Ninety-Nine Nights trailer

Tetsuya Mizuguchi may not quite be a household name in the West, but the news earlier this year that the developer of Space Channel 5, Rez and Lumines was creating games for Xbox 360 certainly made waves around our paddock - and seemed to be the surest sign yet that Microsoft was taking serious steps to establish its development credentials in Japan. Or at least to win us over.

His first project - a collaboration between his Q Entertainment studio and Korean outfit Phantagram - was unveiled at E3 earlier this year, resembling a cross between Dynasty Warriors and the Lord of the Rings movies. Today we have a brief teaser trailer showing off just the sort of thing it's capable of: hundreds of on-screen units in glorious high-detail.

Although firm gameplay details remain elusive, Mizuguchi's stock gives him a lot of credibility when he tells us that the game engine can handle up to 2,000 characters on-screen simultaneously. Players will be able to command the legions of units involved, but also select individual characters and experience unique storylines within the conflict depending on the selection.

Story-wise, we're told that in a "land of harmony" great disorder is created when a powerful stone brings fear to the world and those 99 days of night-like darkness. Daylight returns on the 100th day, and presumably with it brings the dawn of a terrible conflict. We certainly hope so. Judging by the trailer, it'll be quite explosive; indeed, one attack sends waves of infantry flying through the air in spectacular fashion creating a mushroom cloud of bodies that radiate out from the blast.

Ninety-Nine Nights - we're counting the days.