Champions of Anteria™

Champions of Anteria is a 2016 action role-playing game for Windows. Developed by Blue Byte and published by Ubisoft, it was released in August 2016. In October, Blue Byte released two DLC packs; The Alchemist and The Beastmaster, featuring new characters and buildings. The game tells the story of Anteria, a once-prosperous kingdom that has fallen into disarray and factionalism. Beset by enemies on all sides, each attempting to gain control of the kingdom, the people of Anteria turn to a group of champions - native Anterians who have recently returned after many years away. The champions agree to help but soon find themselves in conflict with Kalen Daark, a powerful black mage with his own evil agenda. Originally intended for a 2014 release as the eighth entry in The Settlers series, the game was announced as The Settlers: Kingdoms of Anteria. Championed by Blue Byte and Ubisoft as the most innovative title in the series to date, it was set to feature a mixture of city-building, economic micromangement, real-time strategy, and action-role playing. However, after the closed beta produced predominately negative feedback, especially in terms of how the game didn't "feel" like a Settlers title, Ubisoft scrapped the project. Nothing more was heard of it until 2016 when it re-emerged as a new property entirely, unrelated to the Settlers series and with a new title. Keeping most of the art assets and maintaining the tone and broad storyline of Kingdoms, Blue Byte had completely reworked the gameplay by removing most of the city-building and economic elements and focusing instead on the action role-playing combat missions. Champions of Anteria received mixed reviews. The graphics, voice acting, and humour were generally praised, and some critics found the integration of city-building and action role-playing well handled. Others, however, criticised the game as being neither one thing nor the other, with both the city-building and the combat lacking sufficient depth. Many critics were also unimpressed with the AI, especially in relation to pathfinding, and there was a general consensus that the combat missions were unacceptably repetitive.