The Settlers: Rise of an Empire review

We hold a festival to celebrate our rise to Baroness

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Perfect difficulty curve

  • +

    More calming than it is annoying

  • +

    Classic gameplay

  • +

    brought up to date

Cons

  • -

    Brings nothing new to table

  • -

    Could use a fast-forward button

  • -

    Occasionally have nothing to do

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Sept 28, 2007

We’ve all built a few towns in our lives. Some of us build towns in order to test our resource management skills. Other people build towns called Bumland and drop Godzilla-esque monsters on the Fire Department. We’re one of the latter folk, but the sixth Settlers game coaxed us effortlessly into the first camp.

You’ll know the score, because it’s an old one; deal with two primary resources (wood and stone, for buildings) then place the right buildings in the right places and watch as an automated economy appears. Meanwhile, you send your knight (and soldiers) around like a boiled-down RTS, doing errands for friendly - but cheeky - neighbours and fighting off a few Vikings.

More info

GenreStrategy
DescriptionIt's back to the medieval era in a sim-strategy that finds players dealing with the daily lives of settlers, gathering resources, dabbling with economics and building an empire.
Platform"PC"
US censor rating"Everyone 10+"
UK censor rating"12+"
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
Less