumble onto the ground, prompting a free-for-all scramble for the explosives. Similarly, finding a moment to tinker with a control panel will swing the Batmobile round, launching rockets at your opponent.

That isn't even the half of it, though. Get a firm enough grip on your sparring partner and you can hurl them through walls and ceilings, and into entirely new areas. To keep things spicy, characters will react to props in different ways. Wonder Woman might use her strength to hurl a car at her foes, whereas Batman will settle for smashing their skulls against the bonnet.

It'll depend on whether the character is in the Power Class, where you'll find heavy hitters like Superman, or the Gadget Class, which includes Batman and other techie types. Some fighters, such as Wonder Woman, can even switch styles in the middle of combat with a single button press.

It's all an extrapolation from classic Mortal Kombat stages like The Pit and the Dead Pool Zone, combined with the multi-level arenas from MK3. Gore might be out of the question in Injustice but the impact remains, illustrated beautifully by Superman lamping The Flash so hard that he launches into space, only to then be unceremoniously hammered back down to terra firma. Dodge that, Billy Whizz.