Remember when I shouted to the roof tops that The Settlers II was coming to the Commodore Amiga AGA as of October 18th 2025. Well this game which is officially licensed by Ubisoft Entertainment and faithfully and insightfully ported by Look Behind You, has since got a new trailer! A tribute to one of the most iconic strategy games of all time — reborn on the platform where it always belonged.
Here's the latest. "Return to the golden age of strategy gaming - now on Amiga! The beloved classic The Settlers II Gold Edition is back, fully adapted for original Amiga hardware. Experience the charming world-building, resource management and exploration that defined an era — now recreated for the Amiga community. Fully licensed by Ubisoft Blue Byte and developed for the Amiga by Look Behind You".
- 🌍 Build. Trade. Expand.
- ⚒️ Includes all original missions from The Settlers II and the Mission CD
- 🖥️ Optimised for classic Amiga systems (with 68040 CPU or faster, AGA or RTG)
- 🗣️ In-game languages: English, German, French, Polish
- 📦 Available on October 18th, 2025, as a boxed edition or digital edition.
English version: www.lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
Deutsche Version: www.lookbehindyou.de/produkt/diesiedler2amiga/
It's very nice, but I think you're making a mistake on the Amiga scene, releasing games time and again only for AGA, which would also work perfectly on the classic Amiga, which is the Amiga 500 OCS/ECS, the games should be able to play on the flagship machine. This doesn't happen on other platforms.
ReplyDeleteA500 is not capable... Even low spec A1200 is not capable... A500 don't have 256 color mode and 2 MB Chip Ram... BUT you can run this game in A500 with PiStorm.
Deleteehm, HW is capable .. coder is not .. a verily big game like Sim city runs without problems on extremely primitive Speccy with 48KB RAM.
DeleteI do not think A500 is capable... Settlers 1 was super slow and it was much much simpler game. It is just not possible on normal A500.
DeleteSettlers 2 does not require AGA. AGA basically is just sort of the "fallback" if you do not have a graphics board or PiStorm or Vampire. Settlers 2 runs perfectly fine on an A500 with PiStorm (or Vampire). The flagship machines currently are probably PiStorm machines. And note we do not CHOOSE a specific system to run it - if a hardware is too slow to run a specific game it is too slow. No amount of Optimization would let a 020 run Settlers 2 for example (I worked several months on optimizations of Settlers 2). The only other option would have been "forget about porting Settlers 2 to the Amiga". And that we wouldn't do. You can update your A500 easily - a 100 EUR PiStorm will make it powerful enough to run Settlers 2 in 1024x768 at 35 fps. And if 100 EUR is too much for you I doubt you would by the game for 50 EUR.
DeleteMe personally I'd love a copy, just can't afford it now! Oh well my Settlers 2 Gold Edition will have to do! Good luck with the sales :D
DeleteFair enough. And thanks!
DeleteIMHO opinion, the mistake is actually not aiming new releases to require RTG graphic cards instead of AGA...
DeleteThat's what make the Intel PCs dominate the market in the early 90s, developers pushing the envelope on hardware requirements while other platforms like Amiga AGA neve had a chance because for Amigas they always had to make games for the lowest possible denominator, AKA, OCS Amiga with only 512kbytes of RAM, half decade old machines...
Nowadays, when the almost entire community can EASILY have access to all of this perks, even if the majority of us only through emulation OR Amiga alternatives like the mini or the upcoming A1200 (or the newest Apollo A6000 or fancy accelerators like the V4+)
It's simply absurd to blame a developer for aiming the 30 years old AGA machines...
Actually the first version of Settlers 2 was developed in a way that it only ran on RTG graphics cards. Later then a special version was added which runs on AGA. These are two separate executables, during installation you choose which one to install. Generally I agree with you - and there might be future titles where AGA is not an option anymore (actually I currently think of licence-negotiating for a title which requires 800x600 in 16 Bit Colors as minimum - CPU requirements should be fine for a 060+GFX Board and upwards though). But for titles where it is still possible of course I also offer AGA Support or whatever. I expect though this become rarer and rarer in the future (all depending on the specific title). But I do not aim what the minimum specs are. What they are is seen during implementation.
DeleteI can't wait to get my hands on this one.
ReplyDeleteLooks great.
And it will not run on a stock a500. That is like asking to make a version of GTA 5 on the Atari 2600 because Pitfall 2 had an extra chip in the cartridge or something.
@magicsn. Would it not be possible to create a lower colour/resolution version for the a500. If they could create all those ports back in the day to each systems limits?
ReplyDeleteNo this is not possible. We offered a lower resolution so that it runs on a 40 MHz 68040 with AGA. On 040 it runs 320x240 or 320x256 to be playable. And for some dialogs I "just" fit the GUI Elements on that screen, I cannot lower the res any further and make everything still displayable. Back in the day this were games with lower system requirements. Settlers 2 has higher requirements. I write software, I don't do business in the domain of wonders of heaven. You ask for a wonder of heaven. I also do not see the problem, you can get a PiStorm for 100 EUR, and then it runs at 1024x768 in 35 fps on your A500. Lower color is something which MIGHT get it running on a 68030 with 18 MB RAM. But (and this is a big "but"!) the way it would look in 64 Color EHB Mode would never get agreement from UbiSoft so I cannot do this (and at most it would be "barely playable" on 030 even with this). Another option would be 2x2 c2p like AB3D did. But this of course would never get agreement from UbiSoft (and actually look horrible). Well, who wants to experiment with this, the graphics display library doing the display is OpenSource and theoretically someone could change the 320x240 1x1 256 color c2p to a 320x240 2x2 64 color c2p or whatever. Still this won't make it run on a neglected (not improved) A500. It also would modify the memory requirements only slightly (maybe 100k less). And the performance requirements of the game AI will still be the same (this "killed" the 030 runnability, basically).
DeleteAnother note - with this 100 EUR PiStorm3 you can also run my games Heretic2, Quake 2 and Gorky17 asides from Settlers2. You can possibly in the future (assuming I finally get the 68k version running, the dialog system still causes problems) Baldur's Gate. And hopefully the next game I will be working on (which will require 800x600 16 Bit Colors). You also can run Workbench in 1920x1080 with it. If someone still thinks 100 EUR are too much for this, I doubt they will buy any of my games, so independent of that it is just not possible (a "Wonder of God" is what it would take!) I doubt they would buy my games. If 100 EUR are already too much.
DeleteBTW: Here is actual gameplay footage of the Amiga Version, not just a quick trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_WLwpWvmBg
DeleteOn PCs, the MINIMUN required hardware was a 486DX266 with 8 Mbytes of RAM...
DeleteReally looking forward to this. I’m hoping to pick up a copy at Amiga40. Really chuffed this is getting a release.
ReplyDeleteYes, you can pick up a copy at Amiga40. It will be for sale there. I will also be there BTW.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for this.
DeleteThe requirements are high, but this is as you say a demanding game. Better demanding games than no games😊 thanks for the effort.
ReplyDeleteThe price is a bit steep but have bought it and hope there will be good sales for it.
Are there any differences/improvements compared to pc-version?
Fair enough (though the requirements - probably depends from where you are coming, I would have to go back to the mid 1990s to a time where I would not have the power in my Amiga to run this). Difference is mainly that it is based on the MacOS-Version and includes all the bugfixes which were done in the MacOS version (stuff like that you are able to finish the last level without cheats then, or stuff that too many deer jumping around no longer make the game crash). A few additional (minor) bugs I found during porting were also fixed. Also there is of course the major one that a 320x240/320x256 mode is included (I reimplemented a major part of the GUI for this). You actually can even - using ENV Variables - modify the res to non-standard values, like running the game in 640x256 (nearly same speed like 320x256, but looks - a bit squeezed). The Intro Video has been improved using AI (the effect is not as big as in my Heretic 2 port, but still visible). With env variables you can switch the movie player to a different player. The game can run in a Workbench Window (not sure by heart if the PC version also had a window mode).
DeleteHere it's possible to translate the game in multiple languages using an online editor: https://settlers2.net/archives/language-packs/
ReplyDeleteWhat if I wanted to translate it into Italian? Will it work with this AMIGA version?
The Amiga Version uses the same datafiles, so I do not see why it wouldn't work. Just use the English version as a basis (when you buy the game you get english, german, french and polish version included on one DVD), not the german version (German version is "special", all other languages use the english version. The tools just would need to be able to handle datafiles for Settlers 2 Gold Edition.
Delete