Hello dear “The Settlers” fans,
Since the announcement that “The Settlers” are back, we have received an overwhelming amount of comments, feedback and suggestions.
There are so many “The Settlers” fans out there who love the many different aspects of the game. Be it the economic part, the military, the look and feel, the “wuselfaktor” or the inviting world – to name a few. We are incredibly grateful for your feedback, and over the last few months, while performing playtests and diary studies, one thing became clear: while we are on the right path to deliver a great game, we really want to deliver an exceptional gaming experience.
Since quality is our main priority, we want to take the time necessary to make it right. Therefore, we had to make the difficult decision to postpone the release of the game until further notice. The additional time will be used to address your feedback and deliver the best “The Settlers” game possible. While we cannot provide a new release date yet, rest assured we will keep you updated via The Settlers Alliance and our other channels as soon as we can give you further information.
Thanks for your understanding and patience.
Cheers,
Your “The Settlers” Team
Due to the uncertainity of the release I asked for a refund prior to Ubisoft refunding anyway. I am also a big Settlers fan and these set backs and delays are rather disappointing and frustrating. I have all the settlers series and was so excited to learn that another serial was coming out.
Now I’m wondering if there is a new settlers at all. Seems to me that there must be a lot of problems with the game as it currently stands. The other thing is that you can only please some of the people some of the time. As much as its nice that you listen to your settlers players/fans it would a folly to think that you can incorporate everything us players suggest. However, I am prepared to wait until the end of this year, then I will be giving up on the game ever being released.
As for a closed beta that would be wonderful, at least us oldies that have played the game since its inception, and i have played the online version since it was a locked beta. So the previous requests for a closed beta would be the best thing right now to keep your customers/settlers players involved and give them some hope that the game will come out at some stage, maybe.
Honestly, lets get some reality happening with this issue, someone at Ubisoft must know more than you lot are telling us. So come on Ubisoft, lets get real and tell us honestly whether this game is real or not.
Obviously someone at Ubisoft knows more than this team, they are only creating the game they are not in charge of whether or not this gets priority over their blockbuster games, e.g. Assassins Creed. Don’t blame the Settlers team blame the corporate suits who are controlling how many resources this team has and therefore how fast this can go.
I’m glad that you’re committed to taking your time although as an avid strategy gamer I am disappointed. Recently we’ve seen all these gaming announcements and reveals from Ubisoft, but as I was watching some of the trailers I couldn’t help but think, where’s The Settlers? So with this announcement it really has come as no surprise.
The frustrating truth is that the strategy genre is still not being taken seriously by big developers despite a re-emerging and growing market. I bet the bosses at Ubisoft were genuinely surprised by how well Anno 1800 has done. It’s one of my favourite games of all time, but for the bosses at Ubisoft it’s mostly about the big blockbuster FPS and open world games which can be great, but why can’t strategy get the same attention? Who’s to say that a strategy game can’t still make big bucks for a company? The new console generation, particularly the Xbox is modelling off the PC! Also the goodwill from players such as myself that comes with making great strategy games is priceless for a company. It’s one of the reasons I like Ubisoft as opposed to developers like EA who used to develop strategy games that were really fun. No more…
I say all this only because I am a fan of the strategy genre and I know that there is so much potential. I’d like to think that we can rekindle some of the good old days in the late 90s and early 00s which to me is the golden age of strategy. I felt there was a bit of that spark with Anno 1800.
Of course I might be completely wrong and there are genuine issues to development, but I can’t help but think, given how strategy games have fallen by the way side in recent years, that the real issue is The Settlers is not being taken seriously by Ubisoft. It’s certainly not taken as seriously as AC or Farcry that’s for sure. If time and resources where put into the game it’d be ready by now. This was originally intended for a 2019 launch I believe.
Anyway with all this extra time to think about development, it’s very difficult as a fan of The Settlers series to give a proper analysis on what I’d like to see given that I haven’t seen much of it so far. All in all, The Settlers 3 and 4 were my favourites although I understand this is taking aspects from The Settlers 2? Haven’t played 1 and 2 so difficult to say!
One thing I will say is that it’s important in any strategy game to have a balance between macro and micro. So for instance the city building and managing the economy could be the macro elements whereas RTS style combat is more micro. A mix of the two is what makes a great strategy game.
Going by Anno 1800, the reason why it did better than 2205 was because you stuck to what made the game great to begin with and then built upon those elements. One thing that I believe was taken out of 2205, along with the archipelagos, was the RTS style naval combat (and I don’t mean the mini game RTS stuff that was in there to compensate). This makes a return in 1800 and adds another layer of gameplay and enjoyment. It makes building up your islands and trade networks all the more meaningful. Yes the city building is arguably the main aspect, but to take away the RTS elements takes away some of the meaning behind the city building. I like the idea of having an empire with a sense of power in the game. That’s very fun and building a military adds to that and many other players.
This is the kind of thinking that I would suggest you have with The Settlers. Stick to what made the game successful and build on that. Combine city building and RTS combat. The city building should take precedent over RTS combat else it would be more like Age of Empires, but don’t neglect the combat.
Hey, take your time and really looking forward to a game that is finished and not half-broken on release! Hopefully I will enjoy your game soon as I havent seen a good RTS game for many many years…
Make a game that will be a legacy, as there is an opportunity for that right now and please no micro-transaction if its gonna be a full game release :).
So this means that this game is officially dead.
Despite the apparent lack of other nations in the game I had high hopes for it.
But now with total refund Ubisoft killed another game what cannot be turned into microtransaction money printing machine.
RIP.
For what it’s worth to anyone reading this. For as far as i’m aware, laws are in place that enforce any game that is available for pre-order to be released within the year of it’s pre-order announcement. So the fact that people were refunded implies that the game will most likely not be coming out this year and probably not any time soon in 2021.
I am really disappointed. The game looked pretty much ready back in Autumn 2019, when it was close to its initial release date. I can understand a few months delay needed to polish some elements, but this is becoming disturbing. How come you were able to show a few hours of decent looking gameplay over 9 months ago and now suddenly are postponing the game indefinitely and refunding the preorders?
To put it into some perspective – since you have announced the game, I have managed to get married, get my wife pregnant, have my daughter born and she is already learning to walk by now.
Please, please just promise me one thing – when the game is finally ready, its still going to be ‘the Settlers’, not some half-hearted sudden project like Champions of Anteria (not that I would have anything against it in general, but I was already waiting for a new Settlers back then, and the change was disappointing to say the least).
I can wait as long as it takes but why not take advantage of this delay to Beta Test your game on Stadia. I’m one of those people who can’t justify buying a new computer to just play the one game. Stadia is offering me an alternative and I’ve read that Ubisoft is standing by this new platform. I’m lucky to have a low latency and good speed so I’d really like to trial Settlers through Stadia. Please consider this suggestion as you might get more traction once you release the game…
I guess many of us prefer a good game then a broken game,
There was once an option that you could join a test game, I was apparently too late, was form this guy “Percky” from youtube. I think the video is offline tho.
Why havent been more of those? if you want to have good feedback you should include your own community, atm were only able to react on some screenshots of new buildings? Or getting a “inspiring” video of how the art director is decorating his house..
How it’s done right:
Open some maps/levels, include gamers to experience it on their own?
Like you can with Steam Early acces.
Why this isn’t done right:
First you start a new settlers hype, then you delay and delay even more, now you pull back. Some advise don’t start a hype if you can’t deliver
Maybe you should make a video of Meet the team – why we are delaying instead of a post without even a date stamp :/
Nando Dolleman – frustrated fan
Hi The Settlers team,
While I understand and appreciate the reasons for the delay. I’m disappointed that I was not given the choice of getting a refund or just leaving my preorder there for when the game is ready. It might mean that I now don’t purchase the game at all. Not a smart move for sales.
Man that sucks, thought I’d finally get to play this year 🙁
More importantly do right by the series and we’ll all be happy when it releases.
I received a letter to refund the price of the game within 14 working days.
I’M REALLY SORRY
Nice to finally hear something and just like most people, I don’t mind waiting a bit longer to get a better product. Would be nice to give a little bit of hint on when it’s expected to be out, but as a software developer myself I know it can be hard to give an exact time on when it’s done
Considering the last “Release date” we had just said 2020, I guess this means that we should not expect to see this game this year.
I do wonder what kind of feedback they got, would love to see an article where they mention some of those things they changed
Given the complexity of a game like The Settlers where all game mechanics play together and even small changes makes us take into consideration various elements, we can’t say what will change exactly.
As some already introduced features may change, we will stop weekly / monthly updates for the time being and will post updates as soon as we can.
Thanks for the update and appreciate you want to give us the best experience, but why would you have not given the people who preordered the choice whether to refund or not? I’m sure others, like myself, were happy to wait and perhaps as said above, give us a beta version?
thanks,
As we can’t name a new release window and because there might be changes to some of the features of the game, we judged it was fairer to cancel preorders made on the Ubisoft Store and we advised our partners to do the same
I appreciate the decision but why refund and cancelling my pre-order i can wait until the game releases and thank you for yours efforts
No problem – I’ll wait until 2099 if necessary 🙂
With all the news recently about unhealthy ‘crunch’ periods coercing game developers to work extremely long hours to meet deadlines, to the detriment of their mental and physical health (of which Ubisoft is an offender) and all in the name of ‘profits’, I for one do NOT mind about the release date being pushed back. This game will be amazing when it comes out but it is not more important than the well being of the humans that make it. Take as long as you need, and thanks for keeping us in the loop.
Really sad news, I’ve expecting the game for 2 years by now. But if I can make a suggestions, we fans would love to have access to a Closed Beta to test the game and appoint bugs and help finishing the game, give us the chance to do that!
truly am sad but i LOVE you guys at dusseldorf and even the settlers games are older than i have been alive and will wait as log as it takes! cheers guys!
When I pre-ordered the game nearly one year ago, I was not expecting having to wait this long. I love the Settlers series and this news comes as a big disappointment to me. I understand the given explanation and respect the decision, but the fact that we still don’t have a realistic timeline is really frustrating I must say. But rather a quality game developed with attention for all the small details, other than a game that was rushed to the finishline. Long story short: very mixed feelings.
Came here to find out why I’d got a refund on my pre-order.
Looking forward to eventually playing the game, I appreciate you taking the time to make it as good as it can be!
I have not (yet) seen a refund on my pre-oder. I wonder if they are proactively refunding all the pre-orders? If so, that’s not very promissing 🙁
As we can’t name a new release window and because there might be changes to some of the features of the game, we judged it was fairer to cancel preorders made on the Ubisoft Store and we advised our partners to do the same
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