Despite featuring an impressive new graphics engine, the freshly-announced Rome II: Total War - scheduled for release in late 2013 - is aiming to run at the same minimum specification level of its 2011 predecessor Shogun 2.

"We're absolutely determined to use every ounce of power we get, and to use everything that the most powerful rigs can offer now and in a year's time," said Rome II lead designer James Russell to VideoGamer.com. "But at the same time we know people play on all sorts of machines, people play on laptops more and more, so we're determined to stay accessible to people that don't necessarily have the best new machines.

"Our objective is not to change the minimum spec for Shogun 2. We're doing everything we can to keep the game accessible, we don't want to push that minimum spec up from what it was with Shogun 2."

This focus on accessibility isn't looking to dampen the game's ability to bedazzle those with high-end PC's either, and the studio is hoping to make the already tempting game look better during the rest of its development and optimisation process. "The demo's running on a seriously big machine," says Russell.

"So though it's a monster rig, and yeah it's a brand new engine in many respects - we've got a new lighting model, we've got a new particle system, we're going to have a new sound engine as well which isn't even properly up and running yet."

"There's a lot more work to do, and it's going to look way better by the time we're done."

VideoGamer.com has also rounded up everything we've discovered in Rome II into one lengthy post.

Rome II: Total War is scheduled for release on PC in late 2013.