It hasn’t been easy being a real-time strategy fan in recent years. Glimmers of hope like Iron Harvest and Age of Empires 4 were the rare bright spots, disasters like Warcraft 3 Reforged the rule. Ubisoft’s latest Settlers instalment was supposed to turn the tide in 2022, but after enormous criticism of gameplay and design decisions, it has now been announced that it will be delayed again.
Is the turnaround in the further development of The Settlers coming now?
Originally, The Settlers was supposed to be released this month, on 17 March 2022. This will now probably come to nothing, because as the developers of (Ubisoft Blue Byte) announced in an official statement, the release of the eighth Settlers part will be postponed to an unknown date in the future.
This is sad news, which one should almost be used to after the numerous, most recently pandemic-related postponements of the last few years. But here there is another reason. After the official The Settlers Closed Beta, the opinion of the players and testers was very clear. There was enormous criticism and dissatisfaction with the state of the game. Above all, the oversimplification of gameplay mechanics, especially in the economy, as well as the design decision not to integrate playable historical, but rather fantasy peoples, pissed off many beta testers.
Hello dear “The Settlers” fans, we would like to share an important update with you. pic.twitter.com/zxEXZS2pme
– The Settlers (@TheSettlersEN) March 3, 2022
Apparently, after such a backlash and so many valid points, the wise decision has been made at Ubisoft to take a further look at the game and maybe even rework some basic stuff. Hopefully, The Settlers will not only get some cosmetic polish, but also a minor overhaul and a return to its former glory. Since there is no new official release date, one can only speculate whether it will happen this year. Or whether the developers want to completely overhaul the latest part of the (German) strategy game institution Die Siedler. This of course makes it difficult to estimate a completion date and the additional necessary work on the game, which is why, unlike Cyberpunk 2077 for example, we don’t yet get a new release date.
However, this could still change and a second beta is conceivable in order to get the fans’ opinion again. Because sometimes developers do well to listen. Whether this is also the case with The Settlers remains to be seen.
