Before we saw the actual live demo we got some background as to how the team developed the game. They did a ton of research on the period and even their concept artwork was made like how Japanese artist created their work in that time period. We also saw an example of a screenshot from the original Shogun: Total War. While it's still a great game the graphics are certainly blocky and low-res and the user interface is, well, "convoluted" maybe not be enough to describe the tons of icons and menus on screen.

After the background chat, we finally got to see some actual gameplay from Shogun 2: Total War and immediately we got to see what 10 years of tech and experience brings to the table. The E3 2010 demo, which depicted two armies fighting it out, looked absolutely gorgeous with wind and rain effects, impressive lighting and highly detailed units. There are only 40 units in the entire game, mainly because that was the amount that the Japanese had at that time period, However you can expect to see a ton of them on screen. While the Total War series is known for lots of units on the monitor at one time, Shogun 2: Total War has a theoretical maximum of 56,000 units which is four times what The Creative Assembly could squeeze in for their last game Napoleon Total War. The game will support DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and even DirectX 11 graphical features such as tessellation.

As you might imagine the battle sequences in Shogun 2: Total War will be nothing less than epic in scope. We got to see attacks from fire arrow-armed warriors cut down a charging army. We also got to see some horse-riding units out flank their enemies and attack them from behind. The user interface, as one might imagine, is very simple to use in this sequel compared to Shogun: Total War. There's little in terms of icons and menus here. We also got to see a brief look at how the naval vessels in Shogun 2: Total War will look like. Japanese ships for the time period didn't use sails so the way they will perform in battle will be much different than the naval battles in Empire: Total War.

While The Creative Assembly isn't talking much about multiplayer they did say to expect many of the things they have made for previous Total War games to appear in Shogun 2: Total War. They also hinted at an all new multiplayer gameplay mode that sounds like it will be very different. AI in the game will be improved and will hopefully be more aggressive than previous entries in the series. You can also expect to see downloadable content for the game to be made available post release.

Shogun 2: Total War, in short, looks incredible and based on our eyes-on look at the early build looks to be very fun to play as well. At the moment the development team is only saying the game will come out in 2011. Based on the E3 2011 demo we think The Creative Assembly will be allowed to have the time to make Shogun 2: Total War the best game in the series.