In a 2006 interview published by Sega-16, former Sega of America employee Scott Berfield stated that the original idea for Eternal Champions was much more humorous and over the top. Characters would have been parodies of various heroic archetypes, while the training mode would have consisted of minigames where the player beats up dwarves in different ways. The character design would have been inspired by the art of British comic book artist Simon Bisley, and in fact Berfield tried to get Bisley himself to do artwork for the game, but this couldn't be done due to scheduling conflicts. Additionally, the gameplay was also going to be different, being closer to that of Street Fighter II. Berfield left Sega of America sometime after the project was greenlit, and it was passed down to then Sega producer Michael "Mike" Latham who decided to make drastic changes to the idea. Shadow Yamato is the only surviving character from the initial concept.