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Reading one of my many RSS feeds today alerted me to Blue Byte’s impending Settlers: Rise of an Empire (S:RoaE) game, which initially interested me on a couple levels. I say “initially” because I mistakenly thought that this was a game using the Settlers of Catan license, which would have been awesome, if for no other reason than that Settlers of Catan is an awesome board game that few competitors can stand with. Apparently, S:RoaE is the fifth Setters game (one being an updated version of a previous game), and though not related to Catan aside from sharing the name “Settlers” and being made by Germans, S:RoaE is still fond to me because the first Settlers game developed by Blue Byte turns out to have been one of my favorite games of yesteryear, in that it was a breakthrough in real-time strategy (RTS) titles of the era. This wasn’t immediately obvious to be because in the United States, Settlers was sold under the title Serf City, and had a more comical cartoony feel than other RTS titles.

In any case, despite the fact that S:RoaE is already getting an underwhelming response, the Settlers franchise is not meant to replicate the traditional total-war feel of its RTS competition. And, with a less menu-driven interface, I come back to the other thing than intrigued me when I read about S:RoaE. Fond as I was of Lionhead’s Black & White interface, and the tons of potential to be had from the Nintendo Wii’s controller, non-traditional interfaces are perfect for a game such as S:RoaE, in that (from what I understand about the title thus far), much of the customization to the city is a reaction to what one observes a city’s inhabitants doing, rather than reacting purely to numbers. Whether it’s managing a city’s economic status, or punishing its inhabitants, gesture-driven controls have room for growth, and even if a game like S:RoaE does poorly on U.S. soil, here’s hoping Blue Byte maximizes the game’s potential. Serf City wasn’t a big hit either, but it certainly brought tons to the table.

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