Tom Clancy's EndWar

"We wanted the left stick to give you direct control of the units and move around with them, but we never quite got that to the level where it was feeling right," reveals de Plater. "So we reached a point where we gave up on that feature, which freed us up to put the free camera in." Amen to that.

Although not on display at UbiDays, the team does share more details on the ambitious persistent online element to EndWar. You choose one of three factions - the US, Russia and Europe - pick a general and a speciality, say, airborne, and each day there will be battles raging across 40 territories online. "It's like a giant game of Risk," explains Gerighty.

"Every day you choose which and how many battles you face. Maybe 100,000 battles are fought in New York City, and 60,000 are won by Europe - it then becomes a Euro territory." A companion website will launch to supplement and follow the action online, and you'll pick up experience points win-or-lose, which contribute to your ongoing war effort. There's scope for teaming up with three others for four-on-four or co-op versus battles, with AI waiting in the wings to fill any empty slots for the lonely and spurned.

"I reckon this is a game that'll be like Rainbow Six - people will really play," Gerighty asserts. "The single-player game is about 20-odd hours of gameplay there, but the multiplayer we're very excited about. It's very much like a sports game, like a championship. The replayability is honestly where it's at. That's what we're really looking at, and the DLC will just influence that - and we're big believers in DLC." No details on exactly what the downloadable content will consist of just yet.

15,000 gamers across the globe are currently being lined up to "stress test" the online component, so it's as slick and as solid as can be come release in October.

At this stage, and with still relatively little direct experience of the game, the novelty of voice command is a big part of EndWar's charm. But really, the system seems so flexible and integral to the experience that, while you can just use the pad, one wonders why you'd want to bother.

Depth is a question that cannot yet be adequately answered. The team has been quite clear in its rejection of what is sees as the more mundane and unnecessary micromanagement "housekeeping" of core PC RTS titles: it's making this game not just for a console audience, but one which may have previously recoiled in horror at the prospect of a strategy title.

As de Plater has it: "The two big reasons we encounter as to why people don't like strategy games are: one, that they're too complex; and two, that they kind of look boring. Hopefully for those people, if they give it a go with the demo, they'll find those things are addressed." And he'd know, being a veteran of Creative Assembly's Total War series.

And the demo, when it comes later this year, will be crucial in making up the minds of the many swing voters out there: this is a game that may sound impressive on paper, but clearly needs to be played in order to 'get it'.

We have played it, we're really enthusiastic about what we've seen so far and can't wait to put this brave new step for the Clancy brand to the test with some rigorous in-depth play. But with another four months before release, Ubi's war machine is an increasingly mouth-watering prospect.

What a difference a delay makes.