I was excited to play The Settlers: New Allies. Not so much because it's the first Settlers game in thirteen years, but because the last game by developer Ubisoft Blue Byte was Anno 1800, the best city-builder this side of Cities: Skylines. With an evocative depiction of its simulated industrial revolution, including some delightfully chewy production-line wrangling, Anno 1800 was a treat, and I was keen to see what the Dusseldorf-based studio would cook up next.
The answer, unfortunately, is a big bowl of strategy gruel. I'm not sure what has gone wrong in the last five years, but Blue Byte clearly left whatever magic Anno 1800 had in the nineteenth century. The Settlers: New Allies is a dismal strategy affair, confused, anaemic, and achingly dull.