Nothing changed except the names :) A few years ago, we changed our studio names to Ubisoft Düsseldorf (previously Ubisoft Blue Byte, creators of Settlers) and Ubisoft Mainz (previously Blue Byte Studio Mainz/ Related Designs, developers of the recent Anno games).
Hope that helps :)
Bluebyte doesn't exist anymore. Ubisoft only uses city names now. What is now called Ubisoft Mainz used to be the part of bluebyte doing anno (related Design). Not sure if Düsseldorf always worked on settlers though.
Ubisoft Düsseldorf ist the original BlueByte studios, they have worked on all previous The Settlers titles.
While we, Ubisoft Mainz, have worked on all Anno titles since Anno 1701
Are you allowed to share why The Settlers was pushed back and silent for a year?
That's something you will need to ask the The Settlers team :)
We at Ubisoft Mainz are not working (and have never worked) on the title, so I can't tell you details on the game's development history.
Yes, but this way next time Ubisoft decides they need to do some mass layoffs at different studios, it sounds more generic and confusing to the gaming public/reporters.
Good thing then that Ubisoft, unlike some of its AAA peers, does not have a reputation for doing mass layoffs. Knock on wood it stays that way!
But why? With the name „Blue Byte“ I associate awesome games with hours of fun, well designed and developed. With „Ubisoft“, I associate needing a separate launcher for my games, having an update process that asks for admin privileges 3 times in a row and seeing a lot of advertisements in the launcher both after the start and sometimes as a popup after the game, despite already being a paying customer.
I can appreciate that this line of thinking holds for Anno or Settlers fans, or (primarily German) PC gamers of a certain vintage. However, you will find that outside these groups, the name Blue Byte is not widely known, be it geographically or on platforms like consoles (which makes sense of course, seeing how most of the games were PC-only).
Ubisoft on the other hand is a brand that is globally recognized, which for example makes international recruiting much easier. “Would you like to work for company you probably never heard of” versus “would you like to work for one of the biggest and most recognizable publishers in gaming” is pitch that will get a very different first reaction, and as our ambitions demand that we hire more and more talent from outside Germany, that is an important distinction.
Finally, the image of the German PC-only strategy studios does not really reflect the reality of what we do anymore. Yes, for many people we are still best known as the people making Anno and Settlers, but our studios in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Mainz also work on some of the biggest AAA multi-platform blockbusters on the market, such as Far Cry 6, Beyond Good and Evil 2 or Rainbow Six.
As such I think that the Ubisoft moniker is better suited to reflect our ambitions and projects as studios.
Thank you! Amazing devs for answering this question!
You are quite welcome :)
Maybe it's just me but as a developer i would much more happy to work for the Blue Byte then to a Ubisoft named company. There are a lot bad news about the Ubisoft nowadays, and I not sure I would like to being associated with them. I know Blue Btye are quite different then the main Ubisoft, but it's just me many people just only see the Ubisoft logo. By the way as far as i know Beyond good and evil 2 got cancelled or at least in development hell.
Blue Byte has been a wholy owned subsidiary of Ubisoft for 20 years now, whereas it was an independent company for only 13 years (and even then, several of the games were already published by Ubisoft). In other words- Blue Byte has been owned by Ubisoft since before the first Xbox was or the second Anno game was released...
Call me unsentimental, but I do not see the point in trying to artifically create a separation between companies that have been one for two whole decades.
As for BGE 2 being cancelled, I guess I will just have to take your or Tom Henderson's word for it, over the people I saw working on the game in the office yesterday :)
So does this mean the settlers hasn't been canceled? I was looking forward to it.
No, it has not been cancelled. You can sign up for a chance to test it today, and the team will reveal more news in January.
I think it looks pretty cool ;)
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