Despite the Settlers series not having a good entry in about a decade now, I still hold out hope that maybe, just maybe the next one will recapture the same charm I've experienced so many years ago.

Unfortunately, that is not going to be Settlers: Kingdoms of Anteria as it has been canceled and reshaped in to a brand new single player 'RTS' - Champions of Anteria. Here's the trailer:

You will be able to chose three heroes from a pool of five, each one representing a certain element (as well as cliche), and send them on various missions in order to secure territories and resources with which you can either upgrade your home-base, or waste it all trying to buy the fanciest sword in all the lands.

The combat will be done in standard RTS fashion with controls that should instantly be recognizable to any fans of the genre, but the puzzling thing here is that you are capable of pausing in the middle of battle to plan out your actions... the exact opposite of what the whole real time strategy acronym stands for. Its not a big deal by any stretch, but its well worth mentioning that we're not talking about your 'standard' RTS here.

If you were hoping that there would be an extensive base-management and building element present in Champions of Anteria, it being an unofficial Settlers game after all,  I have some bad news because the only building you will be doing is adding a couple of new shops and upgrades to your main base. There's no micromanagement of entire economies in this one I'm afraid.

You can read all of the nitty-gritty details about Champions of Anteria over at the Ubisoft Blog, but to me all of this sounds like a more action-packed take on Warcraft 3 and its hero system, a feature that I've come to appreciate greatly over the years. Whether Anteria will be even remotely as good as Warcraft 3 I'm afraid I don't know the answer, but with its release date set for August 30 (with a $30 price tag) we shouldn't have to wait for very long in order to see.

To end all of this on a positive note, Blue Byte has stated that the Settlers series is by no means dead, so here's to hoping we get a new entry in the next couple of years, and that it ends up being actually good.