What the Creator of The Settlers Did Next After Leaving Ubisoft’s Disastrous Reboot
Some describe Volker Wertich as the German Sid Meier, or, if they’re feeling particularly bold, the German Hideo Kojima. He is the creator of The Settlers, a 30-year-old city builder video game many fondly remember playing on the Amiga back in 1993. And so when Ubisoft announced a reboot of The Settlers with Wertich signed on to lead development using the same graphics engine that powered the likes of The Division, fans could barely contain their excitement. Finally, The Settlers would return with a game worthy of its forebears.
In 2020, just two years after The Settlers was announced at gamescom 2018 to so much enthusiasm, Wertich quietly left the project. And after a string of delays and development issues, The Settlers reboot launched in February 2023, although you’d be forgiven for missing the memo. The Settlers: New Allies, as Ubisoft called it, was panned by those who had hoped for a return to the series’ roots. What they got instead was something no veteran The Settlers fan, or seemingly Volker Wertich himself, wanted.
The Settlers: New Allies is one of the most expensive games ever made in Germany, with an estimated development budget of up to €40 million ($42.5 million). But sales, inevitably, were poor and now, half a year after launch, it looks like Ubisoft would rather forget the game ever happened. The Settlers: New Allies is, by all accounts, a disaster.
What happened? IGN can reveal the true story behind The Settlers: New Allies’ development, including an exclusive interview with Volker Wertich who discusses his career, his dispute with Ubisoft publicly for the first time, as well as details of his next project that, perhaps unsurprisingly, looks like The Settlers.
The original The Settlers began life as a
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