HIGH The visual style

LOW The crashes, bugs and glitches

WTF The infinitude of rare resources

The Settlers is a series at its best when the player is empowered to bring a miniature
civilization to fruition from beginnings of poverty and scarcity. However, The Settlers: New
Allies does the complete opposite by facilitating as many resources as possible, and the socio-cultural dynamics of civilization are cast aside for a focus on military-industrial production and warfare. Adding insult to injury, at the time of review it was buggy and prone to crashing.

New Allies, like its predecessors, is a real-time strategy city-builder with a top-down
view focusing on a combination of resource management, warfare and city planning. The
campaign mode has players controlling a refugee group fleeing civil war in their native
kingdom. With each new scenario, the people progress toward their objective of finding a
peaceful new home away from strife.

This basic premise is embellished with pretty visuals and a functioning resource
management system. Civilians (up to a maximum of 500 in every campaign scenario) either
function as soldiers, engineers, laborers (such as foresters, fishers, bakers and miners) or —
if no task is assigned — as carriers. Carriers bring resources (wood, wheat, stone etc.) to a
settlement’s most nearby warehouse. The limited amount of civilians available make
balancing their jobs a significant component of successful management.

This core gameplay loop is New Allies’ strength, as it was with its predecessors.
Unfortunately, this basic joy is soon tarnished.

First, being a Ubisoft game, New Allies requires an additional step to get launched via
Ubisoft’s own storefront, Ubisoft Connect, thus extending the procedure to boot the game.
Once launched, I frequently encountered crashes, failure to load maps, and bugs where the
UI wouldn’t load, forcing me to restart. These issues were as prevalent as they were severe,
and I had to restart the game at least 50% of the time I tried to play.

I also experienced various in-game glitches, including a particularly annoying bug involving a
malfunctioning autosave system, corrupting both the autosave and manual save. The result
was a forced restart without recently saved progress, making me replay large portions –
sometimes hours‘ worth. This technical inadequacy is simply unacceptable, especially from a
huge publisher like Ubisoft.

I’ve already mentioned that the basic elements are solidly crafted, and managing laborers,
engineers, soldiers and carriers in a balanced manner presents the player with a decent
challenge. Still, this is the only successful system in place, as all external challenges such as
resource scarcity and invaders are easily negotiated, and there’s little internal pressure to
keep the player on their toes.

Resources are plentiful — farms don’t require fertile soil, self-regrowing trees make lumber an
infinite resource, and mines (gold, gem, stone, iron or coal) also provide inexhaustible
supplies. If some resources cannot be claimed in a particular scenario, it’s easy as pie to set
up a harbor, sell whatever surplus exists and acquire material that cannot be harvested.

While stone and lumber are essential for residential and defensive buildings, all other mined
materials have a final purpose of army construction. This, then, is what nearly every scenario
steers the player toward. Despite their peaceful intentions, the settlers must inevitably claim
a structure, destroy a ‘barbarian’ outpost, or defeat an encampment. Bafflingly, New
Allies doesn’t offer any peaceful alternatives, nor any more creative solutions to conflict.

A potential saving grace lies in the story’s emphasis on making friends with several
indigenous groups throughout the campaign. However, these story elements are left under-
explored, with the people taking the shape of stereotypical tropes such as a Viking and
spiritual clan. The player’s people easily take center stage, thus colonizing both the lands
and the narrative. The ‘enemies’ of the campaign are referred to as ‘barbarians,’ a likewise
stereotypical name that is not given proper nuance, regardless of an awkward and forced
twist at the end.

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.

Rating: 1 out of 10.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ubisoft Düsseldorf and published by Ubisoft. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 34 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game’s campaign was completed. 0 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence. The ESRB’s description states: “This is a real-time strategy game in which players help a group of refugees establish a new settlement. From a top-down perspective, players construct buildings, gather resources, engage in trade, and battle rivals and enemy raiders. Players can deploy military units (e.g., soldiers, mages) to protect their settlement, with combat depicted as large-scale skirmishes (e.g., sword battle, shooting arrows, spell casting). Battles are highlighted by sword slashing, bright visual effects, and cries of pain; defeated units collapse to the ground and disappear.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and resized. Some in-game clues (such as “[army] recruitment complete”) are only available via audio, but the most essential information is covered by written dialogue and instruction.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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HIGH Consistent, meaningful upgrades.

LOW The moment-to-moment gameplay isn’t very engaging.

WTF Going from wild boars to man-eating wyrms in the first ten minutes.

The explosion of the survival-sandbox genre in the past ten years has had a massive influence on the gaming industry. The baseline simplicity of these games and their consistent sense of ‘improvement’ make them highly approachable and addictive, which has led to the mass appeal and subsequent market overflow we see today.

Aground may seem like just another 2D entry in an already-overcrowded genre, but it stands out thanks to how well it satisfies the underlying principles that make these titles (such as Minecraft and Terraria) so successful, while still offering a structure that makes it stand apart.

The campaign begins by allowing the player to customize their character, offering a surprising variety of hairstyles given so few pixels. Gamers then begin on a small island, having apparently survived a crash-landing at sea, with nothing to their name. The story unfolds as players explore the island and meet other survivors, slowly learning the state of the world through dialogue with these characters while getting their help in growing and advancing the settlement.

Not only does the player learn story through these characters, but also gameplay. For example, they’ll encounter a miner who will teach them how to dig and give tools and tips to do so. Almost every system in Aground is introduced through NPCs the player come across as they establish and build their settlement.

Options gradually expand as the island is explored, although the actual gameplay stays quite simple. Generally, it involves either holding a direction (with a d-pad or thumbstick) or pressing the confirm button (‘A’ on the Switch). Buildings that produce resources for the player, such as farms, require no input besides collecting the products, which an associated NPC will also do automatically, albeit slowly. This helps make the game easy to get into, but may leave some people wanting a more active experience.

Upgrades and improvements are offered consistently. These are generally accessed via completing simple quests for NPCs, such as smelting enough gold to use in establishing relations with traders, or capturing wild boars to then raise as pigs on a farm. This also lets players control the pace of the game to a degree, as they can build up resources and hold off on turning in a quest if they feel the need to grind more.

Speaking of grind, in a sense ‘grind’ is the basis of gameplay for not only Aground but also the genre as a whole — grind resources to hit the next objective, rinse and repeat. However, in Aground players may be more acutely aware of this as the progression is largely linear, although players can explore at their own pace and the world is semi-randomized. This is not a detriment per se — in fact, it seems clear that the game is built with this as the goal in mind, and thus those who enjoy the grind will find themselves at home.

— Mitch Zehe

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Fancy Fish Games and Whitehorn Digital. It is currently available on XBO, PS4, Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence and Mild Blood. There is combat with different creatures and other non-humans, and some pixelated blood is shown.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. There are no audio cues necessary for play, this game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but movement is on the left stick or d-pad. Right stick and ‘A’ are used to select objects or confirm options.

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