Data Becker recently sent us a larger press demo that includes five missions from the full game. Those who haven't heard of Highland Warriors yet, it's a real-time strategy game that brings together the great battles between Scotland and England with some of the most innovative gaming technology available today. You begin as the MacKay clan, attempting to unite a divided, clan ruled Scotland under one flag. During the next campaign the player becomes English and is fighting to enslave Scotland for England. Following the English Campaign, William Wallace leads the Cameron Clans Campaign's, sparking the Scottish revolution. Finally, gamers take command of the MacDonald Clan and with Robert the Bruce, finally unite Scotland under one crown.

Honestly I didn't expect much, but the demo really impressed me. You can almost believe that there were wild Scots or arrogant English performing such missions 700 years ago. The game plays very much like most real-time strategy games, you have to gather resources like food, minerals, wood to fuel the creation of numerous civil (town center, mill, farm, mines) and military buildings (barracks) and units (farming peasants, builders, swordsmen, armored cavalry, axe warriors, longbowmen...) You can actually upgrade these units to become master in one particular task, such as building, cutting down wood and farming. There are four races in Highland Warriors: the English, The Mystics (The MacKay Clan), The Merchants (The MacDonald Clan) and The Warriors (The Cameron Clan). Each race has dramatically different combat units that have unique strengths and weaknesses as well as sharing some of the more basic units and buildings.

Graphically, Highland Warriors looks really impressive, the ATLAS engine, developed by Soft Enterprises specifically for this game, really rocks with its high poly counts for the units, flame effects for the burning of building and 3D terrain. Everything seemed to be top notch (controlling over your view point, zooming and panning), except the camera that still needs some work (it doesn't zoom out far enough + some glitches). That's why I've grabbed so many screenshots from this build :) Also controls are simple, intuitive. If you ever played any RTS game, you really don't need tutorial :) From what I've seen, Highland Warriors looks like a very promising title! I cannot wait for the final version to see the campaigns, other races, multiplayer and map editor.

You probably noticed that public playable demo of Highland Warriors has just been released so you can check it out. The full  game will ship February 14th 2003, two weeks after Europe's January 31st 2003 release date. For more information about this game you can also check our earlier interview and visit Highland Warriors official website.

Update (25 Nov) : Data Becker sent us an addition info about the release date: "There is not a universal date for release. The Germany will release around the 15th of January and the rest of Europe soon after. The US release will be January 22."