The Settlers: New Allies has a good core loop that, unfortunately, lacks a solid connection with the series' history. There’s too much military action and not enough focus on delivering products to citizens. The land-claiming concept is interesting but under-used. Ubisoft could have used the same gameplay and another name and players might be more interested. But the game does not do enough to differentiate itself from better experiences in the genre. The Settlers: New Allies wants to tweak a classic formula but never finds the best way to do that.
A game that cannot satisfy City Builders lovers, nor RTS seekers. However it could please the youngest and those who would like to try the genre with something extremely light and undemanding.
The game itself is ok. Varied units. Buildings. Graphics at a good level. As for playability, I have no complaints. No errors so far, although sometimes military units don't know what to do. Overall, I recommend it, and as for the settlers themselves, you can see the connections between the 3rd and 4th part of the game.
The Settlers: New Allies feels confused by its own identity. Is it a live service game? Is it a homage to the great RTS games of the past? Is it The Settlers, or a lesser Age of Empires? The answers seem to dance away the longer you play, and the further your settlements grow. While it houses a gorgeous world that actively encourages you to keep exploring, placing roads, and looking after your flock, a lack of depth and identity makes New Allies feel like a muddled experiment.
The Settlers: New Allies isn't quite the return to Settlers that fans of the franchise would want. Shallow across all areas, with basic city-building and very basic strategy elements, held together by an average narrative. It's not a bad game, but it's also not good.
New Allies is pleasing to look at and offers a relaxed experience for newcomers, as long as you keep your expectations in check. But if you are looking for a deep city builder or a long-lasting multiplayer strategy game, by all means, look elsewhere.
The Settlers: New Allies is the latest entry in a beloved and longstanding franchise, and carries an inherent advantage of starting with a greatly successful formula. However, there simply aren’t any exciting updates or formula explorations here. The buggy quality of the code at time of review and utterly flat narrative are salt in the wound, resulting in a game that does not boast a single positive reason to warrant a purchase.
A game with nice graphics. Pleasant and simple industries. A big plus is the variety of units and the return to the older parts of 2/3/4. New features like research or trading add a breath of fresh air. The biggest downside of the game is unfortunately the problem with the playability. The game does not allow you to finish the game because it pops up with an error of synchronization or closes the game
The Slog: New Boredom
Combat: The Settlers is an overly easy RTS. This game literally requires zero thought in combat. It is pretty simple. Do you have more units than the enemy? Then you win. Amassing an army that can conquer the map is effortless.
Gathering: Get used to the same buildings and roads over, and over, and over...Nothing upgrades, nothing can be made more powerful aside from assigning an extra resource to it. Everything is cheap to make, nothing takes effort.
The Story: Is a joke. Who is writing these games for Ubisoft? Fire them. "Hey there, just us oppressed Settlers,, the good guys cause we said so. Now lets go to a new island, amass an army, and slaughter every living person on it. Poor us." Just laughable.
Overall: It's another identity-less, watered down, Ubisoft product. Bad design. Contrivances that take the place of difficulty spikes. Boring attempt at and underdog story. Just bad at every level, especially a few hours in when you realize, this is it. This is all you are getting for the rest of the game.
No Thanks.
SummaryThe Settlers combines a fresh take on the popular gameplay mechanics of the series with a new spin. It offers a deep infrastructure and economy gameplay, used to create and employ armies, to ultimately defeat opponents. 3 playable, distinctive factions – the Elari, the Maru and the Jorn – can be found in The Settlers. Each with a unique ...