The Settlers still doesn't have a release date, it's obviously still going to be the conversion from a development strategy game to an RTS and beta testers and fans of the series are still showing displeasure in this regard. The development is obviously progressing slowly, as a look at the test server updates shows.
Four years after the announcement, the vision is further away than ever
Ubisoft is still letting the Düsseldorf Blue Byte Studio work on The Settlers – more than four years after the series reboot was presented at Gamescom 2018. Nothing came of a planned publication in autumn 2019 and the postponement to the following year could not be kept. At the beginning of 2021 there was a beta test in which it quickly became clear that the actual development strategy game had been softened into a pseudo-RTS – the reaction of the vast majority of beta testers and critics was bewilderment, disappointment and sometimes anger. Ubisoft then succinctly announced in March that “the quality [of the game] was not yet in line with the team's vision”. The game also obviously no longer matched Volker Wertich's vision – the serial father left the developments because he did not want to approve of Ubisoft's new approach. Settlers have been postponed “to a later date”.
This moment has not yet come at the end of the year, but at least there are regular insights and updates to the technical test server – it is a kind of closed beta program, as part of which selected players can accompany the development of the title . And it turned out: Even after the massive indignation of the settler fans, Ubisoft is sticking to the RTS game concept. And the beta testers and fans are still complaining about Ubisoft under every new blog entry, most recently with an insight into the new research system and just yesterday in the context of test server update number 6.
Along with this comes a new “Extreme Mode” where players can fight waves of oncoming enemies. In addition, engineering units should from now on not always choose the shortest route to the construction site, but if possible travel on their own terrain – a problem that was already known for the closed beta in January 2022. And finally, from now on it should be possible to attend multiplayer games as an observer. Apparently nothing more has happened in the past 14 days – the development is presumably only very sluggish, which causes a lot of mockery in the comments and causes pity for the developers, especially since two of the three adjustments in a classic The Settlers lost nothing anyway had.
Fans of the series are frustrated and Ubisoft resigned
The game is said to be moving further and further away from the concept that was announced in 2018 and that fans of the series want. The beta testers are mostly “massively disappointed”, Ubisoft's approach is described as incomprehensible. Instead, reference is repeatedly made to a desperate petition on change.org to completely overhaul the game once again. Others have realized that in this respect hops and malt are lost and in their resignation at least try to offer advice on how to develop a better RTS. Ubisoft doesn't even try to limit damage anymore – the comments appear completely unmoderated; The publisher or developer usually does not respond to the feedback and comments of the players.
What that ultimately means for Die Siedler is anyone's guess. In the meantime it can be considered not improbable that the game will not only never be released as a building strategy game, but will not be released in any way at all. In any case, they would not even play Ubisoft's reinterpretation for cash, some users comment. Some people would like the game to be discontinued or completely renamed, true to the motto: It's better to have a terrible end than endless horror Ubisoft hasn't been running smoothly lately
Apart from the settler topic, Ubisoft has recently had to deal with numerous failures and glitches. Since the arcade pirate game Skull and Bones, which was already delayed by years, was postponed again – this time until March 2023 – and was not released on November 8th as planned, the Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, which was released exclusively for the Switch on October 20, is Ubisoft's only major new release in the second half of the year. Only Roller Champions started in the summer, although Ubisoft denied rumors of an imminent discontinuation at the end of July, but had to admit further delays in new content .
However, a few months ago it was announced that the open-world action-adventure Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora would be delayed by up to a year and a half, while four developments were canceled before their release. In the fall, the online services of 15 older Ubisoft games will also be discontinued. The remake version of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time also has no release date after some delays. As early as the end of 2021, it became known that Ubisoft was struggling with a serious loss of employees, which is rooted in a chain of internal harassment scandals, a lack of processing and crude crisis management.
All that left its mark: in the summer of 2018, the Ubisoft share peaked at around 100 euros, since then it has been going down. The security is currently available at a unit price of around EUR 27. Even the 300 million euro financial injection from the Chinese investor Tencent could not change that. Tencent now holds over 11 percent of Ubisoft SA.