Earlier today at New York Comic Con, we had the chance to talk with Graham Fuchs, the executive producer of the recently-announced Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Activision's next installment in the Spider-Man video game franchise. Of course, he couldn't get too specific about the game, but he was able to take a few minutes and give us some details.

So I guess the first thing I'd like to know is about the storyline for this game... is it going to be a new story, is it going to be based on comic stories, or will it take place in the movie universe?

So, this game is based on the comic universe, but this is an all-original story we've created for this game. It's not based on any of the films. Obviously working in the comic universe has given us a lot of freedom to bring in elements from the comics and create our own elements to the story that are really going to allow us to maximize the gameplay that we want to have in the game, so it's been really great.

Will the gameplay be similar to the movie-based Spider-Man games, with the open-world web-slinging, or are you changing the game mechanics a lot?

Well, it's an open-world game, you know, you'll be able to swing around all of New York, but I think we've changed how you play the game a lot. We've completely redone the combat system, there's a lot more verticality in the combat. Our lead game designer likes to say that it's the "most 3-D game ever". So you'll be able to sort of start fights on the ground, fight your way up the side of a building, and wind up on the rooftops, kind of a Spider-Man-y combat feel to it.

We've also given the player a lot of control over what happens in the game and how they kind of face this invasion that's happened. So, the player's gonna have the option to sort of play this from the more heroic point of view, and he'll sort of have to react to things in that way. Or, if he's taking more of the any-means-necessary approach to the invasion, then that's gonna be affected as well.

And there's plenty of other heroes and villains that are in the city that have to deal with this invasion too, so the player's gonna come into contact with a lot of them and sort of how he's dealt with the situation up until then is gonna determine who's with him and who's against him.

Do you have any plans for multiplayer, either online or offline?

No, we're concentrating on making this the best single-player game that we can.

Do you think there will be any kind of downloadable content released down the line for this game, like extra characters or any other kind of bonus content?

It's possible. Yeah. The more people who buy this game, the more downloadable content I'm sure there will be.

Do you have anything else you want to tell us about the game?

Well, I think Spider-Man fans are really going to dig this game. 

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is due out this fall for all major consoles, and it looks like it may have the most interesting storyline of any Spidey game we've seen in recent years. Thanks again to Activision and Graham Fuchs for giving us the new info about what will surely be a highly-anticipated title.