Checking out early videos of Bladestorm, Koei's forthcoming next-gen battlefield epic, anyone would be forgiven for assuming that more of the same was in store. The game focuses on Europe rather than the Far East, with the two opposed sides being France and England and the conflict the Hundred Years War.
Bladestorm is actually a remarkable departure for Koei's battle games. It feels like what might happen if you asked the team behind Dynasty Warriors to make a medieval strategy game - which, in fact, is probably exactly what happened. The game draws on the action heritage of Dynasty Warriors, certainly, but at its heart this is a strange hybrid between real-time strategy and RPG.
The demo for this game was pretty fun. Too bad I can't read japanese.