In the Style of…

GAMES INSPIRED BY THE SETTLERS

ANNO 1602

Developed by the Max Design in 1998, Anno 1602 shares DNA with the Settlers games, tasking players with colonising islands and slowly building up their economies. Anno 1602 spawned many sequels, most recently Anno 1800 in 2019, with Blue Byte taking over development of the later games.

CULTURES: DISCOVERY OF VINLAND

Funatics, the company cofounded by Settlers II director Thomas Häuser, released Cultures in 2000, and visually it’s easy to spot the similarities with the Settlers series. The plot centres on a group of Vikings who are in search of the shards of a meteor with magical properties. The game was a big hit in Germany, spawning three sequels.

BANISHED

This 2014 city-builder from Shining Rock Software is like a more complicated version of the economic management system featured in The Settlers, but with combat removed. The player must build up a settlement by directing the citizens to farm, fish, chop wood and so on, while carefully optimising the economy.

NORTHGARD

In many ways a fantasy version of The Settlers, Northgard sees a clan of Vikings fighting against the likes of wyverns, kobolds, wolves and other clans, but perhaps the biggest threat is winter. Shiro Games released the game on PC in 2019, and it was recently ported to PS4, Xbox One and Switch.

CHAMPIONS OF ANTERIA

This hybrid Rts/action RPG game from 2016 was originally meant to be called The Settlers: Kingdoms Of Anteria, but Blue Byte decided to drop the Settlers naming and release it as a standalone game. Although it started off as a Settlers title, the resultant fantasy action game is far removed from the series’ origins.