Last month during out annual trek to check out all the games at E3 we got to see Shogun 2: Total War up close in a behind-closed-doors demo meeting with folks from the development team at The Creative Assembly. At the time we remarked on the game's graphics saying that the historical RTS title "looked absolutely gorgeous with wind and rain effects, impressive lighting and highly detailed units.'

Now the game's publisher Sega has released the first gameplay trailer from Shogun 2: Total War. While the trailer is basically a cut scene it does use the in-game engine to render the action. As you can see above the visuals are perhaps the best we have ever seen for an RTS game. Shogun 2: Total War is still a long way off with a scheduled release date of sometime in 2011.