'It's still going to be a game of epic scale,' says Kieran Brigden, the company's communications manager. Japan's geographically small, but that doesn't mean Creative Assembly are thinking that way.

Since the original Total War maps have been getting bigger, culminating in Empire's globe-spanning effort. Japan is also different in a more obvious way to what's come before. In the winter, you obviously have the snow-covered buildings and the entire battlefield is white.' So, for example, in spring you have the cherry blossoms, and you can see petals blowing away from the trees. 'We're going very much for the archetype of what people would see if they were in Japan. So you actually get the changing environments and the way those environments work. 'One example would be the passing of the seasons,' Russell says, 'because we have four seasons in a campaign year. That's reflected all the way through the game, in terms of wood blocks and prints that appear on various screens how the actual way the battlefields themselves work and look, and the campaign map.'įar Eastern art is very different to what we're used to in the West and Shogun 2 is going to really go to town on representing this exotic feel throughout the game. 'I think we're just pushing as hard as we possibly can to capture the entire feel and look of feudal Japan, while creating something that's vivid and beautiful. 'It's basically the game we wanted to make right at the beginning,' says Shogun 2's lead game designer Kamie Russell. It's your job to be deemed worthy of that role and to control the Emperor like a puppet, much like the medieval Papacy was the lapdog of any number of medieval European kings.

In Japan the Emperor holds ultimate power, except he can be easily manipulated by his nominated warlord, the titular Shogun.

The essentials will be pretty much the same - take control of one of eight factions vying for control of the Land of the Rising Sun, build up your armies and economy until none can stand in your way. There's more to this sequel to the beloved and now-ancient Shogun than floating boxes. And those are just the smaller ones - there are also castles-on-water, which sound too awesome to be true. Two big canoes crash into each other, dozens of samurai spilling onto each deck, hacking each other to bits with their razor-sharp swords. That might sound like a stupid thing to be excited about, but just think of the possibilities. It's the boats and the fact they'll be like floating sheds. The Best Thing that's come out about Sliogun 2: Total War hasn't got anything to do with ninja, koku, daimyo or those sorts of things.

Total war: shogun 2 steam price history