The Creative Assembly’s follow up to 2011’s Total War Shogun 2, Fall of the Samurai has been making some waves recently in the online gaming circles. A video, albeit in German from GameStar, has surfaced showing off some of this expansion’s newest additions to the Total War franchise (you can watch the video embedded below). Some things that were noticed in the video:

 

The graphics, specifically the textures and character models have received a face-lift. The unit models appear to have lost their “glossy” look from Shogun 2. The campaign/battle map textures, user interface, and unit cards have all been updated. Simply put, the game looks much better than Shogun 2 – a game that looked stunning at launch last year.

 

Gameplay wise, the speed of the battles seemed to have been reduced to a more realistic pace. This was a complaint from many players of Shogun 2; battles were just too fast and seemed somewhat “arcadey”. Also noted, the clashes between the modern era gunpowder units and the feudal era units appeared balanced. You would expect modern line infantry to easily deal with the “old-school” spear/sword units, but this was not the case from the little tidbits that were seen.

 

Due to the change in time period, the naval battles have been changed drastically. No longer will you control kobayas with archers firing from the deck. You will have access to the fearsome Ironclad warships, steam-powered and armed with cannons. These ships also appeared to have the ability to bombard cities that are under siege, a new element that hasn’t been seen before in Total War games.

 

 Ooh, explosions and fire!