@macdeiv speaking the truth

@ubi-barbalatu the promo clips of the current build are still being posted, I don't understand why Ubi still promotes what there is now when there is so much criticism from the fanbase. And why not directly put out a statement or some explanation on what's going on and how to improve? Is it automated or is it a different team who posts the video's? I'm confused, we gave you all the input during beta testing and are expecting an official statement of Ubisoft. Hopefully there will be a rework towards the 2019 version because the potential of the game was so huge and visible in that pre-alpha build. There was so much stuff to love, mentioned in some previous posts. Please don't rush this game and thereby kill it's potential, I'm speaking out of love for the Settlers franchise and don't want to be negative but it just needs lots of improvement to make it a good Settlers game. Hopefully we hear from you soon.

@wadmauz ooof, discouraging to hear.

This needs major changes…

How difficult it is to believe that the community is being listened to, or will be listened to. when social networks turn a deaf ear to everything that has happened. Nothing written in this forum and nothing said in the survey has been useful?
I don't think ignoring your most loyal player base is a good decision before launching a product.

Hi,

just from watching and reading reviews, this is my input. Life-long fan of Settlers 2, 3 and 4 writing.

First, and probably last post on such a forum. This is not a habit of mine, but I feel the need to speak up in this case. Sorry if it is a bit harsh.

Settlers should have a belly. They should also not look like they are running. This might be the most important point, for the "Settlers-feeling" (hehe)
Resources should be transported from A to B. Preferable without a road (my personal opinion)
Armies should not walk in formation
Resources should not be forever lasting, but with methods to find other or increase (like with magic in S4)
Economy is what makes the Settlers different from other, perhaps more successfull RTS games, but still.
Towers defends a "safe" piece of land upon which to build buildings. Until said tower is captured - your loss.
More detailed settlers management, I feel this is a given. Look to the S4, both in interface and in settlers management. It works!

On a positive note - the graphics doesn't look that bad. I still think it would be better with even more cartoonish, and bring some levels in the maps for god sakes. Make mountains to make mines on, not just patches of dry earth on the land..

Holy smokes, this looks like a bad Empire Earth or Age of Empire. It looks like Ubisoft wants to make the Settlers more suited for e-sports? What is that? The Settlers is the cozy, no stress RTS out there. The public (the Settlers fans) have referenced S2, S3 and S4 for ages now. Everytime a new "Settlers-game" have been launched it has been... a different game.. I believe the fans wants nostalgia, they want the 2/3/4 with some new features in a new package. A game model which I personally believe will find its way to new fans also, by the way.

I'm still playing S4 on a weekly basis, by the way. Right now I am introducing my wife (who hates fast-going RTS, but loves the cozy graphics, the no stress-factor and the city/economy-building. Our kids is still a bit young, but S2/S3/S4 will be one of the first RTS games I will introduce them to, when coming of age.

@ubi-barbalatu Is there anything you CAN share?

Yeah... I think that's it. There have been no new information this week (although appareantly they said there would) - I think whoever is in charge of this project has taken "The Settler" hostage, and man, there is nothing we can do to solve this. This game will be recently in this state it is now (maybe with some smaller changes which will not save the game). Nobody will play it except few people who think it is the old version or who just saw "The Settlers" as a title and that's it. It will not generate enough profit to be sustainable and it will be dropped. Thanks UbiSoft: the absolut incompetence is infuriating - only you can make a "Must have" to "Do you really expect me to pay for this". They know what the solution is but they just do not care to solve it.

Well, I wish they would have released this game back in 2021 just imagine it: You start exploring an unknown world, building your settlement into a massive kingdom and manage the everyday life and production of your settlers. - Giant fortifications and fortresses to defend against hostiles, arena matches for the glory of your kingdom... It could have been awesome.

But no! Ubisoft decided to go with the game down into the basement, put a g** into its mouth and p***** the t****** (Sorry, will censor this so UbiSoft will not get "funny" ideas). Yeah man, now we get the worst settlers we will ever see and also the last one. Because even when there would be a third attempt they will do exactly the same: Make it into a clone of some other game. It's over - the game will never have the potential it showed in 2019. It is a souless, uninspired AoE4 wanne-be cash grab with in-game shop for skins and later down the line NFTs. That's it there is nothing more to say what has not been already said. I am going to play TWW3 now, because they managed to stay true to the potential and even improved on that - Fully recommend it: 10/10.

P.S: The settlers 10 will be a Total war clone. You heard it here first.

@oldtokken24 I find it sad that game may not be perfect but may make active the franchise once again. Unfortunately , when you release something so bad you finish the franchise future. Happened to Heroes of Might and Magic franchise as an example.

As other person said in another post, the game was like 60% complete, they added like some general stuff to finish it and then launch it without feedback

Also, you notice how low is expectation that some sites that suggest other download options are not even interested on making it "More easier" to download

@ubi-barbalatu

i am an old player of the settlers 3 ..

Considering you missed 90% of the essential part of this wonderful old game the settler 1, 2, 3, 4.. i would suggest you to keep the graphisms team and fire all the guys who tried to make the settler a RTS ...
Sincerely, i spent dozens and dozens hours on The settlers 3, i spent no more than 30 minutes on the beta, enough to understand that you tried to surf on the RTS and competitive games waves, the biggest mistake of 2021 games, people are sick about fast games.

We want slow and complex games that can occupy us for hours !!!! Just like firsts The settlers were able to !!!

Why all of this !!? :

• Short building chains [censored] ?
• Building grid [censored] ?
• No forester [censored] ?
• One guy to expend, search for mineral and for construction, [censored] ?
• Flat montains with single mineral point [censored] ?
• No axe, no pickaxe, no shovel, no hammer, no farm tools, no saw, ONLY ONE MULTIFUNCTION TOOL, are you kidding ?
• 2 tower, 0 land expension, [censored] ?
• Ressources to the closest building, [censored] ?

The better thing to do ?? delete the settlers 2020/2021, try again and follow strictly The settlers 3 and 4 and you will not loose all The settlers fans ...

A The settlers old fan.

@legolaserdu77 More likely, they gave up on developing the game until some guy came along and said: "Hey, we don't need to finish this, we can just package up 2-3 of the finished game play loops, cut the rest, and go to marketing."

@Ubi-Barbalatu
Longtime Settlers 2/3/4 fan here. Seeing all the feedback is really making me wonder what is it that I want from this game. And I think it's: Anno depth in a Settlers context.

Looking back at the evolution of the franchise, I dropped off when Settlers went more in the RTS direction. Meanwhile, the studio continued to hone their craft in economic gameplay with the Anno series. Anno 1800 is one of the best games I've played because I enjoy the economic depth. That said, Settlers has a certain charm being more down-to-earth (literally boots on the ground), shorter skirmishes rather than massive campaigns, and a "new world" exploration vibe without being too imperialistic.

Saying that you're staying true to the roots of the franchise and simplifying economic gameplay is inconsistent. If you were a gamer playing this game 20 years ago, you're probably still a gamer today, and we enjoyed hex grids back then because it was the best of what we got, not because we couldn't handle the complexity. For example, I actually like it when placement can get a bit messy because I can work on being good at optimizing it. A modernization of the experience would be enhancing the economic gameplay with the potential for new depth, while removing tedious mechanical annoyances.

And I'm not sure if all the esports comments is just community speculation, but I really hope that's not the direction. AoE4 did an amazing job of this at launch including a lot of community engagement, and jury is still out on whether it will be the next RTS esports game. Doing it halfway will kill a franchise that's already in the gutter. There's something here that could be great, I hope you guys find it.

@ubi-barbalatu There is still not an update, no big surprise since it is pretty standard behaviour of AAA game developers to just dont work together with their player base.
There is however an interview kind of video i found today, which reveals atleast some more information i couldnt find anywhere else.

TLDR: 6maps on launch, with more being generated and manually tweaked by devs before adding them into a game.

• not much more from the video really, but this is a good news for replaybility.

Not going to change the overall unfinished picture on the game but well some good news are better than nothing i guess?

The "interview" is 2 weeks old and is in english

Dann hoffen wir, dass es diesmal eine Änderung in die richtige Richtung gibt. Freue mich auf jeden Fall über die Entscheidung, denn so wäre es kein gutes Siedlerspiel gewesen. Ich hoffe nur, dass jetzt nicht wieder monatelange Funkstille einkehrt. Vielleicht sollte ihr die Community diesmal etwas mehr in die Weiterentwicklung mit einbeziehen. Auf jeden Fall gebe ich die Hoffnung nicht auf und freue mich schon aufs Siedeln.

PS: Bin auch jederzeit zu weiteren Beta-Tests bereit.

As I was browsing to find any interesting news about what happened that led to this weird closed beta, I happened to find this comment on youtube (translated with DeepL) :
"I was invited 3x to play tests, once in the fall of 2018, in the spring of 2020 and in the spring of 2021. 
What I was able to play in 2020 was really a settlers dream, basically all the strengths of the settlers games were combined and well meshed. It was similarly complex as an ANNO 1800, looked beautiful, had a cool partly direct, partly indirect military system and also the diplomacy, which was similarly deep as in a Civilization, worked well, actually also the heroic battles. In contrast, almost everything that had to do with water (except fishing) was a total failure, as was the AI. Also, the gameplay didn't quite work yet because of immature balancing and sometimes strange UI design decisions that caused a lot of unnecessary clicking and such. In short, you could tell it was still a work in progress, but one that was heading in exactly the right direction. 
What I was able to play last year was, well, something in between the one from 2020 and what you can see in the video above, but it was more in the direction of today. For example, the fertilities had already been deleted, the hexes really came into play (before it was more of a mixture of hexes and zones of influence/building borders), there was much more focus on military, much was already "streamlined", etc. My review, like that of all the other 19 testers on site, was suitably negative and scathing, all who had played the previous version wanted it back and none really felt this was a settler. 
By the way, during the lunch break I was able to speak briefly with Volker Wertig. In summary he told me that it would only be consultants, the new game designer doesn't like building strategy and has never played a Settlers, the management wants to have a competitor product to Age of Empires 4 and market analyses would have shown that the previous version would have been too difficult & complex for the target group of building strategy gamers (yeah no it's clear - looking at ANNO 1800, Factorio, Civilization, ...) and he was deeply sad. I think he already knew what they want to do with his baby and have done now."

The link to the video with the original comment below :

If I understand correctly, the game designer didn't like "building strategy" and "never played settlers" while the management was indeed targetting an Age of Empires 4 competitor.
It seems like they already had an almost working build in 2020 !!
Let's cross fingers that they will call Volker Wertig back, and rebuild everything on the original game !

Also, for everyone's record, I checked Ubi Dusseldorf website. They are hiring a lot of people working for the snowdrop engine, as well as a "Studio Production Director". Fingers crossed !

@vaathor So basically the one at fault for this mess is a new game designer taking charge of the project, and this person has no idea what the hell they're doing. He's basically ruined a dream game for us The Settlers fans and caused perhaps years of additional development time. Fire this incompetent person, please.

@cestral unfortunately i think that the game will still be the same as the 2022 closed beta but slightly better, (the quality that Ubisoft says they will focus on).
I think that the Settlers franchise is dead. They killed it ... I'm very sad ...

To add to what i said earlier, have this very new german video that shows what was the Alpha of 2020.
Even if you don't understand what is being said by the voice over, the images are... quite clear about what we could have got :